[Free Article] Vintage Avant-Garde – Avacyn Restored For Vintage

[Meddling Mike]

Brian Demars' Vintage Set Review for AVR is up on SCG.

Some interesting points that I had not quite considered like Ulvenwald Tracker.

I don't think I'm quite as excited about Griselbrand as Brian is. I agree that it will probably see play as the new Oath/Dread Return target of choice. It doesn't really protect itself, but a huge body and the ability to draw a bunch of cards regardless of whatever else happens is better. I guess my lack of excitement is that the improvement made still strikes me as somewhat marginal over other options you can oath up/Dread Return. Losing when you pull off a Dread Return/Activate Oath is kind of a rarity and I am sure that Griselbrand can make that even less likely, but I'm not convinced that it's going to be a huge difference.

The comparison to Yawgmoth's Bargain is difficult for me to agree with. I get that he has advantages over Bargain, but in the decks that play Bargain the difference in mana cost is crucial and because getting Bargain into play usually results in a win that turn negates the advantages of getting a 7/7 Flying, Lifelink and not losing one's draw step.

[mikekilljoy]

I think the big thing is that for all the cards everyone on these boards were excited about, only so few will actually make a dent.

Cavern and Griselbrand are obvious, as should Mastery, but only the first two will probably make a dent.

[bax]

It is beyond me why an Oath deck would pack Giselbrand instead than Dragon Breath plus Emrakul/BSC and win right there.

[Prospero]

It is beyond me why an Oath deck would pack Giselbrand instead than Dragon Breath plus Emrakul/BSC and win right there.

Oath has a number of cards in the deck that are inherently bad topdecks.  Drawing Dragon's Breath is pretty miserable, as it's completely useless in your hand.  It seems like part of the trick in getting Oath to work was to minimize the number of 'bad' cards that you needed to run in order to make the deck function properly.

Griselbrand is attractive because he's giving you immediate value.  Terastodon, Hellkite Overlord and Iona all gave you some form of immediate value, but none were as devastating as potentially drawing 14 cards.  Seriously, he's unreal.

[MaximumCDawg]

This author really does have a hard on for Grislebrand.  I can't really blame him, though.  He's basically right: it's a better Yagmoth's Bargain.  Even better, it's a Vintage playable card that is probably marginal in other formats, and so it's not going to be 20 - 40 dollars a pop like Cavern and Mastery are.  Sweet for us.

What I don't like about Grisle is that he suffers from Auriok Salvagers Syndrome (ASS).  ASS occurs when you have an affordable card that is potentially incredibly powerful, but ONLY if you are running other, very expensive Vintage cards.  Salvagers, for example, is a critical cog in a combo deck and easy to acquire... but useless unless you also own a Black Lotus to fuel it.  Yawgmoth's Will suffers from a bit of ASS for want of exactly the same card.  Runescar Demon, similarly, has ASS for Time Walk.

Grislebrand as an Oath target, as opposed to, say, Emrakul + Dragon's Breath, also has ASS.  If you draw up 7 cards and you're playing a full grip of the P9, you're very likely to be able to deploy more resources and keep going.  If you do not, I could see situations where you draw 7, but cannot keep playing lands, and end up passing the turn simply having restocked your countermagic supply.  That's fine and dandy, but it's not the instant win that it could be if you were powered.

Maybe ASS doesn't matter for everyone.  Some people only have a little ASS to worry about.  Me, I've got big ASS problems, because I play in sanctioned Vintage and am only lightly powered.  So I'll get some Grislebrands, but I'll probably keep running Golden Gun for the forseeable future.

[DubDub]

...

Yep.  Power cards are good.  Generally speaking, they make every deck better and open up more flexibility in the rest of the deck.

/Not even going to ask you what your point is.

[Elric]

Oath has a number of cards in the deck that are inherently bad topdecks.  Drawing Dragon's Breath is pretty miserable, as it's completely useless in your hand.

Not completely useless, you can cast it on Blightsteel Colossus (likely after Oathing it).

[Prospero]

Oath has a number of cards in the deck that are inherently bad topdecks.  Drawing Dragon's Breath is pretty miserable, as it's completely useless in your hand.

Not completely useless, you can cast it on Blightsteel Colossus (likely after Oathing it).

Sure, but would you rather have that or a Preordain/Mental Misstep/other card 9/10 times?

[MaximumCDawg]

@dudub: My point is pretty clear.  There are venues where you can't proxy and you play what you own.  There are people who do not have full sets of power who play Vintage.  They matter, too.  Cards like Salvagers seem good for budget players because they're affordable and playable in the format, except that they're inexorably linked to more expensive cards.  I suggest that Grislebrand is in this category.  This is very relevant because Oath is one of the Vintage decks that can be functional (though perhaps not optimal) with less than full power.  If only for metagaming purposes, non-proxy environments will probably continue to see a lot of Golden Gun Oath because of people deciding that's the way they can make the deck work well within their budget.

It doesn't sound like you agree or disagree as much as you just don't care about the observation.

[forests failed you]

@dudub: My point is pretty clear.  There are venues where you can't proxy and you play what you own.  There are people who do not have full sets of power who play Vintage.  They matter, too.  Cards like Salvagers seem good for budget players because they're affordable and playable in the format, except that they're inexorably linked to more expensive cards.  I suggest that Grislebrand is in this category.  This is very relevant because Oath is one of the Vintage decks that can be functional (though perhaps not optimal) with less than full power.  If only for metagaming purposes, non-proxy environments will probably continue to see a lot of Golden Gun Oath because of people deciding that's the way they can make the deck work well within their budget.

It doesn't sound like you agree or disagree as much as you just don't care about the observation.

I think that the majority of people would agree with you that it really sucks that many of the staple cards in Eternal formats, in particular the Power cards in Vintage, are really expensive and tend to price a lot of people out of these formats; I have been a long time proponent of abolishing the reserve list, reprinting the good stuff, and making it available so that as many people as possible can enjoy formats like Vintage and Legacy -- rather than pricing out the majority of players who simply can't afford to pay thousands of dollars to buy old cards.

That being said: I'm skeptical that the reserve list will ever go away, and even if it did, it wouldn't be for a long, long while.  The cards are expensive, difficult to attain, and that is simply the way it is.

The problem with talking about budget decks, especially in Vintage, is that for the most part they simply are not very good.  Vintage is DEFINED by the overpowered cards on the restricted list, as many of these cards (Ancestral, Time Walk, Black Lotus, Time Vault, the Moxes, Workshop, Bazaar, etc -- all the cards that are $100+) because they are simply BETTER cards than basically everything else ever printed.  People who show up with no power beatdown decks, especially in no proxy tournaments and especially when the other players actually have the cards, are not going to win very much, and probably won't have a very satisfying experience losing to their opponent's $500 cards that are simply better than a Wild Nactyl etc.  I imagine that such an experience would very quickly make a player do one of two things, 1. quit, and play a different format where they are likely to be more successful and thus have a better experience, or 2. buy the cards so they can actually play.

This duality is why I don't think there is much point talking about budget decks that are simply suboptimal decks, because I don't feel that people play these types of decks for long because they are likely to get very poor results.  Now, there is something to be said for trying to build optimal decks that operate within the confines of 10-15 proxy, but that is a different story.  No proxy, with no power, no bazaars, etc. is really a failing endeavor.

The fact that this is my outlook on this matter is why I don't bother to write with the concept of the budget deck in general -- most players who are invested enough in Vintage to read my strategy articles are likely to have cards to actually play, or somehow acquire the cards they need to play what they would consider "optimal decks" rather than budget decks.  I approach writing about Vintage and thinking about Vintage the way that somebody preparing for a Pro Tour would, I'm going to assume that my opponents are going to have the ability to build what they consider the best deck at a big event and be ready to game.  At a high level constructed event I would never assume that my BW opponent wouldn't be playing Sorin because that card is 30 bucks and they didn't feel like dropping the cash, you know?  Same goes for Vintage.

That being said, I don't see much value in complaining about the price of Black Lotus, or how complaining about it contributes to a discussion of Avacyn Restored -- Its kind of a known thing these days that the Power Nine are expensive.

[DubDub]

Pretty much what Brian said is what I was leaving unsaid.  As a strategy writer (and leagues upon leagues more successful player) he's bringing in the aspect of budget decks etc, whereas mostly I advocate on a format level (not that Brian doesn't do this too), i.e. for the unrestriction of Fact or Fiction.

I would point out as well that an argument included in the article addressing Fact or Fiction's requested unrestriction made reference to the fact (pun unavoidable) that Fact was a budget option for those unable to afford Jace TMS's.

It is not inconsequential that Fact or Fiction represents a budget alternative to Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Certainly cheap cards shouldn’t be given a pass due to their low price alone, but proxy Vintage has become not only a budget alternative to non-proxy Vintage, but at this point a budget alternative to Legacy. Even non-proxy Vintage players who already own power and expensive Vintage staples will appreciate the opportunity to play against new Vintage players with competitive decks who proxy their Moxen and have substituted Fact or Fictions for Jaces.

Source: http://www.eternal-central.com/?p=1577

[MaximumCDawg]

Everything you're saying is true, but I don't agree that (1) all nonpowered decks are materially suboptimal or that (2) this means it's verboten to even discuss the cost aspect of new printings.  

There are some respectable Vintage decks, like Noble Fish, various flavors of beats, or Dark Times, that do not want a full set of power and are perfectly capable of competing with the big dogs in an appropriate metagame.  Some of these decks benefit from a little bit of power, like on-color moxen, but if the deck is only suboptimal because you're missing a singleton Mox Sapphire, that's likely to be material - likely to matter - in only a small percentage of games.  In Noble Fish, for example, not having Lotus means you will simply miss out on explosive "whoops I t1 Jace/Trygon" openings, but those did not happen every game anyway.  You're still able to compete.

I'll use yesterday's small sanctioned event at Black Gold as an example.  I was running Golden Gun Oath / Tezz mix, but when it comes to power I only own Emerald and Vault.  I have to make up the difference in artifact acceleration with basic lands and other artifact mana.  So, yes, the deck is suboptimal.  Because I'm not relying on Grislebrand or Runescar, however, this deficiency was material in very few matches, probably.  Despite the fact that I could afford those cards (and in fact own them) I CANNOT run an Oath deck using them.  (In a more general way, I don't know if it's really true that Demon Oath is strictly superior to GG, but that's a discussion for the Oath thread).  I won the tournament, by the way, tying with Snapcaster control and beating some sort of Tezz-ish build and Full English Breakfast.  My metagame is atypical, I acknowledge this, and I'll get to that in a minute.

To your other point, I think you're making a mistake in not thinking about budget decks in Vintage for two reasons.  First, consideration of budget alternatives can lead to the development of new and powerful archetypes.  Look at all of the brewing that has blossomed out of Menedian's original GW Beatz article from SCG, and his more recent article on creatures in Vintage at Eternal Central.  The Null Rod-tier subforum is considering all kind of interesting decks, and they can win tournaments.  Looking at morphling, there are certainly regular appearances of these kind of decks in top 8s.  Heck, a white weenie even took one down.  http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=1578.

Second, and maybe I'm alone here, but I feel like a Vintage tourney where every deck is Shop, Dredge, Oath, or Blue is fun, but missing something that makes Vintage special.   We have access to 10k+ cards, but only play a few hundred?  I love my meta because at least one or two people usually show up with something totally crazy, that can potentially do  really well because people have no idea what's going on.  The kind of deck that makes you smile when you figure it out.  Like the Full English Breakfast deck that showed up yesterday.  There was a discard-rack based mono black deck too, but I never played it.  Before that, I've seen people bring Domain Zoo, Mono-G Stompy, Elf combo, Mono-U Back to Basics control, Animar, Soul of Elements aggro, a Primal Forcemage-based rush deck, Izzet Guildmage combo, and all sorts of zany stuff.  There's plenty of proper decks and powered players, too.  This isn't exactly casual; the decks typically are very well constructed and optimal or close to optimal for what they are.  It's variety, it's exciting, and it showcases the player's sense of humor and inventiveness more than sheer competitive drive.

The Spikes of the world may only be concerned with winning tournaments as often as possible, and that's what most articles on Vintage seem to be concerned with.  But specifically because of the cost barrier, that shuts out lots of people from the discussion.  If more people understood that there are MANY cheaper alternatives that may not win the tournament, but will place just fine and be fun to play, the format would be better off.  That's what more articles on budget type decks can do for the community.

[forests failed you]

Everything you're saying is true, but I don't agree that (1) all nonpowered decks are materially suboptimal or that (2) this means it's verboten to even discuss the cost aspect of new printings.  

If you are building a deck constrained by card availability, as opposed to building exactly what you think would be the best without restriction, isn't it by definition suboptimal?

[AmbivalentDuck]

This is a strange discussion to be having.  Anyone can play online Vintage for free, even online tourney Vintage.  Who cares what old cardboard costs?  People have argued in the past for barriers to entering/leaving the cardboard format, but you can play exactly the same game with Sharpied playing cards.  If you feel there's value to face-to-face tourneys, allow 75 proxy.  Otherwise, play online.

The outcome is the same, however.  There are NO barriers to anyone playing any card in Vintage other than infatuation with cardboard whose value is protected only by copyright.  Do I have binders upon binders full of said cardboard including playsets every Vintage staple under $150?  Yes I do.  Do I want opponents to have to do the same to play against me? Hell no.  The cardboard has sentimental value, but the underlying game doesn't change.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Everything you're saying is true, but I don't agree that (1) all nonpowered decks are materially suboptimal or that (2) this means it's verboten to even discuss the cost aspect of new printings.  

If you are building a deck constrained by card availability, as opposed to building exactly what you think would be the best without restriction, isn't it by definition suboptimal?

No.  Let's say I have access to 4x every card ever printed except Quarum Trench Gnomes.  Is my deck suboptimal?

Constrained optimization can still find global optima so long as they lie within the constraints.

[forests failed you]

Everything you're saying is true, but I don't agree that (1) all nonpowered decks are materially suboptimal or that (2) this means it's verboten to even discuss the cost aspect of new printings.  

If you are building a deck constrained by card availability, as opposed to building exactly what you think would be the best without restriction, isn't it by definition suboptimal?

No.  Let's say I have access to 4x every card ever printed except Quarum Trench Gnomes.  Is my deck suboptimal?

Constrained optimization can still find global optima so long as they lie within the constraints.

If some circumstance arose where one felt the optimal deck included Trench Gnomes, but they didn't have access to the card -- yes, their deck would be suboptimal if they thought it would be the best but couldn't play with the card;  Of course, this would be predicated on the fact that one felt the best deck involved playing with Gnomes.

More realistically, what I was pointing to is a situation where somebody felt the best deck in the format played the power nine, but didn't have access to it, and played a deck without the power nine instead.

I have no idea how any reasonable person could read my post and respond with such absolute nonsense. 

[forests failed you]

Seriously, is it difficult to understand that one's deck isn't OPTIMAL if said player doesn't have or can't get the cards they think would give them the best chance to win?

[Worldslayer]

Everything you're saying is true, but I don't agree that (1) all nonpowered decks are materially suboptimal or that (2) this means it's verboten to even discuss the cost aspect of new printings.  

If you are building a deck constrained by card availability, as opposed to building exactly what you think would be the best without restriction, isn't it by definition suboptimal?

No.  Let's say I have access to 4x every card ever printed except Quarum Trench Gnomes.  Is my deck suboptimal?

Constrained optimization can still find global optima so long as they lie within the constraints.

Yes it is suboptimal - If your deck would, upon availability, run quarum trench gnomes. This is a pretty easy idea to get ahold of, and arguments made against any and all "budget" attempts being suboptimal are really just people looking to argue or not to buy in. Budget is suboptimal: even the null rod decks run their appropriately colored moxen, and for good reason. If you would run a card in a given list, but don't due to considerations of availability/price rather than considerations of deck performance, you're playing a suboptimal build. Period. It's not a good or bad thing, it's just a thing.


Back to the article: I regularly disagree with a LOT of things DeMars says in his articles. We hit some of the same points (how good is batterskull/sfm/force of will vs. Shop aggro? Seriously. It's unreal) but pretty much everything else constantly engenders a feeling of "...really?". That said, usually the points we agree on are huge and usually correct: and we agree on griselbrand. This card is the stone cold nuts. While my attempt at a 4 bargain show and tell tps failed, it was more due to all the cards in the deck that weren't the walking bargain. He at once protects himself and you from enemy maneuvers much in the manner of Iona (hahaha...you thought you were going to resolve spells. Cute.) But can function in a more offensive capacity as long as other silly win conditions exist in your deck (tvk and tendrils/will being first and foremost. So really he only costs you 1 slot for tendrils), and completely invalidates that whole "race the big dumb idiot" plan that occasionally comes up. Saying Oath's problem was never winning once they Oathed is sort of false, as plenty of Oath players have died to a more aggressively built U/B deck (and probably plenty of others) even once their fatty hits play. Grisel's advantage of having next to no other considerations (like the blessing in demon oath, or the horrid breath enchantments in GG) while still having more impact that anything oath normally fields short of a hasted emrakul is insane. Whoever figures out how to make the pitchcounter oath work, or deal with metamorphs in a griselbrand/show and tell scheme, gets to smash a lot of faces on the way to a top 8 with this guy.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Seriously, is it difficult to understand that one's deck isn't OPTIMAL if said player doesn't have or can't get the cards they think would give them the best chance to win?

So, if I think I can improve a recent multiple-tourney-winning Workshop list by adding Quarum Trench Gnomes - but don't because I lack access to them - my deck is now less optimal?

[forests failed you]

Seriously, is it difficult to understand that one's deck isn't OPTIMAL if said player doesn't have or can't get the cards they think would give them the best chance to win?

So, if I think I can improve a recent multiple-tourney-winning Workshop list by adding Quarum Trench Gnomes - but don't because I lack access to them - my deck is now less optimal?

Don't be a newb, it would clearly be a Mana Drain deck.

Seriously, if you don't understand the concept being discussed, you don't deserve to have it explained to you any further.

[Worldslayer]

Seriously, is it difficult to understand that one's deck isn't OPTIMAL if said player doesn't have or can't get the cards they think would give them the best chance to win?

So, if I think I can improve a recent multiple-tourney-winning Workshop list by adding Quarum Trench Gnomes - but don't because I lack access to them - my deck is now less optimal?

Nitpick argument. By your personal standard, yes, that deck is less than optimal. By the probable results of performance with said gnomes in your deck, no it isn't. Then again, not having access to something that is 99% of the time a completely wasted card slot might hit something along the lines of a double negative: you're playing a personally suboptimal build of a deck that is in most cases better if it is not along your guidelines of optimal. This is a far cry from the argument everyone else is largely adhering to in regards to budgetization, which is more akin to running a shops deck without shops or p9, which is unoptimal both by most standards personal and standards of tournament performance. If you wanted to make an argument that had any real credence and wasn't borderline strawman, you could at least use "NO LOTUS SHOP BURNED DOWN THA MOTHA=$%#ing GENCON" example rather than something like the gnomes.

[MaximumCDawg]

I'm not really quibbling about the MEANING of optimal.  You're right there.  I was just talking about why Grislebrand is less affordable for us sanctioned folk than his ebay prices imply.

From there, we got kind of sidetracked.  All I was saying was that a sub-optimal deck can be sub-optimal in a non-material way.  If you'd run a singleton Mox Emerald in Elf Combo if you had it, but you don't, are there a significant number of matches that would be affected by the lack of that card?  Hard to say, and varies by card and deck.  So I wasn't disagreeing on what optimal means, just that sometimes a deck can run sub-optimal without affecting too many of its matches.

I also am interested in how Spike dominates the Vintage discussion, and whether other concerns, like having a good time, factor into it.  Note that I'm not talking kitchen table because, when you do that, you lose the other rules and organization that come with sanctioned play.  I'm also not into online play, because you can't socially interact with your opponent at all.  What fun is it to win a game with Animar, Soul of Elements beats if you can't hear your opponent laugh about it?  We're always bemoaning the death of Vintage, does the Spikiness of the format coverage have anything to do with it?

TL;DR version: There are degrees of sub-optimal, and maybe Spike isn't the only voice that should get attention in Vintage.

[AmbivalentDuck]

This is hardly a minor point.  Maximizing your likelihood of winning tournaments on a ~$800 "budget" is better addressed with Bazaars than duals.  For some reason, people in this thread are shedding tears for people who want to play suboptimal decks given their constraints.

In MaximumCDawg's case, the utility of his money spent purchasing his Mox and Vault is significantly lower than if he'd purchased Bazaars in terms of his likelihood of winning tourneys and/or winning matches.  What he's doing here is essentially glorified whining that he can't play the deck he wants to play in a non-proxy environment without dumping more money into cardboard.  He could play online where proxies aren't required, use his lawyerly income to purchase cardboard, or even "fake" his power knowing that no judge will unsleeve a Lotus and bend test it during a tourney.  Instead, he wants to play cardboard magic with specific cards, legitimately purchased and unproxied, at a specific place and on a specific budget.

We can't reasonably discuss every "cost function" that every TMD member has when discussing cards/decks, particularly since we all have different budget limitations/proxy restrictions/etc.  Nearly all of us share that goal of winning as many games as we can, even if some people favor a specific archetype.

Optimal decks are local optima distinguished from their neighbors by maximizing empirical likelihood of tourney wins and/or match wins.
There is zero value to discussing any other definition of optimal on these forums since this is the only common ground we all share.

[Nydaeli]

The discussion of Battle Hymn in this article is pretty pointless, since it's strictly worse than Brightstone Ritual in the outlined scenario.  But maybe it'll finally make Kobolds.dec viable...

(I wish)

[Worldslayer]

In a different vein of discussion:

Brian, when reviewing Miracles (especially given your thoughts re: Terminus) did the miracle pseudo-upheaval actually merit nothing? While less of a "blow-out" in its specific matchup than terminus or stroke, a more traditional spells-based u/b/x deck along the lines of tps or even old-school Tog could leverage it to regain control of a deteriorating boardstate (or just function as Rebuild, which it heavily reminds me of, as some sort of storm enabler). While i'm not sure it's the absolute best thing a deck could be doing, it's at least on Reforge the Soul's level if not slightly above. Any deck currently about spells that can run a spell all about resetting permanents in a metagame almost exclusively defined by what permanents each deck is fielding seems like it would want to check this, at least. Did I overlook something here, was there not enough space, or do we just disagree about possible applications for and play value of the card?




Cdawg: Largely I believe Spike gets a voice here because Spike is largely who TMD exists for (as far as I can tell). That's not to say vintage isn't fun for us, but when you're on a board tracking tournament results, reading and watching and listening to articles from competitive players about choices and information regarding competitive play, most of the voices and thoughts are going to be competitive ones. If you're not talking about kitchen table, and you're not talking about online, then the only option I have left on where you're actually playing Vintage is in a tournament, which is again competitive in nature. The "death of vintage" scenario, as exagerrated as I think it is, wouldn't be due to this as it IS in every format. When I played Heartbeat/Weird Harvest/Life's Web combo in standard at my fnm, and everyone else was on...sonic boom I think...at the time, I realized we were playing two formats with the same card pool but drastically different values. I eventually referred to what I was playing as "casual Standard", and proceeded to use that modifier on every given format whenever I put myself in a similar position. Coverage for both exist, but in radically different spots, though sometimes they cross over in a "fun" list that wins (seriously? Jund? I just described jund as "fun"? God help me). On the WizO boards I'd frequently reply to threads about people's "fun" vintage decks, where winning wasn't the big thing as much as doing silly stuff, and while I'd help and refine those (seriously. I helped make a damn lich deck) I'd also direct them to the casual boards next time. Why a bunch of people took it personally, I never figured out: it's a vintage board, which is a format board, which is a board dedicated to a format of a card game used primarily for competitive play. If you are not playing competitively, but are playing, then you're playing casually. If you're playing casually, then competitive format boards probably aren't where you want to be looking.


And the effect of suboptimal builds directly relates to 1) a deck's reliance on cards missing or substituted and 2) the natural power level of the deck. An elf aggro deck missing lotus and emerald will probably suffer slightly less than a big blue Will-based deck simply because the power it can leverage with those cards is less. A elf deck with power will always be better than those without, but an elf deck without power is more functional than a p9-less TPS, for example. A TPS with power, however, will more likely win a given series of tournament games since 2) is almost always on an increasing relationship with 1).

[MaximumCDawg]

What he's doing here is essentially glorified whining that he can't play the deck he wants to play in a non-proxy environment without dumping more money into cardboard.  

That's not very nice.  All I pointed out was that there are some new printings that are Vintage playable on their own (Quasli Pridemage) and some that suffer from ASS.  I never "whined," glorified or otherwise, about it.  I've just been making the case that relaxed Vintage  (casual-tournament Vintage?) players exist, in response to people who seem to be saying it's useless to talk about it.

I won't even get into your weird suggestions that I'm a wealthy but miserly lawyer.  

Cdawg: Largely I believe Spike gets a voice here because Spike is largely who TMD exists for (as far as I can tell).

Sure, I know, and there's nothing wrong with that.  But, like I said, non-Spikes exist and probably are necessary for Spikes to have a player base, so it's not a bad thing to talk about issues that matter to them once in awhile.  More importantly, there's a real risk that Spike gets trapped using the same old tried and true cards in a format like Vintage, with a smaller player base and less tournaments than others.  Setting some initial restrictions on a deck -- maybe even suboptimal ones -- can be a good way to discover new avenues in the format.  Again, I refer you to Steve's initial tinkering with GW and GWB beatz decks, which he was skeptical about at first.  Since then, hatebear decks have been growing in strength and, frankly, are sometimes the best decks in the metagame.

The flip side of this is that the exercise of optimizing a deck has just as much value to a non-Spike as a Spike.  What I mean by that is this: let's say someone really wants to play Doran, the Seige Tower in Vintage.  That's a strange and arbitrary choice.  But, you can approach that choice as a given and construct something playable in the format using that restriction.  Starting here might take you down roads you never would have considered if you hadn't started from such an offbeat initial condition.  There's value there, and it's not something that should be shouted down when it comes up.  And, for the treefolk-hugger, figuring out how to run such a deck so that it has at least a good chance of competing has value, too.  It's one thing to not top 8 a tourny; that can still be fun.  It's not fun to get demolished every game and never actually play the deck.

Anyway, I'll stop posting on this topic now so the thread goes back to the initial, very well written article.

[Elric]

Oath has a number of cards in the deck that are inherently bad topdecks.  Drawing Dragon's Breath is pretty miserable, as it's completely useless in your hand.

Not completely useless, you can cast it on Blightsteel Colossus (likely after Oathing it).

Sure, but would you rather have that or a Preordain/Mental Misstep/other card 9/10 times?

Clearly Dragon Breath is on average much worse to draw than the cards that would replace it in your deck. But my point was just that it has some use if stuck in your hand.