[Free Podcast] SMIP #25: Bazaar of Moxen Analysis

[Smmenen]

http://www.eternalcentral.com/?p=3972

Timestamped Table of Contents:
0:01:10: Vintage Champs
0:13:45: Announcements
0:20:25: You Make the Card Finalists
0:37:50: Bazaar of Moxen
2:48:52: Listener Feedback

Our longest episode EVER. 

[voltron00x]

2:48 is the START of the final bit?!?  Good lord.  I hope I can find time...

[Smmenen]

We not only go through the decklists of the BoM, but we also deconstruct the video matches...

Folks should treat it like a Book on Tape or something... just listen during a workout, a long drive, or while doing a chore. 

[MTGFan]

We not only go through the decklists of the BoM, but we also deconstruct the video matches...

Folks should treat it like a Book on Tape or something... just listen during a workout, a long drive, or while doing a chore. 

Exactly. Perfect for mixing it up with sports podcasts (chance of pace is good) when taking the dog for a walk or doing yardwork. Of course, due to their length, I've often found myself back from a walk and only 60% done with Steve's SMIP podcast, whereas with the sports podcast I'd have long ago finished listening to it.

[CHA1N5]

If you didn't get to watch the BoM coverage live, we cover a lot of material - in detail - in this episode.  There are some VERY interesting things coming out of the decks and games.  The top two decks from the main event are both worthy of a great deal of analysis, and they led to some good matches for analysis.

[Smmenen]

Our podcast has also been published on MTGCast: http://www.mtgcast.com/mtgcast-podcast-shows/active-podcast-shows/so-many-insane-plays/so-many-insane-plays-25-the-bazaar-of-moxen

FYI

[Guli]

You guys should do the live casts for Vintage at BoM. This way, I can lend your power and win the tourney with Humans.

I like how it was long, I watched it in 2 waves. Just saw it as 2 podcasts, nothing problematic about that.

So, you talked about Loa again, and on top used Cavern of Souls as a semi answer. Interesting, but the problem still remains, with full acceleration and access to cheap removal spells like Lightning Bolt, it is relatively easy to get rid of Thalia or Dark Confidant and still stay in range of the '7 cards in hand condition' to get more draws of Library. Misdirection and Mindbreak Trap are actually very strong against Abrupt Decay. They protect your crucible, a Decay target, for example.

That being said, I agree on a point; Not always would multiple library in hand be a good thing, or missing a colored land drop. But even one Sapphire/Ruby or Black Lotus change/swing that in favor of the Loa user. It is not hard to get ahead and stay ahead with a Loa, if the opponent didn't get a wasteland and you get a bolt (rather common isn't it?). So you guys think this should be allowed? A single land to take over the game very early on. I think another problem is, while a player is taking advantage of a Loa, the player is also building towards a Jace (because Loa also gives mana don't forget that) and once Jace is in play, plus the assumption you probably used some removal on their threats, while drawing cards, it becomes really hard to do anything really. It is NOT easy to fight a land, even as a wasteland deck, with so much potential power on it. It is unforgiving and extremely efficient in what it does if not taken care of. And even if you wasteland it (the second option to fight it, next to trying to play threats (which can easily be removed)), they could just play another one. Also if they get to use it before you wasteland, they just started the game with +1 card. Oh well, these are my 2 cents on this Loa matter.

On Aether Vial: The Cavern of Souls pretty much replaced Vial. Sure Vial still has its own advantages, but Cavern is such a boost, you get a land drop, the uncounterable effect, and this is pretty much enough. Vial can come online the next turn for Gorilla Shaman or Deathrite Shaman but it is nowere near the Cavern+Mox into 2cc Human bomb. The strenght of some of these creature decks running Caverns is to throw in a couple high quality cheap bears very early on and put the pressure on them. Vial doesn't follow this approach. And that brings me to the real issue, topdecking a vial after turn 2. It is still playable, don't get me wrong, but you get so much more mileage out of a turn 1 Vial. The difference with a later Vial is huge, and this offsets me. There are some exceptions to this though, against a Magus of the Moon deck for example, it could get you out of a lock. Or a Chalice for 2. But these are rather narrow circumstances.

[Vennie]

You guys should do the live casts for Vintage at BoM. This way, I can lend your power and win the tourney with Humans.

I like how it was long, I watched it in 2 waves. Just saw it as 2 podcasts, nothing problematic about that.

So, you talked about Loa again, and on top used Cavern of Souls as a semi answer. Interesting, but the problem still remains, with full acceleration and access to cheap removal spells like Lightning Bolt, it is relatively easy to get rid of Thalia or Dark Confidant and still stay in range of the '7 cards in hand condition' to get more draws of Library. Misdirection and Mindbreak Trap are actually very strong against Abrupt Decay. They protect your crucible, a Decay target, for example.

That being said, I agree on a point; Not always would multiple library in hand be a good thing, or missing a colored land drop. But even one Sapphire/Ruby or Black Lotus change/swing that in favor of the Loa user. It is not hard to get ahead and stay ahead with a Loa, if the opponent didn't get a wasteland and you get a bolt (rather common isn't it?). So you guys think this should be allowed? A single land to take over the game very early on. I think another problem is, while a player is taking advantage of a Loa, the player is also building towards a Jace (because Loa also gives mana don't forget that) and once Jace is in play, plus the assumption you probably used some removal on their threats, while drawing cards, it becomes really hard to do anything really. It is NOT easy to fight a land, even as a wasteland deck, with so much potential power on it. It is unforgiving and extremely efficient in what it does if not taken care of. And even if you wasteland it (the second option to fight it, next to trying to play threats (which can easily be removed)), they could just play another one. Also if they get to use it before you wasteland, they just started the game with +1 card. Oh well, these are my 2 cents on this Loa matter.

On Aether Vial: The Cavern of Souls pretty much replaced Vial. Sure Vial still has its own advantages, but Cavern is such a boost, you get a land drop, the uncounterable effect, and this is pretty much enough. Vial can come online the next turn for Gorilla Shaman or Deathrite Shaman but it is nowere near the Cavern+Mox into 2cc Human bomb. The strenght of some of these creature decks running Caverns is to throw in a couple high quality cheap bears very early on and put the pressure on them. Vial doesn't follow this approach. And that brings me to the real issue, topdecking a vial after turn 2. It is still playable, don't get me wrong, but you get so much more mileage out of a turn 1 Vial. The difference with a later Vial is huge, and this offsets me. There are some exceptions to this though, against a Magus of the Moon deck for example, it could get you out of a lock. Or a Chalice for 2. But these are rather narrow circumstances.

How does vial get you out of a chalice lock where Cavern wouldn't?

[Guli]

You guys should do the live casts for Vintage at BoM. This way, I can lend your power and win the tourney with Humans.

I like how it was long, I watched it in 2 waves. Just saw it as 2 podcasts, nothing problematic about that.

So, you talked about Loa again, and on top used Cavern of Souls as a semi answer. Interesting, but the problem still remains, with full acceleration and access to cheap removal spells like Lightning Bolt, it is relatively easy to get rid of Thalia or Dark Confidant and still stay in range of the '7 cards in hand condition' to get more draws of Library. Misdirection and Mindbreak Trap are actually very strong against Abrupt Decay. They protect your crucible, a Decay target, for example.

That being said, I agree on a point; Not always would multiple library in hand be a good thing, or missing a colored land drop. But even one Sapphire/Ruby or Black Lotus change/swing that in favor of the Loa user. It is not hard to get ahead and stay ahead with a Loa, if the opponent didn't get a wasteland and you get a bolt (rather common isn't it?). So you guys think this should be allowed? A single land to take over the game very early on. I think another problem is, while a player is taking advantage of a Loa, the player is also building towards a Jace (because Loa also gives mana don't forget that) and once Jace is in play, plus the assumption you probably used some removal on their threats, while drawing cards, it becomes really hard to do anything really. It is NOT easy to fight a land, even as a wasteland deck, with so much potential power on it. It is unforgiving and extremely efficient in what it does if not taken care of. And even if you wasteland it (the second option to fight it, next to trying to play threats (which can easily be removed)), they could just play another one. Also if they get to use it before you wasteland, they just started the game with +1 card. Oh well, these are my 2 cents on this Loa matter.

On Aether Vial: The Cavern of Souls pretty much replaced Vial. Sure Vial still has its own advantages, but Cavern is such a boost, you get a land drop, the uncounterable effect, and this is pretty much enough. Vial can come online the next turn for Gorilla Shaman or Deathrite Shaman but it is nowere near the Cavern+Mox into 2cc Human bomb. The strenght of some of these creature decks running Caverns is to throw in a couple high quality cheap bears very early on and put the pressure on them. Vial doesn't follow this approach. And that brings me to the real issue, topdecking a vial after turn 2. It is still playable, don't get me wrong, but you get so much more mileage out of a turn 1 Vial. The difference with a later Vial is huge, and this offsets me. There are some exceptions to this though, against a Magus of the Moon deck for example, it could get you out of a lock. Or a Chalice for 2. But these are rather narrow circumstances.

How does vial get you out of a chalice lock where Cavern wouldn't?

They both get you out of it, but I posted that with wasteland in mind. Seems easier to get rid of Caverns than it is to destroy a Vial.

[MaximumCDawg]

Nice, long, podcast.  Looking forward to finishing it!  I've only got up to your analysis of the BUG Fish deck on my commute today.

I very strongly disagree with your analysis of Revenge of Necromancy, however.  I'd be happy to be wrong, but this card to me is the bastard child of Megrim and Geth's Grimoire with a dash of Browbeat tossed on top just to make it even less good.  I'd love to be totally wrong on this, since it won and all, but I do not think Revenge is playable at all unless it's a Leyline. 

Let me be more detailed as to why.

1) We have historical precedence in the form of Megrim, Caress, Grimoire, and (sort of) Dream Salvage.  And they're all basically unplayable, with the possible exception of Dream Salvage in especially cute decks.  It turns out that adding an upside to the act of your opponent discarding is a really bad effect.  Kevin alluded to this without mentioning it when he noted that WotC finally realized Megrim is safe at 1B during M10.  The reason it was safe to do that is that Megrim is a really terrible card (from a playability perspective) In fact, Megrim is probably safe at B or even zero mana.

2) The next issue has to do with WHY cards that add an upside to the act of your opponent discarding are bad.  This is because decks that have many ways to trigger this upside - many discard spells - are precisely the kind of decks who do not want to wait to deploy their discard disruption until after they've resolved their Megrim / Grimoire / whatever.  If you rely on Duress and Hymn to disrupt your opponent, the last thing you want to do is waste turn 2 deploying an enchantment that does literally nothing to disrupt your opponent on its own.  Particularly in eternal, you are surrendering a critical window to your opponent.  Conversely, if you are not relying on discard as your primary disruption, then spending a deck slot to give your small amount of discard an upside does not make much sense.  On top of all of this, consider what a miserable top deck Megrim-ish cards are.  If your deck did what your deck wants to do, namely put the opponent into topdeck mode, your Megrim isn't going to do anything.  You timewalked yourself by drawing it, good job.

This problem can be put into relief by looking at discard-based cards that are marginally playable.  I'm thinking here of Nxyallid, The Rack (and the 5 or so Rack variants), etc.  These guys have an effect that is not based on the act of discarding; instead it's an effect based on the particular state the discard deck wants to create - no cards in the opponent's hand.  There is no tension to play these cards early instead of discard, and they're not bad topdecks if your deck is doing what it is supposed to do.

3) The third problem is that the "diversity" and "flexibility" you both see in this card is illusory.  This card isn't flexible.  It's "unpredictable."  Say you have Revenge on the table and you cast Hymn to Torach.  Depending on the matchup, you are either drawing cards, getting mana, getting dudes, or some combination.  You have no control over what actually occurs because it's dependant on the cards in your opponent's hand.  If you're using something like Thoughtseize, that's a little better, because now you can elect either to get the dude or draw the card, but your options are still limited to those the opponent actually has available.  And God forbid you're using Raven's Crime or some other discard effect that lets your opponent choose; now it truly is Browbeat time.  The same is true if you're up against Dredge, because they can choose what they want to discard to minimize your benefit in that situation.  Nothing says "unplayable" in Vintage quite like "unpredictable," and Revenge has unpredictability written all over it.

Having said all of that, there are things that could be done to make this card playable.  First and foremost, make it a Leyline.  If you can field Revenge turn one, and use Thoughtseize with no loss of tempo, the marginal upside on each discard spell may just be worth the slots you used up.  That could very well work.  It would also come down fast enough to matter against dredge.

The other thing that could happen is that a new printing or hitherto unnoticed interaction makes the Draw 7 deck viable.  As you both pointed out, if your opponent has a meaningful hand and you cast a draw 7 with Revenge in play, you could very well be off to the races, drawing more cards and adding mana to your pool to fuel your Yawgmoth's Bargain.  That is not a trivial thing to do, however, and that deck doesn't exist yet.  If Windfall was unrestricted -- which meant there was a more realistic possibility of regularly Windfalling on turn 1 to force mulligans out of your opponents, that strategy might get some support.  But with all the unrestricted Draw 7s costing 4 or more, I have hard time seeing how Revenge and maybe that new Jace-killing Rogue make a deck.

I suppose there's also always the chance that WotC prints something weird that just makes Revenge broken, like a card that allows you to search your opponent's library for cards, put them into his or her hand, and then discard em.  I don't think that's likely.

So.... in conclusion, I don't think Revenge is playable at any mana cost other than zero.  I would love very much to be proven wrong, but I can't theorycraft my way there on my own.

[Stormanimagus]

MaximumCDawg os right on target here. What's most disappointing to me is that they had a ton of real quality submissions that they didn't even put on the initial docket. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why other elegant card designs WEREN'T considered and these garbage 10 were. I give up on understanding R & D.

-Storm

[forests failed you]

I listened to it at work the other day and really enjoyed the episode.

I thought the you make the card enchantment should have Madness 0 or B.  That would be sweet.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

I listened to it at work the other day and really enjoyed the episode.

I thought the you make the card enchantment should have Madness 0 or B.  That would be sweet.

Yeah I'm its obviously going to good with Liliana in other formats (I might be nuts but I feel like that's 99.99% why WOTC chose it in the prelims), so it has to come down before or on 3 some how. That seems like the best way to go about it.

[MaximumCDawg]

Id love it if you were right, Hundred, but I don't see it.  Lilly is a good card, but I doubt it is a good idea to pair her with a donothing enchantment solely to give her a marginal upside.  Worse still, her discard ability leaves the choice up to your opponent, so were in Browbeat territory here.

[davelin]

You guys should do the live casts for Vintage at BoM. This way, I can lend your power and win the tourney with Humans.

I like how it was long, I watched it in 2 waves. Just saw it as 2 podcasts, nothing problematic about that.

So, you talked about Loa again, and on top used Cavern of Souls as a semi answer. Interesting, but the problem still remains, with full acceleration and access to cheap removal spells like Lightning Bolt, it is relatively easy to get rid of Thalia or Dark Confidant and still stay in range of the '7 cards in hand condition' to get more draws of Library. Misdirection and Mindbreak Trap are actually very strong against Abrupt Decay. They protect your crucible, a Decay target, for example.

That being said, I agree on a point; Not always would multiple library in hand be a good thing, or missing a colored land drop. But even one Sapphire/Ruby or Black Lotus change/swing that in favor of the Loa user. It is not hard to get ahead and stay ahead with a Loa, if the opponent didn't get a wasteland and you get a bolt (rather common isn't it?). So you guys think this should be allowed? A single land to take over the game very early on. I think another problem is, while a player is taking advantage of a Loa, the player is also building towards a Jace (because Loa also gives mana don't forget that) and once Jace is in play, plus the assumption you probably used some removal on their threats, while drawing cards, it becomes really hard to do anything really. It is NOT easy to fight a land, even as a wasteland deck, with so much potential power on it. It is unforgiving and extremely efficient in what it does if not taken care of. And even if you wasteland it (the second option to fight it, next to trying to play threats (which can easily be removed)), they could just play another one. Also if they get to use it before you wasteland, they just started the game with +1 card. Oh well, these are my 2 cents on this Loa matter.

On Aether Vial: The Cavern of Souls pretty much replaced Vial. Sure Vial still has its own advantages, but Cavern is such a boost, you get a land drop, the uncounterable effect, and this is pretty much enough. Vial can come online the next turn for Gorilla Shaman or Deathrite Shaman but it is nowere near the Cavern+Mox into 2cc Human bomb. The strenght of some of these creature decks running Caverns is to throw in a couple high quality cheap bears very early on and put the pressure on them. Vial doesn't follow this approach. And that brings me to the real issue, topdecking a vial after turn 2. It is still playable, don't get me wrong, but you get so much more mileage out of a turn 1 Vial. The difference with a later Vial is huge, and this offsets me. There are some exceptions to this though, against a Magus of the Moon deck for example, it could get you out of a lock. Or a Chalice for 2. But these are rather narrow circumstances.

I think in todays Vintage environment, LoA is no longer the Library of I Win.  With games so much quicker and compressed, the cost and tempo loss of missing colored land drops is pretty high.

[Metman]

Great work on the podcast gentlemen. I really enjoyed the in-depth analysis on the matches at BoM. It helps understand the matchups from perspectives I either do not understand or am unfamiliar with. My knowledge of playing with Shops is limited.

Despite how much I tend to agree with your analysis on many different topics, I'm not convinced with the reasoning on the unrestriction of LoA. I have heard both arguments, think I understand both perspectives, but am simply not convinced that unrestricting it would be safe. I do appreciate the lively discussion though; it is healthy for the game and format.

[MaximumCDawg]

Still working my way through the play-by-play on the Top 8.

This sounds like you guys are auditioning for the role of commentators at the next Bazaar of Moxen, which would be awesome since you're good at it.  I did have one gripe though; Steve kept cutting out, like he was on a bad cell phone connection, so I would lose what he was saying some small percentage of the time.  Didn't sound like Kevin had that problem, as he'd respond
 as if he heard it fine.  Not sure what was causing that.

[evouga]

I did have one gripe though; Steve kept cutting out, like he was on a bad cell phone connection, so I would lose what he was saying some small percentage of the time.  Didn't sound like Kevin had that problem, as he'd respond
 as if he heard it fine.  Not sure what was causing that.

It sounded like Stephen was Skyping Kevin over a bad connection, with the recording happening on Kevin's end.

[Smmenen]

That's exactly what happened.  I think my internet router is going bad or the internet service in my building is bad.  We are going to try to fix that problem going forward. 

[evouga]

Great podcast, guys! I really like these kinds of match analyses. It would be interesting to interview the players and get some insights into the reasoning they went through for their plays.

[psyburat]

That's exactly what happened.  I think my internet router is going bad or the internet service in my building is bad.  We are going to try to fix that problem going forward. 

Record a local copy and send it to him.  Judging by the software used in the "Mother of God" tweet that Kevin made, it'll be as easy as synchronizing Wizard of Oz and Dark Side of the Moon.

[MaximumCDawg]

Finished the podcast.  Your coverage of the Baazar inspired me to run the top performing BUG fish deck at our weekly Black Gold sanctioned event.  (I had to sub out the Lotus, Mox Jet, Saph, Walk, and Recall for Ring, two basics, Ponder, and Vin.Clique due to not owning them). I was skeptical of the deck initially, but after piloting it for awhile I really understood how potent this list is.

First round was... against the shop owner running a netdeck of the second place deck from Baazar. Hah!  First game went to him, but only barely, as my removal kept his Chalices, Crucibles, and Metalworkers off the field.  He kept drawing gas, though, and eventually landed a Golem which was then cloned, and I couldn't keep up.  Had I owned Ancestral, I could have tutored it and used it during this match to stay in there.  Second game went my way on the back of the same sort of dense removal suite.  Golem ate a Snuff Out, which felt gooooood.  Game three, I kept a greedy hand with turn 1 Dark Confidant off Mox Emerald, but the shop player went first with the nuts hand- lotus, tomb, mox, mox, golem, and... something else... I think it was Trinisphere.  That was just disgusting and was easily enough to finish me off.

Round two was against a dude who hadn't played since Time Spiral or something.  He had a Blue/Red deck that appeared to focus on comboing out with Lava Spike + Desperate Ritual + Izzit Guildmage, with some Kiln Fiend aggro and Aether Membrane defense tossed in for good measure.  Without knowing what I was playing, I kept a hand with two lands, Deathrite, Force, Fluster, Fluster, and Pierce.  I drew a few more counters and another deathrite, plus a Tiago to kill off his pumped Fiend when he tried that route, but then proceeded to topdeck eight lands in a row.  He continues to do stuff, I continue to bleed him with Shaman.  In an amazing last turn, I still have my two Flusters in hand.  He has just enough mana to cast his Lava Spike + Ritual. I think long and hard and then ask him if he's passing priority.  Once he understands what that means, he says no, and first copies the now-spliced Lava Spike.  With the copy and original on the stack, I double fluster targeting the original three times and copy 2 times.  He pays the two.  My fluster goes to the yard.  Second fluster resolves, removes one copy.  Deathrites use the two Flusters to win the game.  (Had they not, he was unable to keep comboing with only one copy on the stack anyway).  Phew!  Second game, his deck didn't do much so I just aggroed him.

Round three was against white/red fish featuring Blood Moon effects and lots of yard hate.  Game one, I end up at 3 life... then thanks to thick removal, I climb back up to 10 on the back of Deathrite and Ooze and win.  Game two, he lays a 2/2 every turn, which is surprisingly difficult to deal with.  Game three, I get an early Ooze who overpowers him.

Overall, I was struck by some things that were not obvious to me when I put the list together.  

(1) This BUG Fish build is really hard for the opponent to board against.  The shops player boarded out his crucibles and chalices, thinking that they were weak against Abrupt Decay, but in fact those cards are monsters against you on the play.  The RW fish player focused heavily on yard hate after my deathrite shenanigans game 1.  I think this deck has so much flexibility that an unaware opponent is often tilting at the wrong thing.

(2) Conversely, this build sideboards really easy.  It's clear the author put LOTS of time into tuning it.  There was no match where I did not have clear cards to swap out and plenty of space to do it without diluting the deck.  Even more interesting, except for the maindeck Steel Sabotages, not a single card in this deck is dead pre-board.  That's a pretty cool thing.

(3) I really never missed Jace.  Against the two "real" decks, my mana was always under such stress that a Jace would have just stunk up my hand anyway.  Some of that is because I was down the Mox and Lotus, I imagine, but I found that I was never unhappy with the options available to me.  Every card just does WORK.

I think I'll stick with this deck for awhile.  It ended up paying for my entry tonight, which is pretty good in my book.

[msg67183]

 I really like the look of that list, it looks pretty much perfected for what can be in it. Deathrite Shaman is an absolute beating for the metagame, and BoM proved that.

[Smmenen]

That deck's sideboard, as you can tell from the podcast, is one of my favorite things about it.    Snuff Out is freaking awesome. 

[NodFreak]

Awesome podcast!, really enjoyed it

[MaximumCDawg]

That deck's sideboard, as you can tell from the podcast, is one of my favorite things about it.    Snuff Out is freaking awesome. 

Snuff Out is relevant in creature matchups, but what it really is here for is plugging a Lodestone Golem-sized hole in the deck's defenses.  The author realized (rightly) that he should just take the best cards in BUG (Bob, Tiago, Shaman, Decay) and run four of them.  All by itself, that makes the deck very resilient against random rogue decks.  The big vulnerability there is Golem, which Snuff Out answers better than... well, anything I can think of.

[Smmenen]

Yes, the fact that he doesn't run Goyf or feel compelled to run Goyf is one of the most attractive things about the deck. 

As I said in the podcast, Snuff Out is a card I've had my eye on for some time in my Doomsday SB, but I'm pleased to see it being used to combat Golem here. 

[Mr. Type 4]

It sounded like Stephen was Skyping Kevin over a bad connection, with the recording happening on Kevin's end.

Was that Steven Menedian or Steven Hawking talking there? 

Great podcast - It didnt feel like it was three hours long at all.

[brianpk80]

I finally had a chance to listen to the podcast.  I liked it a lot overall, particularly the enthusiastic salesmanship of the format's strengths at the end of the BOM section.  One thing that wasn't great was the cavalier dismissal of the explanation of AEther Vial's problems in the format right now.  The whole point of playing Vial when it was strong was that it produced opening hands that could -reliably- sequence your opening without molestation.  No blue player would Force it because it seems so harmless initially and they wouldn't want to 2-for-1 themselves over a 1 casting cost artifact.  Secondly, Null Rod has been pretty fringe in Shop since the Uba days and you could reliably get your creatures into play irrespective of the predictable Tangle/Waste/Sphere shenanigans they would inevitably play.  It trumped the whole strategy.  There's little reason to play Vial (except perhaps as an offbeat sideboard tactic v. Landstill) when you can't rely on your first turn Vial resolving and doing what it needs to do.  A Vial deck plays less land so if you have to weigh the chances of it functioning whereas that was previously a foregone conclusion, it's going to mulligan too frequently to play at a day long event.   

The second thing about the Vial discussion that was pretty ignorant was the idea of "running your own Missteps" and ways of dealing with a 2/1 artifact creature (presumably a Swords or Bolt).  Newsflash: you can't Vial an instant into play.  If you're playing a substantial concentration utility spells, you're not going to want AEther Vial.  It would be like playing Mishra's Workshop for 12 maindeck artifacts.  This is so obvious that I couldn't believe even Kevin who's generally pretty perceptive and reasonable just continued cackling at the idea that Mental Misstep and Phyrexian Revoker might have something to do with AEther Vial's reliability in today's environment.  The show's credibility took another hit there and that's regrettable because it was an otherwise very good podcast. 

Again, the discussion of Library of Alexandria misses the larger picture because it's confined to this arbitrarily segregated realm of the abstract where the only relevant metric is tournament dominance.  There are other and more important considerations that you routinely neglect.  The facts that responses are available, that adaptations are possible, that it could be held in check (by Lotus -> Magus of the Moon!), and that there are opportunity costs miss the point completely.  No one seriously disputes that.  The problem is it's un-fun, prices more people out of a shrinking format, pretty much no one wants it unrestricted, and no one will experience any benefit from unrestricting it that comes close to offsetting its nuisance factor.  It's as though you are trying to convince a small town to spread nuclear waste on its main street and telling the inhabitants, "but it will be okay, you just have to go to work and do your shopping in a Hazmat suit.  You can adapt."  Instead of doing something horrible and then "adapting" to it, why not just not do something horrible in the first place?  Again, a no brainer. 

Otherwise a good show.  Cheers.   

[Stormanimagus]

I didn't catch the segment about Vial but I 100% agree with Brian. It is never a good idea to put Missteps into a Vial deck to protect Vials. Vials rely on quantity of creatures and if you're going to include non-creature, non-mana cards you better have a really good reason. The main reason I see that Vial has been pushed out of the format is that Cavern of Souls just seems a lot better most of the time and doesn't require you to sacrifice tempo to get it online initially. I'd rather have turn 1 Mox, Cavern, Dude than Turn 1 Vial pretty much every game. Or even just turn 1 Cavern, Noble seems almost better than turn 1 Vial. The format is too driven by early tempo for Vial to be good anymore. When Thirst was the main draw engine years ago one could argue that Vial was fast enough, but that was also before Lodestone Golem, Wurmcoil Engine and friends. Also, BSC wasn't a card back then.

-Storm