Vintage and Authoritarianism

[AmbivalentDuck]

An interesting discussion fell out of the Mana Vault unrestriction thread:

In the future you don't have to say anything, you can just ignore him like everybody else who isn't clowning him.

What's curious to me is that my treatment here has been well in line with the behavior of a group known as "Authoritarian Followers." An authoritarian follower has a few interesting traits, but I'd never thought to apply them to my treatment here until I went back over my major scuffles.


Inherency An authoritarian perceives value as intrinsic and not situation.
1. Stripping Ancestral from a deck from a deck where nobody could reasonably argue that it increased the odds of winning.
Orlove, the moderator back then, made an argument based on clowning me and arguing on inherency that Ancestral was so good that it made any blue deck better.

2. Dark Confidant.
Creature aren't good in Vintage, said everyone. Proved that one wrong by just playing it out publicly. Didn't earn me an apology and still hasn't.

Cherry-picking evidence particularly where it contradicts strongly held beliefs
3. Gobs were once playable.
I collected tourney results. Gobs had good odds of a top8 where it was present and my teammate and I piloted our build to top8 finishes (despite sparse tourney attendance!). Because I didn't win, the results were dismissed. See below. That said, we use top8 data all the time in other discussions to talk about how the various archetypes are performing.

Black/white knowing Authoritarians are uncomfortable with shades of grey.
4. Expected Value
Once upon a time, Steve spoke for the community in saying that the "right play" was based on outcomes, not expected outcomes. Of course those of us who understand stats tried to take him to task for that and got shouted down. Similarly, I've been on the unpopular end of discussions about match win percentages and the real meaning of tourney wins. Of course this isn't contentious anywhere else: "Kai Budde doesn't lose on Sunday." Unlike in Vintage where we pretend that wins indicate inherent superiority, the pro community understands that Kai didn't have the 90+% match win odds against other pros that his streak implied. He lost just like everyone else every other day of the week. Was he a great player? Of course. But he was also a coin flip champion. He was flipping something like a 55/45 coin.

Not even sure... I got an insane amount of vitriol over this one...maybe "blame the messenger?"
5. The now well-recognized shift to critters turning sideways
While the format now contains a number of reasonable routes to victory, 2/1s have proliferated. I called the shift for what it was: the critical turn was now late enough that disruption and aggro were playing a meaningful role in "blue's" strategy.

Now, I know authoritarians don't apologize. I get it. They want superiority to be real. They want investment to matter. They want inherent, immutable truths. My world is statistical and grey, grounded in my very advanced mathematics background, but I still treat ideas that come from authoritarians with the same care I treat all ideas. Anything less is disrespectful to my own search for knowledge.

[quicksilvervii]

What is the point of this post?  It just sounds whiny and condescending - I'm not sure of the actual message here.

Is it the message that people were wrong?  Is it to call people out that they were wrong?

Go vintage.  Yay vintage.

[AmbivalentDuck]

What is the point of this post?

To see if I can get a word into our common vocabulary. One of the strangest things about authoritarians is that they're the first to form a mob to lynch other authoritarians.

It just sounds whiny and condescending

I didn't know of a better way to handle it. If I used specific TMD users and quotes, it would look like character assassination and flaming. If you have a better approach, I'll happily adopt it. I was trying to for, "There's a bunch of research on why some people are illogical and cruel, and it looks like my treatment here is in line with that" over "Look at how some TMD users fit a profile for illogical and cruel."

Is it the message that people were wrong?  Is it to call people out that they were wrong?

No. I'm trying to show that the ideas didn't merit their treatment. The eventual evidence has proven me wrong on many occasions. I was lukewarm about Jace TMS for example. My concern is for how ideas and people are treated, not rehashing any individual argument for right/wrong.

Go vintage.  Yay vintage.

Ditto.

[quicksilvervii]

What is the point of this post?

To see if I can get a word into our common vocabulary. One of the strangest things about authoritarians is that they're the first to form a mob to lynch other authoritarians.

It just sounds whiny and condescending

I didn't know of a better way to handle it. If I used specific TMD users and quotes, it would look like character assassination and flaming. If you have a better approach, I'll happily adopt it. I was trying to for, "There's a bunch of research on why some people are illogical and cruel, and it looks like my treatment here is in line with that" over "Look at how some TMD users fit a profile for illogical and cruel."

Is it the message that people were wrong?  Is it to call people out that they were wrong?

No. I'm trying to show that the ideas didn't merit their treatment. The eventual evidence has proven me wrong on occasion more than once. I was lukewarm about Jace TMS for example. My concern is for how ideas and people are treated, not rehashing any individual argument for right/wrong.

Go vintage.  Yay vintage.

Ditto.

I don't see why you couldn't just take this tone in the first place, instead of setting the tone in the way that you did.  I think that is one problem.  People are less likely to 'attack' a position when they aren't immediately put on the defensive.

Your first sentence as a reply to this one was condescending as well, when I did nothing but inquire as to what is happening.  Without the first sentence, you convey your message just as well.

Your second point could have been made just by stating it as you did there.  You didn't use names in your explanation, though you did in your very first post.  For someone to is avoiding flaming or blowing up people by name, you did the exact opposite in your first post.

TL;DR:  I disagree with your tone, and you have proven that you can state your position without it.  Not only is it more clear, but there is no reason to start an entire thread with words laced in poison.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Your first sentence as a reply to this one was condescending as well, when I did nothing but inquire as to what is happening.  Without the first sentence, you convey your message just as well.

I'm communicating poorly. What I'm trying to say is that if I can get the word "authoritarian" into our common understanding, authoritarian behavior should diminish in frequency and intensity.

Your second point could have been made just by stating it as you did there.  You didn't use names in your explanation, though you did in your very first post.  For someone to is avoiding flaming or blowing up people by name, you did the exact opposite in your first post.

There's a tricky balance. The shift from skeptical examination to "clowning" usually began with misbehavior from a specific person held in a position of respect by the community. I think finger pointing at Steve and Jacob is particularly fair. Steve faced official sanction for his treatment of others, but Jacob never faced any sanction on account of his administration role on the site.

there is no reason to start an entire thread with words laced in poison.

I'm curious how you think it should have been started? From my perspective, I was attacked in a very questionable way and I'm holding the attack and the very common human qualities that drive that form of attack up for discussion.

[quicksilvervii]

This just seems like something that doesn't need to be on a public forum.

More power to you for tying it to some theory, but to me it just sounds like you are butthurt by some comments from a few individuals and wanted a soapbox.

/leavesthread

[hitman]

[nataz]

I've been disappointed by by the admins treatment of you for years. I've been active on tmd since the beginning, and while we've made progress, the unfortunate fact of vintage is that's it's still a hyper under developed format. I love vintage, and I've enjoyed this community, but as a group we should be much more accepting of new theory and ideas.

I know Steve M was ridiculed on bd, I remember when rich shay was hated on as a scrub for.developing a slaver deckt without workshop, or when we had an entire forum to mock one player about sui black. Guli was a proponent of GW decks for years, and meatbert, the sole.original developer of manaless ichorid (on SCG forums!) is still commonly mocked.openly. On this board.

I'm guilty of this behavior as well. This tread is a good reminder to me that I need to be less dismissive of new ideas, and have greater patience when confronted with something I disagree with.

[AmbivalentDuck]

I've been disappointed by by the admins treatment of you for years.

I want to be careful here. I am abrasive, rude, and socially maladroit. My objection isn't to my personal treatment, but rather to how ideas are treated.

the unfortunate fact of vintage is that's it's still a hyper under developed format.

Combo, blue, and brown are usually well-developed while certain archetypes that may have been dominant at various periods in history were never fully explored. Dredge, in particular, has suffered from questionably sparse innovation and representation over the years.

I know Steve M was ridiculed on bd, I remember when rich shay was hated on as a scrub for.developing a slaver deckt without workshop, or when we had an entire forum to mock one player about sui black. Guli was a proponent of GW decks for years, and meatbert, the sole.original developer of manaless ichorid (on SCG forums!) is still commonly mocked.openly. On this board.

We suffer from a tournament culture where sparse, noisy evidence biased by attendance rates trumps more nuanced consideration. While this get me warned, that culture remains enshrined in the site rules. Like I said above, "Kai Budde doesn't lose on Sunday."

I'm guilty of this behavior as well. This tread is a good reminder to me that I need to be less dismissive of new ideas, and have greater patience when confronted with something I disagree with.

Everyone is. Cognitive biases and the tendency to inhumanely treat others are a human thing. That said, whether those individual tendencies become a culture or not is something I think should be held up for inspection.

[Cruel Ultimatum]

When your idea is that unrestricting vampiric tutor is ok because you can play extirpate, you are goimg to draw a lot of hate. Which by the way, isnt even true because even if that became big, people would could just play chromatic sphere as a trump.

[PeAcH]

be less dismissive of new ideas, and have greater patience when confronted with something I (we) disagree with.

AWESOME.

There is really low innovation in our beloved format if you compare it to other formats such as Legacy whilst the pool is quite similar (not in terms of efficiency/power but in terms of collection/number).

This could be due to:

• The low number of Vintage tournaments over the world (at least the ones we are aware of and are made public)
• The Vintage community is shrinking more and more as we grow old while the number of newcomers does not equal the goers.
  
• The fact that several auto include cards in several archetypes really limit the span of creativeness sometimes a format needs to develop.

On the creativeness topic, sometimes you just need to get an idea, you don´t have to take it to the limit, but once the spark lits the fire, it´s done. You get an idea and you try to put it to work.

Remember that time when we used to do that? Great times...

Getting back from class/work with a list written on a piece of paper full of enthusiasm and looked into facing your friends with your latest incarnation? I have played a looot of games in my life but nothing has given me a feeling like this.

That chance to get it back is getting lost more and more everyday.

You don´t have time to playtest that much, do you? So why bothering trying new things when you know the tricks of the old ones?

Because you should.

For the game, for the community, and also for yourself.

Because we need you to move forward. If you have the spark, try to share it with others.

We should promise to be there to hear pretty strange options, decklists, crazy combos and such.

At least, we should do it for all the times we have been there, we owe it to our old selves from years ago, when all this lust for playing and trying new things rushed though our heads and we LOVED to have someone hear it and give us their opinion about it.

More patience and understanding with others' opinions could help to bring this back.

That would really help Vintage.

[AmbivalentDuck]

play chromatic sphere as a trump.

Split second.

Getting back from class/work with a list written on a piece of paper full of enthusiasm and looked into facing your friends with your latest incarnation? I have played a looot of games in my life but nothing has given me a feeling like this.

Same here.

More patience and understanding with others' opinions could help to bring this back.

That would really help Vintage.

Agreed.

[Cruel Ultimatum]

play chromatic sphere as a trump.

Split second.

mana ability.

[The Atog Lord]

* Puts on Moderator Hat *

When I read the first post in this thread, I was pretty concerned about what would follow. The topic is one that can easily lend itself to hyperbole and inflammatory posts. However, all of the posts that have been made so far are very decent and well-reasoned. So, I want to thank everyone for keeping the discussion civil, when dealing with such a volatile topic. Good work.

* Removes Moderator Hat *

I remember when rich shay was hated on as a scrub for.developing a slaver deckt without workshop

The key fact that was once true remains true today: To vindicate an idea, win. So many useless discussions have arisen over the years regarding so many decks that people have become attached to. If you consistently win an event with a deck, people will change their mind and realize that you are right. If you keep doing poorly with a deck, then you're probably not right about it. It's tough to say, but results really do speak louder than any sophisticated argument about deck construction. Of course, today, the main difficulty with this line or argument is the lack of actual Vintage events. For that, sadly, I don't have a solution.

[Stormanimagus]

I know what A-Duck is talking about. I have a sweet Human.dec list that has been performing pretty damn admirably on cockatrice, but I'm not sure I'd want to put it on TMD because I don't want the "authoritarians" just to say off-handed remarks like "no blue? no black? no shops? NO DECK!." I mean, sadly, I don't have any real life tournament evidence that it is a great deck, but I simply don't have money, access or interest to go to a major Vintage event right now. However, I've played a decent number of competent pilots on Cockatrice with it to better than 50/50 results. Guys like The Atog Lord and Onslaught. Admittedly I've also played some incompetent pilots, but openings with the deck seem pretty powerful and able to trump many prevalent strategies in the format. It's sad that I don't feel super comfortable sharing my ideas .

-Storm

Edit: @The Atog Lord - I couldn't agree more with your above statement. It is sad that the access to Vintage at a high level is under the gun right now and for various troubling reasons:

1. Wizards is trying to put the lid on proxies. I understand that those already invested in the game will keep being able to play, but this just makes Vintage incredibly inaccessible and most people who WANT to join/return to Vintage are the more casual gamers out there (like me!).

2. Players don't seem interested in expanding the community or adding new venues. In other words, the old-timers are content with where THEIR scene is at.

3. Wizards doesn't print many new cards for Vintage. This could be somewhat false as very occasionally we get a gem, but honestly, Gatecrash has been an abysmal set for Vintage. Most of the rare (and good) cards are multicolor and like 4 + cmc. It's pretty clear to me that Wizards is starting to basically say FU to Vintage.

I mean, I think an online tournament community would be great, but I'm not sure how they could improve Vintage Online (in terms of prices etc.). Like, I already own my REAL cards that I own. There would have to be a pretty big incentive for me to switch to Vintage online and pay all that extra money for cards I ALREADY own. It is also more fun to own real vs. virtual cards.

I dunno, there are no easy answers. I just think Vintage is not in a great place right now.

-Storm

[Cruel Ultimatum]

@storm: as far as number 3 goes, you are crazy. Ravnica and gatecrash didnt have much, but look st the sets bdfore that. Griselbrand, cavern of souls, grafdiggers cage, snapcaster mage, misstep, dissmember, blightsteel colossus. On top of that they released the commander and planechase decks, which are blatently used to put eternal power level cards without warping standard and modern.

[AmbivalentDuck]

The key fact that was once true remains true today: To vindicate an idea, win.

That has several issues:
1. The more tourneys you play in, the more likely you are to win at least one, especially when it's nearly a coinflip contest.
1a. Applies to over- and under-representation of both decks and players.
2. The information about match win percentage carried in a single tourney outcome is very low.
3. The tourneys themselves are now sparse.

[Smmenen]

I remember when rich shay was hated on as a scrub for.developing a slaver deckt without workshop

The key fact that was once true remains true today: To vindicate an idea, win.

Exactly.  

The first post is very difficult to parse because so much of what is needed to understand it isn't even in the post.   But I understand what AD is saying.

The harsh truth though is that this not a fair community.  This is not a community that is willing to give every idea or every deck a shot.   Even with someone like myself, who has done pretty much as much as one can do in terms of generating credibility in the format, faced extreme and heavy skepticism with my decks from time to time.

Whether it's fair or not, the only thing this community cares about is results, that is, tournament results.   Win and you will earn the credibility to deflect negative feedback.  

teve spoke for the community in saying that the "right play" was based on outcomes, not expected outcomes.

Incidentally, I believe this is a straw man of my position. 

[Suicideking]

The key fact that was once true remains true today: To vindicate an idea, win.

I agree.  You argued for goblins as a deck, but I was at a lot of tournaments that you played it at, and no one was concerned about playing against it.  Going 3-2 at every tournament gets you a respectable match win percentage but you almost never top8.  When you get your wins is more important then just how many you get.

[John Jones]

So the way I see it is that there will be three things that happen the first is that people will get mad the second is that the people will get over it and the third is that they don't actually care. I am for the option of them not caring. Goblins and Landstill have an interesting matchup becuase of Chill and Sirocco. And when you really analyze it how do the machines know if its fish for all we know it could be fish could be nothing more than chicken. And we would have no idea.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Whether it's fair or not, the only thing this community cares about is results, that is, tournament results.   Win and you will earn the credibility to deflect negative feedback.

It's not a question of fairness; it's a question of suitability for its purpose. Without questioning your motives, your message is certainly in line with a presenter needing near-meaningless credentials before their ideas can be taken seriously.

no one was concerned about playing against it

How is that relevant except to confirm their irrationality? I was winning more than 50% of my matches as you admit below.

Going 3-2 at every tournament gets you a respectable match win percentage but you almost never top8.

I attended twice and top8-ed once. Max attended once and placed second. Max's friend attended once and top8-ed.

Edit: Max was actually two for two. I'm looking back through the thread to see if I attended two or three times.

win

Let's say you're 60/40 against the top8 and pairings are random. .6^3 = 22% That means 5 top8s to every win on average even with a ridiculous advantage over the field. It's difficult to imagine a standard of evidence more suitable for enshrining tourney attendance and less suitable for providing statistical meaning.

[Smmenen]

Whether it's fair or not, the only thing this community cares about is results, that is, tournament results.   Win and you will earn the credibility to deflect negative feedback.

It's not a question of fairness; it's a question of suitability for its purpose. Without questioning your motives, your message is certainly in line with a presenter needing near-meaningless credentials before their ideas can be taken seriously.

Not at all.   I actually consider myself far more open minded than most Magic and Vintage players.  

I just think that Magic players are an inherently dismissive bunch, especially given the fact that anyone with a computer can post a decklist.  

To distinguish between something that is actually good, Magic players (and not just Vintage players) are trained by experience to demand -- not credentials -- but proof, and relevant proof: tournament results.  Pretty much nothing else matters to Magic players.   Whether that is mathmatically or statistically valid or not is besides the point.  Magic players only really care about tournament results.   

The issue isn't whether there is an authoritarian mindset or behavior here or anywhere else.   This is a very liberal (in the classic sense) place.  People have pretty much free expression to say whatever they think about the Vintage format.   I think you are confusing authoritarianism with dismissiveness.  

[credmond]

Ok, so tournaments aren't happening often enough and tournaments tend to be too incestuous to provide good data.

As an alternative to tournaments . . .

you could use Cockatrice as a basis for statistical research into the viability of Goblins. Good data to be had there provided you follow some legitimate method of filtering out janky decks/players.

[psyburat]

I have a sweet Human.dec list that has been performing pretty damn admirably on cockatrice, but I'm not sure I'd want to put it on TMD because I don't want the "authoritarians" just to say off-handed remarks like "no blue? no black? no shops? NO DECK!."

If you can tell me about the deck without having the same feverish tone as the guy who started sending me strategy (that I didn't ask for, I just wanted to talk about Rest in Peace!) via my inbox, then go for it.  I was completely put off from the deck by his tone, but from you I'll give it another chance.

As for players not receiving the respect they deserve, there will always be credible strategy from non-credible sources, and it will be ignored until rediscovered elsewhere.  There are diseconomies of scale that this movement can't completely eliminate.  Even when Glenn Beck was right, he was still Glenn Beck.

[AmbivalentDuck]

To distinguish between something that is actually good, Magic players (and not just Vintage players) are trained by experience to demand -- not credentials -- but proof, and relevant proof: tournament results.

Trying to keep this discussion narrow... "Actually good" is poorly indicated by tournament performance.

dismissive

"Dismissive" describes a subset of the behavior noted here and does not exclude authoritarian behavior. Also, see James's cherry picking, above. There's an example in the archive where gobs won a 135 player tourney. Your prescription is invalid: it did not work. Not sure how much clearer evidence of cherry picking to justify "dismissiveness" can get.

you could use Cockatrice as a basis for statistical research into the viability of Goblins.

My testing leads me to conclude that Goblins are not presently viable. They are cute. Cockatrice is interesting and I've repeatedly considering coding up something to scrape the outcome of all public vintage games. I just don't have time right now.

[Smmenen]

To distinguish between something that is actually good, Magic players (and not just Vintage players) are trained by experience to demand -- not credentials -- but proof, and relevant proof: tournament results.

Trying to keep this discussion narrow... "Actually good" is poorly indicated by tournament performance.

That's the disconnect.  If you don't understand this fact you will likely never understand it.  Tournament performance is the only thing Magic players care about.  It is the *only* definition of good. 

If you don't think tournament performance is a definition of actually good, then your definition is wrong because you are operating on a different premise than everyone else. 

[AmbivalentDuck]

Good: suitable for the purpose of winning tourneys.
Good: suitable for the purpose of determining the likelihood of a given deck winning a tourney.

Looking at first place finishes only and "dismissing" first place finishes that don't fit your world view is less suitable than analyzing entire top8s without bias.

[Smmenen]

Good: suitable for the purpose of winning tourneys.
Good: suitable for the purpose of determining the likelihood of a given deck winning a tourney.

Looking at first place finishes only and "dismissing" first place finishes that don't fit your world view is less suitable than analyzing entire top8s without bias.

I never said magic players only look at first places. I said tournament performance.  They look for consistent tournament performance not just first places or one-offs.  Common sense, please.

Magic players will naturally dismiss decks that don't perform well in tournaments.  It doesn't matter whether that's mathematically invalid. That's the reality. 

As a side note, if you wish to improve your Communication, your posts would also benefit from complete thoughts fully explicated rather than strange code.

[AmbivalentDuck]

I understand that you're a lawyer, but your behavior here is unacceptable. You're prioritizing "winning" this discussion over any reasonable attempt to aid in optimizing the suitability of this site's culture for any purpose.

[vaughnbros]

I just think that Magic players are an inherently dismissive bunch, especially given the fact that anyone with a computer can post a decklist.  

To distinguish between something that is actually good, Magic players (and not just Vintage players) are trained by experience to demand -- not credentials -- but proof, and relevant proof: tournament results.  Pretty much nothing else matters to Magic players.   Whether that is mathmatically or statistically valid or not is besides the point.  Magic players only really care about tournament results.  

I think this can be expanded far outside the realm of magic alone.  Ideas in general throughout the history of man kind are always met with doubt until proven otherwise.  The only real way to prove an idea to people is to show them that it is true.

Philosophy and science have followed this principle to develop a large number of the ideas that we believe to be truth.  You can't just make statements like "gravity exists" or "evolution exists" and expect people to believe you.  You have to physically go out and show them concrete evidence that it exists before they will even consider your opinion.  

In magic the only way to physically show a person that your deck is valid is by either physically beating them with it or posting top 8's consistently.  Sorry, but this is just the fact of the matter.  People need to see it to believe it.

you could use Cockatrice as a basis for statistical research into the viability of Goblins.

My testing leads me to conclude that Goblins are not presently viable. They are cute. Cockatrice is interesting and I've repeatedly considering coding up something to scrape the outcome of all public vintage games. I just don't have time right now.

And my results on cockatrice point to the complete opposite result as far as goblins are concerned...  goblin decks, and other archetypes, can vary over 30 cards easily making them tremendously different.  There is no good way to prove which is the optimal list.  According to statistical theory the viability of any particular set of 75 cards can't really be discerned completely without extensive testing.  The magic number for the law of large numbers to kick in is usually considered to be around 30.  This would mean 30 matches against every established deck, or 30 tournament appearances.  These are clearly unrealistic expectations.  Then when we are talking about a archetypes viability, since they can vary by 30 cards, you need even more extensive testing and tournament play.  Obviously no one can really have that much time on their hands.  So we jump to conclusions from much smaller samples and our intuition.  

To sum up.  If your angry that people are ignoring you, dismissing you, or whatever you want to call it.  Then go use that as motivation to prove them wrong.  Or ignore them just as they have done to you.  Not much productive is going to happen from complaining, in fact the opposite is more likely to occur.   People don't particularly enjoy listening to someone cry.