Vintage Super League

[Commandant]

That means I still think it's pretty lame to put a few players on a pedastal and give them a chance to play premiere vintage on mtgo. No one else has that opportunity.

Rich, someone is either in the VSL or just a random FNM guy, but in actuality, many of the most dedicated Vintage players don't even go to FNM. You already know this.

I for example wanted to play last season when Randy announced there would be a spot and I along with many other people were ignored. Not even the slightest acknowledgement.

So its a country club. A tournament for celebrities. Its more based on that than any sort of competitiveness

Lol.

[Space_Stormy]

That means I still think it's pretty lame to put a few players on a pedastal and give them a chance to play premiere vintage on mtgo. No one else has that opportunity.

Rich, someone is either in the VSL or just a random FNM guy, but in actuality, many of the most dedicated Vintage players don't even go to FNM. You already know this.

I for example wanted to play last season when Randy announced there would be a spot and I along with many other people were ignored. Not even the slightest acknowledgement.

So its a country club. A tournament for celebrities. Its more based on that than any sort of competitiveness

I guess it is Randy's fault his friends are mostly HoF players?  I am not sure why you think that being really good at more recent formats makes you bad at Vintage.  Would you even watch a stream of just random players no one has heard of? They got people who already had intrest in the format, e.g. have played in Vintage events many times in the past even though they are/were pro tour regulars.  They have shown a great understanding of the format and I have enjoyed the entire experience greatly.  You act like everyone has just been running Morphlings into each other with no understanding of the format.

[GalacticHitchHiker]

An excellent point was made earlier up that the main purpose of the VSL is to increase interest in Vintage. I can attest to the effectiveness of this strategy as the reason I got into the format was due to interest from watching Season 1 of VSL, so the league has created at least one new paper Vintage player.

[desolutionist]

No it's not anyone's fault. I'm sorry to put some negative vibes out there.  I love to play Vintage. Just not a spectator or a cheerleader. (or a tournament organizer) Somebody has to do it, just won't be me.

[VibeBox]

The videos are still great to watch, but I don't agree that this would be a more healthy open format. I count 4 Delver, 2 Dredge, 2 Belcher and 2 Gush Combo. Not very open,

you're basing that on a very small sample size, but even if not this is actually more diverse than the most played decks in the meta now which basically comes down to "delver, shops, and grixis make up 60% of the field"

especially the Delver mirrors remind me a lot of Legacy and I am missing broken Vintage moves in these kind of games a lot. And as much I hate it to play against Shops: At least they keep in check, that people don't play too greedy manabases. Otherwise we will face a world with more and more cantrips.

which is it? do you want to see "more broken stuff, or "non-greedy mana bases?"
i think without workshop omnipresence you'd just have aggro with 4 waste and some null rods take that roll anyway. you're assuming it's the only thing that can possibly keep that boundary on the format.

"More open format"?! Where people will soon sideboard 3 Electrickery, 3 Slice&Dice, 3 Stifle,  3 Mindbreak Trap, 3 REB (because they already maxed out the Pyroblast in the main).
Sounds healthy to me.

and if mentor pushes delver out of the format half those cards are useless and change will happen.
even if it doesn't thats a terrible sb against decks like doomsday that would become more playable.
even if it results in just two dominant decks instead of 3, more decks would emerge to prey on those two, whereas now they cant because they usually would just lose to shops.
only good things things would come from a world with less workshops stifling the meta

[evouga]

95% of viewers are not vintage fans and primarily know about the "normal" formats. Most don't even know who Rich or Steve are outside of seeing them in the VSL. It's easy to drum up interest if Kai or LSV is playing this format that many people haven't seen outside of VSL.

I think it's fantastic how much exposure the format has gotten via the VSL. I do have to say, though, that it has had a regrettable effect on the quality of conversation in the Twitch feed. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just beginner misconceptions about the format, e.g. "Dredge is a bad deck for bad players where MTGO plays everything for you." But 90% of all posts are utter inanities, like "press 1 if you want Efro to win, 2 if you want his opponent to lose" and spamming "Paul" over and over again for inscrutable reasons.

[diopter]

I think VSL illustrates my long-standing notion that if a metagame is light on shops, degenerate decks (eg Belcher, but Storm could've killed too) show up.

That's fine in small doses but imagine if the possibility of facing turn 1 Golem or Chalice suddenly went to zero. Sounds great in theory, but in practice how many games would you get more than two turns?

Also, the VSL gauntlet this week is far from open. Everyone's either Gushing or trying to beat Gush's fundamental turn with a faster combo. Vintage is definitely more multidimensional than this week's VSL snapshot.

[Minkar]

I think it's fantastic how much exposure the format has gotten via the VSL. I do have to say, though, that it has had a regrettable effect on the quality of conversation in the Twitch feed. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just beginner misconceptions about the format, e.g. "Dredge is a bad deck for bad players where MTGO plays everything for you." But 90% of all posts are utter inanities, like "press 1 if you want Efro to win, 2 if you want his opponent to lose" and spamming "Paul" over and over again for inscrutable reasons.

This seems extremely mild and tame for Twitch chat...

[VibeBox]

I think VSL illustrates my long-standing notion that if a metagame is light on shops, degenerate decks (eg Belcher, but Storm could've killed too) show up.

the accepted definition of degenerate is real narrow imo
shops is degenerate and will only keep getting new toys set after set.

That's fine in small doses but imagine if the possibility of facing turn 1 Golem or Chalice suddenly went to zero. Sounds great in theory, but in practice how many games would you get more than two turns?

since a lot of new tools would become more realistic to use in a world without having to worry about absurd shops density, i'd guess "about the same"

Also, the VSL gauntlet this week is far from open. Everyone's either Gushing or trying to beat Gush's fundamental turn with a faster combo. Vintage is definitely more multidimensional than this week's VSL snapshot.

as i already said, this is a small sample size and we're gonna see a lot of changes next week however:

even if it's not this is actually more diverse than the most played decks in the meta now which basically comes down to "delver, shops, and grixis make up 60% of the field"

[JarofFortune]

shops is degenerate and will only keep getting new toys set after set.

The last set where shops got a playable card was what, dark ascension with cage? Thats been three blocks with no new toys for them, whereas blue has been getting tons of stuff since then.

[GalacticHitchHiker]

Cage can't really be called a Shops toy in my opinion, since every deck in the format plays it almost. The last set that really generated new cards for the deck was New Phyrexia, with Phyrexian Metamorph and Slash Panther. Fourish years seems like plenty of time since Shops got a new tool.

[Varal]

shops is degenerate and will only keep getting new toys set after set.

The last set where shops got a playable card was what, dark ascension with cage? Thats been three blocks with no new toys for them, whereas blue has been getting tons of stuff since then.

Coercive Portal, Cavern of Souls?

[Space_Stormy]

Cage can't really be called a Shops toy in my opinion, since ever deck in the format plays it almost. The last set that really generated new cards for the deck was New Phyrexia, with Phyrexian Metamorph and Slash Panther. Fourish years seems like plenty of time since Shops got a new tool.

Agree on Cage, so many decks pack them to fight Oath, Dredge and Tinker.  I've seen Coercive Portal  get some play as a one sided Howling Mine and I still think that Ugin's Nexus has potential but unsure where its place is.

[diopter]

Well, all I can say is I like getting turns and I like not playing just blue mirrors match after match. It's basically stone fact that Shops is what enables the above in Vintage.

As far as the VSL goes, what I find interesting is to see guys like Pikula and LSV - ie high profile players that actually know Vintage and do well, instead of embarrassing themselves or drawing favourable matchups - and their insight on certain Vintage fundamentals. Like, they were all in on Cruise while a large section of the community thought a reasonable facsimile of Ancestral wasn't a problem; and now they're giving us a terrifying vision into an alternate reality where it's ok to run turn 1/2 kill decks when you know nobody's running Shops to stop you.

[Stormanimagus]

Well, all I can say is I like getting turns and I like not playing just blue mirrors match after match. It's basically stone fact that Shops is what enables the above in Vintage.

As far as the VSL goes, what I find interesting is to see guys like Pikula and LSV - ie high profile players that actually know Vintage and do well, instead of embarrassing themselves or drawing favourable matchups - and their insight on certain Vintage fundamentals. Like, they were all in on Cruise while a large section of the community thought it was ok to run a reasonable facsimile of Ancestral; and now they're giving us a terrifying vision into an alternate reality where it's ok to run turn 1/2 kill decks when you know nobody's running Shops to stop you.

The choices of deck in the VSL are absurd and boring. Half the players being on this ridiculous belcher concoction that is really ONLY good vs. slower tempo blue decks and then the other Half of the players being in URx Delver is just bad deck choice IMO (even with Mentor not being allowed yet). Decks that really REALLY should be represented highly but are not currently.

1. Shops. -- Seriously, WTF guys! C'mon Kai! you're a pro. Make it happen in the next round .
2. Oath -- Pretty good game vs. little red men I hear.
3. Tasigur Bomberman Gifts -- This deck is utterly insane and when Tasigur becomes legal I want to see more of it across the VSL.
4. Mentor Gifts/ Mentor Remora Gush, Mentor TPS -- These lists are also quite good and much better at being fast and resilient than Blue Belcher.

Guys, I get it. You want to have fun and playing a cool throwback deck like Belcher is fun. You also need to remember that you are ambassadors of Vintage to the general magic community and if the prospective players out there try to just copy the VSL deck lists that are clearly sketchy then you're doing a disservice to the format. When some poor sap starts piloting Belcher without knowing that shops is a deck and just gets blown out by it at a tournament that player is probably gonna quit Vintage never to return.

Please, for the love of god, SHOOOOW all the decks that are top tier in Vintage and balance out the field. Diversity is nice and we all wanna see the top decks go toe to toe with each other.

Coverage is great, commentary is great, diversity isn't there yet. That's my 2 cents on the matter.



-Storm

P.S - you guys could also try my GWB Human Knight list. It is actually pretty broken vs. broken decks and even really REALLY good vs. Delver. I hardly ever lose to Delver with that deck.

[Hrishi]

Something I did notice was a little bit of an issue with diversity in the VSL was that sometimes people in the VSL tested together and end up running the same deck with a few cards different. While I totally understand the reasoning behind this, if a single other person also chooses to run this deck, we're suddenly looking at 30% of the field being a single deck for that trimester.

You can see it this time, with 4 Delver decks, thus making up 40% of the field. Not like there's anything one can do about it, but this is something that makes diversity appear to be lesser than it really is.

Also HUGE props to Bob for his deck. I absolutely loved watching it in action.

[diopter]

Storm: yes, agreed, see earlier points?

VSL doesn't showcase the full depth of Vintage, at all, my only comment was that we can still learn things (like how Treasure Cruise was in fact insane [though how anyone didn't see that is a mystery] and what kind of abominations show up when people think Shops won't show up).

[evouga]

Something I did notice was a little bit of an issue with diversity in the VSL was that sometimes people in the VSL tested together and end up running the same deck with a few cards different. While I totally understand the reasoning behind this, if a single other person also chooses to run this deck, we're suddenly looking at 30% of the field being a single deck for that trimester.

You can see it this time, with 4 Delver decks, thus making up 40% of the field. Not like there's anything one can do about it, but this is something that makes diversity appear to be lesser than it really is.

Also HUGE props to Bob for his deck. I absolutely loved watching it in action.

Do you really think the numbers would have been 40% without team testing?

Delver is the deck to beat at the moment. I certainly expected it to show up in large numbers.

[JACO]

The pros are playing what they think they will enjoy playing, as well as metagaming against their 3 scheduled opponents. That surely influences deck choices heavily. They're not going to just select some random GBW Humans list to try it out in a competition. They can stream random deck testing on their own, outside of the confines of the VSL, which is a round robin tournament, with pride and prize on the line.

The choices of deck in the VSL are absurd and boring. Half the players being on this ridiculous belcher concoction that is really ONLY good vs. slower tempo blue decks and then the other Half of the players being in URx Delver is just bad deck choice IMO (even with Mentor not being allowed yet). Decks that really REALLY should be represented highly but are not currently.

So you think the Belcher deck that can reliably beat URx Delver (packed with more countermagic than most decks) is not a good deck, and is likely to do worse against other slower decks that have less permission? The deck burned through VSL and the MTGO Holiday Tournament where it T4'ed. It is legit. 

1. Shops. -- Seriously, WTF guys! C'mon Kai! you're a pro. Make it happen in the next round .

I'm not sure why people think Workshops will be a great choice for VSL, when half the field every 3 weeks is running 4 Ingot Chewer, plus some combination of Dack Fayden + Ancient Grudge and/or Pulverize. It would certainly be nice to see for variety, but I'm not convinced it would be a great choice if you actually want to 3-0 your pod. Yes you will win when on the play against a deck like Belcher, but when you're on the draw 2 of the 3 games in a match against Belcher? You can probably write that off as another loss, unless you're packing 4 Null Rods to really give yourself a shot.

3. Tasigur Bomberman Gifts -- This deck is utterly insane and when Tasigur becomes legal I want to see more of it across the VSL.

Have you ever tried to execute Bomberman combo loops on MTGO? It's nearly impossible time-wise, which is why you don't see Bomberman on MTGO at all, and aren't ever likely to. People don't just scoop to you when the chess clock is a real thing. This is of course aside from the fact that Tasigur and Mentor are not legal these first 3 rounds (because Fate Reforged had not yet been released on MTGO).

4. Mentor Gifts/ Mentor Remora Gush, Mentor TPS -- These lists are also quite good and much better at being fast and resilient than Blue Belcher.

These decks are all multiple turns slower than Belcher (which is a significant reason why Belcher was well positioned to begin with), and happen to all run Mentor, which once again was not legal these first 3 rounds (because Fate Reforged had not yet been released on MTGO). I'd wager we are likely to see a good amount of Mentor in the next round in a couple of different flavors.

Predictions for what people will play for Season 2 Rounds 4-6? Here's what I'll predict (by Standings):
Eric Froehlich (R4 vs. Budde, R5 vs. Pikula, R6 vs. Shay) - Gifts variant
Chris Pikula (R4 vs. Buehler, R5 vs. Froehlich, R6 vs. Budde) - Landstill UR or URW
Steve Menendian (R4 vs. Scott-Vargas, R5 vs. Buehler, R6 vs. Martell) - MeanDeck Gifts 2015
Randy Buehler (R4 vs. Pikula, R5 vs. Menendian, R6 vs. Maher) - Gifts variant, either MeanDeck Gifts 2015 or Jamie Cano's Burning Gifts 2015
Luis Scott-Vargas (R4 vs. Menendian, R5 vs. Maher, R6 vs. Williams) - Gifts variant
Bob Maher (R4 vs. Shay, R5 vs. Scott-Vargas, R6 vs. Buehler) - Esper Confidant Mentor
Rich Shay (R4 vs. Maher, R5 vs. Martell, R6 vs. Froehlich) - URW Mentor
David Williams (R4 vs. Martell, R5 vs. Budde, R6 vs. Scott-Vargas) - Forgemaster Workshops
Kai Budde (R4 vs. Froehlich, R5 vs. Williams, R6 vs. Pikula) - URW Mentor
Tom Martell (R4 vs. Williams, R5 vs. Shay, R6 vs. Menendian) - Oath

[desolutionist]

So you think the Belcher deck that can reliably beat URx Delver (packed with more countermagic than most decks) is not a good deck, and is likely to do worse against other slower decks that have less permission? The deck burned through VSL and the MTGO Holiday Tournament where it T4'ed. It is legit.

It would first appear as though the Delver deck is packed with counters but in reality it isn't.  Mental Misstep and Flusterstorm are countermagic derivitives that aren't very good at countering the cards that Belcher is playing.  Gush decks can easily beat Belcher decks with different cards.  Gifts decks, with the right cards can reliably beat Belcher too.  Mana Drain trades very nicely with a Belcher.

[GalacticHitchHiker]

The problem with Mana Drain against the Belcher deck is that if Belcher is operating optimally, you won't get a chance to cast it. Having tested the deck online a bit, it casts Belcher T1 fairly consistently, if not activates it that same turn. For Mana Drain to actually trade with a Belcher, the Belcher player has to both stumble, and be on the draw.

[desolutionist]

Are you saying the Belcher deck has turn 1 win with counter backup every other game? Or every game?

[mueller]

to be fair, Pikula has consistently made some very good metagame deck choices.

[Prospero]

Are you saying the Belcher deck has turn 1 win with counter backup every other game? Or every game?

Come on Shawn, that's clearly not what he's saying. 

He has a valid point; if the natural predators of decks like Blue Belcher aren't going to be in a given field, there's little that's going to stop it from goldfishing against whatever is being played.  The Blue Belcher vs. U/R Delver match seems comically in favor of the Blue Belcher pilot.

Also, are you arguing that Mana Drain is a good card against a deck like that?  If you're on the draw, he's usually going to have two turns where your protection from him is Force of Will, not Mana Drain.  With all the fast mana that he has, a counter that costs double blue probably isn't optimal.  Think about it; in that match, would you prefer Mana Drain or Mindbreak Trap?

Let's stop erecting straw men to beat the hell out of and try and find some common ground.

[desolutionist]

Yes I'm arguing that Mana Drain is a great card against Belcher.

Point A: Mana Drain decks have acceleration too. Not the same as Belcher but I feel the chances of a blue deck being able to open with UU is decent enough.

Point B: Generally the Mana Drain deck is going to have some supplement disruption that he can play for zero or one mana.  In addition to Force of Will, any sort of turn 1 Thoughtseize could cripple the Belcher deck for a turn, setting up Mana Drain.

Opposite the role of Mental Misstep, Mana Drain works as the closer.  It makes it so Belcher has to be all in turn one.

[vaughnbros]

Drain is not able to stop any turn 1 shenanigans at all.

I feel the chances of a blue deck being able to open with UU is decent enough.

There is no need to feel anything we can compute the probability.  In most blue decks, with sapphire and lotus, its 20% in those that also include lotus petal its 30%.  Not too great of odds considering the overlap with 4 drain comes out to 8%, and 12% respectively.

Point B: Generally the Mana Drain deck is going to have some supplement disruption that he can play for zero or one mana.  In addition to Force of Will, any sort of turn 1 Thoughtseize could cripple the Belcher deck for a turn, setting up Mana Drain.

This is kind of the problem.  These decks are reliant on another disruption piece to buy them time to use their drains.  Mental Misstep is one of these such cards.  Its probably not going to win you the game, but it can certainly slow them down a turn or two.

The simple fact is that shops is the only natural predator to these belcher decks.  They have to win the die roll (or have a force/leyline) and go off turn 1.  That match up is comically bad for them.

VSL will always struggle to be indicative of a true vintage metagame due to how it is structured.  You are basically only playing 3 matches with each deck list, and you can usually narrow down what each person is playing down to a couple of archetypes.  This allows players to have a very good picture of exactly what decks he will be facing that week.

[desolutionist]

12% is fine. You could also factor Tolarian Academy.  But lets just say 10% of the time, Drain is a turn 1 counterspell.  The fact that getting to Mana Drain can somewhat be reliant on other cards is totally fine. Why would that be a problem?  Thats why I asked the question to begin with: Is the Belcher player winning turn one with FoW backup every game?  If so, is the blue deck also firing on all cylinders?

[diophan]

Not to muddy the discussion too much, but are you using conditional probability to calculate those? Without counting academy as a UU source, assuming no petal, and 4 drain (even though there aren't very many 4 drain decks) I get around 5% probability of drain up on turn 1. I'm assuming 14 land that produce or fetch blue.

I don't think it's crazy to rather have missteps for their map and many other one mana spells, since otherwise they need to god draw/have more missteps than you. Otherwise, you actually get a turn.

[jcb193]

VSL will always struggle to be indicative of a true vintage metagame due to how it is structured.  You are basically only playing 3 matches with each deck list, and you can usually narrow down what each person is playing down to a couple of archetypes.  This allows players to have a very good picture of exactly what decks he will be facing that week.

Exactly.  Belcher (or doomsday) is fun to watch, or even pilot, and can certainly steal games in a normal online tournament when nobody knows what is coming until it's too late, but I can't remember the last time I saw it at a top table.  For VSL, Belcher is perfect (and I'm excited to see some different decks), but for your average east coast gauntlet, can you really expect to dodge shops all day?

[VibeBox]

The simple fact is that shops is the only natural predator to these belcher decks.  

people keep making this same faulty assumption about shops
"shops is THE ONLY thing saving us from [insert disliked thing]"
it appears that way because shops pushes all other decks trying to fill similar meta niches out of serious consideration.
so instead of multiple decks with different angles of attack on the top/fastest deck, creating varying pressures on the decks that want to remain/move up to the top tier (aka a healthy environment) we are stuck with one deck so good at shutting down so many strategies that it warps the format around it.