April 4, 2016 B&R Announcement
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@Lysandros You missed the point completely.
I'm saying maybe it's time for shop players to learn how to diversify rather than rely on lucky opening hands to steal games. Not like it's dredge, come on.still trolling, just on youtube instead of the mana drain.
youtube.com/bocenterprises -
@Winterstar While running the risk of sounding as cliche as possible...if you quit shops out of fear then the DCI has already won.
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@p3temangus And lo do I see Chalice of the Void. Lo do I see the Lodestone Golem. They bid me take my place among them, In the halls of the artificer! Where the demented shall live for ever!
goes back to tinkering with two-card monte
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@Lysandros I totally understand why you got that vibe from Juggernaut GO's post, but it's definitely not how he intended it. Juggernaut GO is a workshop player for at least as long as I've been playing vintage (over 10 years), he's won at least one TMD open that I can think of, and he's tried more out with the archetype than any other single shops player I know about.
I completely get your sentiment though, there are definitely people out there that match the description you gave.
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Look, there is no two ways about this. Lodestone Golem was the engine of the workshop lists.
Workshops lists win by constricting and limiting the options your opponents can make. You can be have all the lock pieces you want, smokestack, crucible, null rod, Trinisphere, tangle wire, sphere of resistant, thorn of amethyst, etc etc, those cards are great at doing nothing. But none of them are clocks.
Loadstone golem is. It was the broken card in the deck. It was the glue and the reason to play shops to begin with.
They took away 3/4 of the broken opening hands shops has. And even if you draw 1, it's less broken alone because you can't follow up with another one. Meanwhile, no other list in Vintage was harmed.
Let me rephrase, one of the most broken decks in the format is nerfed. It suppressed all the other brokenness in the format. Because MUD no longer has a large enough number of broken opening hands, THERE IS NO REASON TO PLAY IT.
Killing off the deck that stifled brokenness is not how you fix a format, it's how you warp it to a level of misery. Combo summer is upon us, I know when it's over everyone in this forum will be happy.
This will be worse than any format you have ever played in your life, unless you are an old timer like me who helped develope and invent decks back in "Combo Winter", right after Urza's Saga and again after Legacy was released.
It'll remind you of another card game--War. A game predetermined from the start that has no interactions between players. Enjoy!
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All this talk of "combo summer" is fairly amusing. I'm pretty sure you all mean the
"Summer of the Hydra" -
Completely unsurprising move. When the guy promoting the product on your cash cow platform says something, you listen. Happens in other industries too, just the way the world works.
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Restricting Lodestone Golem is a good decision. It decreases luck and adds variety. Mishra's Workshop is still Tier 1.
Think about how many cards became playable today. Every deck, strategy, card, and new set is now more interesting. I am excited!
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All i have to say is the amount of hyperbole and false corollaries in this thread is amazing.
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Are shop pilots going to pick up Kuldotha? or are they going to go harder down the ravager aggro? Shouldn't shops players be working towards finding a good solution instead of bemoaning the loss of 3 slots?
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I thought I'd chime in (and get used to posting on TMD again.
As a longtime Shops player, I am fine with this restriction. I don't like it, but I'm fine with it. Shop players have only ever had their decks "kept in check" by the DCI 3 times, as far as I know. Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void, and Lodestone Golem. We still have a rainbow of shop decks to build.
But for god's sake, don't restrict Mishra's Workshop! -
@Brass-Man Fair enough, my mistake and my apologies.
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@dtomcej I'm no Shops expert, but I would start out trying either Smokestack or Metalworker combo. Smokestack was the de facto best version of Shops before the printing of Lodestone Golem and aggro was considered bad back then.
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I'd like them to print some other relevant card that Shop pilots could use instead of LSG to provide clock and/or help to lock the game out, just not as oppresive as LSG was. It's still mind boggling how could they have not touched Gush or Mentor at the same time. I think it's pretty clear whats next candidate for restriction (I really hope it doesn't snowball into mass restrictions - that would be the end of the format).
I see many people comparing turn 1 LSG to turn 1 Oath, Mox, Orchard, questioning how is this fair that LSG is restricted now while Oath isn't. I see the similarity, but it don't think it's really comparable. Lets discuss this a little bit.
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The engine of Shop decks and what makes it a "pillar" is actually Mishra's Workshop, not LSG. As long as they don't touch Workshop, the deck can recover and continue to perform well. Either with additional cards that get printed, or with some adjustments, possibly going a bit more the prison/lock direction, I'm sure people will figure it out. While it is true that Oath belongs (50/50 maybe?) into the Drain/Blue "pillar", restricting Oath of Druids would straight up kill the whole archetype. So I don't understand how could you ask for the Oath restriction now that LSG is restricted and compare those two cards (rather lines of play).
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There are plenty of ways to answer an Oath (Priest, Claim, Cage, Disenchant, Karakas, Wear/Tear, hexproof cards, etc...), should the deck start to be represented in high numbers, which pretty much never happens since it's so easy to hate out (it helps that Dredge/Oath hate overlaps). It's always someone making the right meta call and winning with Oath, catching people off-guard. Similarly to how Dredge wins tournaments here and there. For LSG, you have basically only passive answers and most of the time, one of those needs to be FoW + blue card. Chances are there is an additional lock piece next turn (and/or Wasteland), which makes almost all your answers unplayable. This is the biggest difference. You can just win through Oath or answer it with cards you play as opposed to decent Shop hand featuring 1st turn LSG with at least 1 additional lock piece or Wasteland effect.
If anything, it's the Griselbrand what makes Oath feel broken. I'd be fine if people compared LSG to Griselbrand, but not to Oath of Druids itself. Not to mention that without Oath, the format would degenerate into just tapping creatures to win (half way there already) and combo, imo.
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@Kira I don't think anyone is arguing that Oath needs to be restricted. The comparison is derived from the comment that a 'turn 1 LSG is unfun to play against'. Turn 1 Oath is just as common (requires a specific land, mox, plus card) and, similarly, 'unfun' if you are on the losing end. Oath is considered an acceptable power level. Based on this decision, LSG is not. That doesn't seem to line up.
I can see @Smmenen 's point from his Q1 data - Workshop was seeing heavy play online. Without a 'guideline', though, for what is termed 'over-representation', it's pretty nebulous. FoW and Mental Misstep both seem pretty obviously 'over-represented' in the current metagame and Gush is seeing about the same level of play as Shops over the last month. If we look at the data more dynamically, it looks like the metagame needs monitoring and more data should be collected, but no change seems 'obvious'.
The worrisome part, in my opinion (and others have said it around the web), the VSL (and certain pros) seems to have influenced the decision (true or not - perception is reality), the decision was not solely made on reliable or even data (paper data shows Shops was not over-represented in Q1), and the comments on why LSG was restricted seem to indicate that if this was not enough to keep Shops 'in check' - they'll continue to restrict the deck. Doesn't that mean that it can't be good without facing further restrictions?
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Here's some data from MTGGoldfish that I've been looking at in researching for this week's article. It certainly looks like Gush and it's pals are the most played cards/decks in the format.
[ link text ]
Top Cards Overall
Card Cost Dominance % of Decks # Played
1 Mental Misstep
67.45% 70.75% 3.8
2 Force of Will
63.68% 64.15% 4.0
3 Grafdigger's Cage
48.58% 66.04% 2.9
4 Gitaxian Probe
33.49% 37.74% 3.6
5 Ingot Chewer
33.25% 36.79% 3.6
6 Preordain
33.25% 39.62% 3.4
7 Gush
28.30% 33.02% 3.4
8 Leyline of the Void
26.18% 26.42% 4.0
9 Flusterstorm
22.88% 64.15% 1.4
10 Mox Sapphire
22.17% 88.68% 1.0
11 Black Lotus
20.75% 83.02% 1.0
12 Thorn of Amethyst
20.75% 20.75% 4.0
13 Nature's Claim
20.28% 25.47% 3.2
14 Lodestone Golem
19.81% 19.81% 4.0
15 Lightning Bolt
19.34% 29.25% 2.6
16 Mox Ruby
19.10% 76.42% 1.0
17 Mox Pearl
17.45% 69.81% 1.0
18 Mox Jet
17.22% 68.87% 1.0
19 Phyrexian Revoker
16.98% 17.92% 3.8
20 Containment Priest
16.98% 26.42% 2.6
21 Ancestral Recall
16.98% 67.92% 1.0
22 Sphere of Resistance
16.04% 19.81% 3.2
23 Time Walk
16.04% 64.15% 1.0
24 Mox Emerald
15.80% 63.21% 1.0
25 Dack Fayden
15.80% 29.25% 2.2
26 Crucible of Worlds
15.57% 30.19% 2.1
27 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
14.86% 29.25% 2.0
28 Brainstorm
14.39% 57.55% 1.0
29 Tangle Wire
14.15% 16.98% 3.3
30 Mana Drain
14.15% 18.87% 3.0
31 Null Rod
13.44% 24.53% 2.2
32 Monastery Mentor
13.44% 17.92% 3.0
33 Leyline of Sanctity
13.44% 14.15% 3.8
34 Sol Ring
13.21% 52.83% 1.0
35 Dig Through Time
13.21% 52.83% 1.0
36 Young Pyromancer
12.74% 15.09% 3.4
37 Cabal Therapy
12.50% 15.09% 3.3
38 Ponder
12.26% 49.06% 1.0
39 Rest in Peace
11.79% 23.58% 2.0
40 Hurkyl's Recall
11.79% 28.30% 1.7
41 Treasure Cruise
11.56% 46.23% 1.0
42 Mana Crypt
10.61% 42.45% 1.0
43 Serum Powder
10.38% 10.38% 4.0
44 Delver of Secrets
10.38% 10.38% 4.0
45 Narcomoeba
10.38% 10.38% 4.0
46 Golgari Grave-Troll
10.38% 10.38% 4.0
47 Duress
10.38% 16.04% 2.6
48 Tormod's Crypt
10.14% 26.42% 1.5
49 Stinkweed Imp
9.67% 10.38% 3.7
50 Bridge from Below
9.67% 10.38% 3.7 -
@DeaTh-ShiNoBi Smokestack seems very slow to battle all the tokens. It might be the best bet for the time being, however. Also, losing CotV really hurts the prison strategy, because people can save their Claims and other cheap answers for the Smokestack. The absence of LSG means there's plenty of time to draw cards and keep the Smokestack off-board.
Workshop, Metalworker, go seems like asking for trouble, too. It has always been like that. I think a replacement needs to be found that has some denial impact. Only body to tap sideways and hope for the best under 1 or 2 Spheres won't cut it I believe.
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I think Vintage players are justified in complaining about this announcement. I am not usually a Workshop player, and I think this was a horrible decision. It is not because "my favorite deck" isn't legal anymore, and it makes you sound dumb if that's your response when people complain about a restriction. Presumably, the people on this forum have been playing Vintage for long enough to remember that there are deeper problems with the way this format is managed.
Format management may not be as interesting to everyone as it is to me, but for people who have been talking to Wizards, reading interviews, and following articles about B/R for 20 years, it is well-known that the DCI doesn't take Eternal formats seriously, and none of the committee members are experienced with playing either of the formats (no matter what promotional youtube channels you may have come across). The decisions are made with no research, no tournament experience, and no consistency. The factors that influence WotC in these decisions are generally bad for the formats, and include embarrassing methods such as obsolete magic theory, irrelevant historical decisions, anecdotal format experience, image concerns, and the echo-chamber of the personal channels that have formed over the years. The process does not rest on anything intelligent, and you should not give it the benefit of the doubt.
The rational response to mismanagement is to complain, or even start your own unsanctioned leagues with better-managed restricted lists. This hobby is not supported by WotC in the first place; it is we the players that make it happen and have kept it alive. I believe the situation with Legacy is more complicated, but Vintage does not need the DCI at all. We find each other. We build our own communities (thanks to Steve and Andy). We fund, promote, run, and judge our own tournaments. We bring ourselves to the tournaments, and we even make our own cards. I also believe that a subset of our players knows better than WotC what is best for the format, and I know for sure that a few of us have better methods of making B/R decisions than they do. Their corporate obligation to the descendant products of Magic: the Gathering creates a centralization that has been more stable than a community authority, but that is the only reason we (and not all of us do!) let them define our format for us. In Vintage, the DCI is a relic that we pay attention to out of habit.
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There is a very real possibility that LSG was banned for aesthetic purposes more so than any other factor. Vintage is now being covered in streams and videos and WOTC wants the format to feel more like the other formats when it comes to that. Because WOTC can make money off of streams for vintage, more so than selling cards they cannot reprint.
Regardless of if LSG was balanced or not, some games against a turn 1 lodestone last 5 turns of one player attacking and casting rocks and another player saying land go. Even if these are perfectly acceptable situations for a balanced vintage for the players that happens an acceptable percentage of the time, they give the perception of turn one wins with no interaction to a viewer.
WOTC does not want to stream games that look both boring and like a blow out, they want games that have both players playing over powered cards at each other on camera that make for good TV. They banned second sunrise in modern for this exact reason.
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Sigh...It's so boring reading comparisons about orchid mox oath or how misstep and FoW see a ton of play so they must go too, even if its tongue and cheek about the BS level of the DCI's reasoning. The cool thing about orchid mox pass is I can abrupt decay, natures claim, disenchant, engineered explosives, cabal therapy away the token right there on my turn without being taxed. If Mental misstep Lava Axe'd my opponent while I was countering their ancestral we can have a conversation.
