[Free Podcast] So Many Insane Plays Podcast Episode 46: Champs Preview

[ajfirecracker]

Nice podcast as usual guys. I'm loving these sequence of podcasts released next to each other <3

I have an almost off-topic question, though: Steve mentions an article in a website I haven't heard of before. "vintage<something>.com". What is it?

Pretty sure it's http://www.vintagemagic.com/

I know he did a tournament report with them a while back

[MtgVector]

Thanks for your perspective, MtgVector.

Regarding Kevin's point of 'normalizing' Montolio's results: I don't understand why his results warrant normalization, he just so happens to be a very proficient player; on the contrary, the fact that he has consistently done so well speaks of not only his personal skills, but also of the power of the deck to overcome the inherent variance within the game.

I don't mean to invalidate Motolio's performance in any way, but simply to evaluate decks moreso than players.  The presence of a single player representing such a significant portion of the results suggests that the results may be biased and lead to an overrepresentation of the achetypes that player primarily succeeds with.  Consider it similar to using median rather than average.  The median players might more accurately represent the meta than the average, which is top-weighted by one individual.  For any single event, there is only one copy of Montolio, so he can't be ~50% of the meta   (EDIT: OTOH, if your plan is to WIN the event in question, there may be a ~50% chance that you'll face Montolio, so....)

The point that I was trying to make was that should you remove Montolio's results and replace them with something, I would think that Workshops will still be taking up most of those spots; but this is hard to support. Trying to put this into in analogy: say two players each toss a coin 100 times, the first roughly gets 50/50 tails/heads while the second is roughly 70/30; then rather than trying to normalize the second player because the expected outcome should have been 50/50, I would rather look into how fair the second coin is.

On your point about magic online player's immaturity or lack of experience recognizing viable lines of play: I thought this point was absolutely spot on and I think a lot of it has to do with how quickly one can switch decks based solely on the mainboard. There's a world of difference understanding how a main deck works vs. a side board, with the former being quite intuitive and largely self-contained; while the latter is very metagame-dependant. I know this is purely anecdotal, but I have had numerous games in which my opponent would sideboard in dubious answers and, likewise I would have trouble figuring out which of the sideboard cards come in and which of the mainboard ones come out. It also took me a while to understand Tangle Wire, and many times I would not destroy it since "it was going to be sacrificed anyways".

 

[CHA1N5]

The point that I was trying to make was that should you remove Montolio's results and replace them with something, I would think that Workshops will still be taking up most of those spots; but this is hard to support.

Definitely, I said as much during the show. Shops would still be in first, but the gap would be much smaller.

On your point about magic online player's immaturity or lack of experience recognizing viable lines of play: I thought this point was absolutely spot on and I think a lot of it has to do with how quickly one can switch decks based solely on the mainboard. There's a world of difference understanding how a main deck works vs. a side board, with the former being quite intuitive and largely self-contained; while the latter is very metagame-dependant. I know this is purely anecdotal, but I have had numerous games in which my opponent would sideboard in dubious answers and, likewise I would have trouble figuring out which of the sideboard cards come in and which of the mainboard ones come out. It also took me a while to understand Tangle Wire, and many times I would not destroy it since "it was going to be sacrificed anyways".

Interesting.  I don't think this is a silver bullet explanation, but a contributing factor.

[vaughnbros]

I enjoyed this podcast on a long car ride.

On dredge: Just some small semantics...The dark depths decks that were attributed to Tom were actually by Adam Pierce.  Tom played a version with mayor and wastelands once that I had previously won with.  He's now on a build featuring Life from the Loam.  The mindbreak traps in my build were cut for Gitaxian probe, which has substantially more synergy with the rest of the deck.  It plays well with the dredge mechanic and therapies game 1 then game 2 it works to figure out which of the three pronged attack will work best.  Along with drawing the last card for lab man and again comboing with Therapy. 

On deck classification:  Its nice to hear dredge, and blue decks broken out into all of the micro archetypes, but it would be nice to hear the same for shops.  The comment was made are you going to prepare differently for one shops deck over another?  And the answer is emphatically yes.  Dack for instance is best against Forgemaster and not that great against Terranova or Frobots, likewise with other socery speed spells.  However, forgemaster also deals much better with large threats as his ability to tutor a wurmcoil/titan/hellkite/duplicant can beat pretty much everything out there.  He also makes hurkyl's worse as you can't justifiably allow a forgemaster to untap.

[fsecco]

Nice podcast as usual guys. I'm loving these sequence of podcasts released next to each other <3

I have an almost off-topic question, though: Steve mentions an article in a website I haven't heard of before. "vintage<something>.com". What is it?

Pretty sure it's http://www.vintagemagic.com/

I know he did a tournament report with them a while back

Thanks, that was it!


On Dredge, I forgot to say: you guys were talking like these innovations were brand new, but transformational/pitch counter Dredge has been seeing play for least 1 year (either with Depths or Divining Witch). There are topics here on the Drain on these variants (normally called Dr. Edge because of Lab Maniac).

[ajfirecracker]

The mindbreak traps in my build were cut for Gitaxian probe, which has substantially more synergy with the rest of the deck.  It plays well with the dredge mechanic and therapies game 1 then game 2 it works to figure out which of the three pronged attack will work best.  Along with drawing the last card for lab man and again comboing with Therapy. 

Yeah, Gitaxian Probe is highly synergistic with the deck. If Mindbreak were restricted I would try 3 Probe 1 Mindbreak on Day 1 of that new format.

Kevin and Steve mentioned at some point in the podcast that part of what held Dredge back in the past was that other decks can just win some percentage of the time with Tinker or Time Vault or whatever. Mindbreak helps fight that, as it's a lot harder to race while respecting the 2-spell-per-turn speed limit. A mix might be best to put some fear into them but still have the speed of Probe.

[Islandswamp]

On the topic of Grixis Therapy, I have liked that deck since I first saw it some momths ago.
Several weeks ago, I built a similar Grixis Delver list and wrote about it. Then the VSL version did well, so I decided to try it. I stuck with the deck simply because I did well with it. There's also not much Oath online at the moment, so it doesn't feel as important to have access to enchantment removal.

You guys mention how running main deck artifact removal is a liability, and I agree. Rich Shay was brave enough to try a card I had been thinking about, K Command. It does cost three, but I have never had it be bad. The worst case scenario is usually a three mana 2 for 1. Best case is like "shatter your golem, shock your revoker".

There's one player who regularly plays Oath online right now, most of the other Oath players are not winning or showing up to the tournament.
Even Alexandrino hasn't been playing because he dislikes the play points and 3 round daily event, he usually does pretty well with his Oath deck as it's the only thing he ever plays.

[Bluediamonds]

There is also a cost barrier for more oath being played with Griselbrand costing more than paper compared to what one would need for any other blue decks

[vaughnbros]

The mindbreak traps in my build were cut for Gitaxian probe, which has substantially more synergy with the rest of the deck.  It plays well with the dredge mechanic and therapies game 1 then game 2 it works to figure out which of the three pronged attack will work best.  Along with drawing the last card for lab man and again comboing with Therapy. 

Yeah, Gitaxian Probe is highly synergistic with the deck. If Mindbreak were restricted I would try 3 Probe 1 Mindbreak on Day 1 of that new format.

Kevin and Steve mentioned at some point in the podcast that part of what held Dredge back in the past was that other decks can just win some percentage of the time with Tinker or Time Vault or whatever. Mindbreak helps fight that, as it's a lot harder to race while respecting the 2-spell-per-turn speed limit. A mix might be best to put some fear into them but still have the speed of Probe.

The problem is mindbreak trap is awful games 2/3 whereas Gitaxian probe is still an amazing card.   Guaranteeing hits with therapy and providing an additional dredge game 1 helps make up for some of the protection that Mindbreak trap provides.  The only time I would even consider trap again is if shops were somehow knocked out of the format (and thus there was a lot of storm).

[nedleeds]

Aren't the dailies barely firing anymore? If there are 10-12 people playing globally I don't put much more stock in MTGO than 12 buddies playing Vintage at their local.

[ajfirecracker]

The problem is mindbreak trap is awful games 2/3 whereas Gitaxian probe is still an amazing card.   Guaranteeing hits with therapy and providing an additional dredge game 1 helps make up for some of the protection that Mindbreak trap provides.  The only time I would even consider trap again is if shops were somehow knocked out of the format (and thus there was a lot of storm).

Maybe I'm getting more blind hits? It's pretty rare that I lose due to missing with my first Therapy, and usually involves multiple restricted cards.

Probe is also quite weak vs Shops - if we sideboard both cards out G2/G3 then it doesn't matter which is stronger post-board, we're not playing either.

Mindbreak Trap is strong in post board games against normal blue decks. You sometimes see blue decks run it as an anti-blue tactic similar to Flusterstorm. For example, it often works as a second counterspell. If your opponent goes Mox->Spell, and you Misstep or Force, they can't protect it without turning on Trap. (The same goes for cantrip->spell, Gush->spell, etc) This is probably the most important mode of the card post-board, achieving stack dominance vs blue decks.

The place I wish I had Probe is when I'm up against an opponent with Fire/Ice and Jace and Swords to Plowshares. Anytime I face multiple differently-named outs to Marit Lage, Probe looks a lot more attractive.

[Loukayza]

Aren't the dailies barely firing anymore? If there are 10-12 people playing globally I don't put much more stock in MTGO than 12 buddies playing Vintage at their local.

They aren't caught up, but it looks like they are firing every day per the below link:

http://mtgtop8.com/format?f=VI

[Islandswamp]

Aren't the dailies barely firing anymore? If there are 10-12 people playing globally I don't put much more stock in MTGO than 12 buddies playing Vintage at their local.

The events have been drawing more players recently, oddly enough. Likely this is due to an influx of players from the price of power plummeting.

I've noticed the skill level of the opponents I face is dropping, but I think that people should realize that there are some really good players on MTGO. I've faced pro players and HOF members. Also, the fact that people can find a live opponent to play against 24 hours a day, 7 days a week means that people sometimes gain a lot of skill quickly.

Obviously put as much stock into the results as you feel is appropriate, but it isn't true that the players aren't any good.

As far as what decks are online showing up in paper, that's a tougher thing to figure out. I could build a deck tonight and sell it for another deck by tomorrow morning, but if I was able to afford the cards for Vintage Champs, I'd have to play whatever the cheapest possible deck would be.

I think Montolio said he was going to Champs. I'd love to see him do good.

[vaughnbros]

Maybe I'm getting more blind hits? It's pretty rare that I lose due to missing with my first Therapy, and usually involves multiple restricted cards.

And its common to lose to the 3rd spell cast in 1 turn?  Mindbreak trap does nothing to stop Oath and does nothing to stop wasteland, which are probably the two most common ways of losing game 1.  This isn't to say that probe does anything to stop them either, but it does a much better job handling "multiple restricted cards" as it informs you as to what you need to probe. 

Probe is also quite weak vs Shops - if we sideboard both cards out G2/G3 then it doesn't matter which is stronger post-board, we're not playing either.

Idk about that.  In order to satisfy your blue count for force of will you have to keep in your all your blue cards.  On the play probe is great card to see what your shops opponent is about to do.  I'd also much rather have probe than mindbreak trap in that MU as mindbreak trap is completely useless after turn 1 (and sometimes not even good turn 1 if they drop a sphere/thorn first).  Probe at the very least can be cycled.

Mindbreak Trap is strong in post board games against normal blue decks. You sometimes see blue decks run it as an anti-blue tactic similar to Flusterstorm. For example, it often works as a second counterspell. If your opponent goes Mox->Spell, and you Misstep or Force, they can't protect it without turning on Trap. (The same goes for cantrip->spell, Gush->spell, etc) This is probably the most important mode of the card post-board, achieving stack dominance vs blue decks.

Are we really sitting there waiting to get into a counter war?  Bazaar wants to be cycling and improving our hand.  Having dead weights, like Force+Blue card or Mindbreak trap waiting for them to do something is not usually a good position to be in.

The place I wish I had Probe is when I'm up against an opponent with Fire/Ice and Jace and Swords to Plowshares. Anytime I face multiple differently-named outs to Marit Lage, Probe looks a lot more attractive.

This is exactly the point on why probe is so good.  You can see what outs your opponent has to your plans and you can get a better idea on how to approach it.

[ajfirecracker]

I've tried both and found Mindbreak more effective, even in the Workshop heavy meta online. Give it a shot if you haven't already. If you have, I'm perfectly happy to chalk it up to other differences in the meta / our lists / our playstyles.

One thing I was thinking about while driving today was that all the top decks online are Phyrexian Revoker or Cabal Therapy decks, which get stronger with no "outside assistance" rule.