October 17, 2017 Banned & Restricted announcement
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@archae said in October 17, 2017 Banned & Restricted announcement:
I agree with @Winterstar here, on most points.
I personally prefer that the restricted list be as pruned as possible, and others may disagree with that alone. However, I still think Workshops does not need restriction currently. I think the larger tension is the notion that the perceived 'best deck' is only 20% or so of the metagame.
This has never been the metric for evaluating restrictions. Rather, % of Top 8s is, not % of the metagame. It's winning that leads to dominance, not mere presence. Shops was 63% of the Top 8, 75% of the Top 4, and 100% of the finals.
The DCI specifically mentioned that Shops 40% of Top 8s in the summer was too high, and that was why Thorn was restricted.
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@winterstar said in October 17, 2017 Banned & Restricted announcement:
@smmenen said in October 17, 2017 Banned & Restricted announcement:
If only such thoughts had been applied to Gush...
This win should be celebrated. But that's not inconsistent with a clear-eyed recognition that Shops are also too good.I couldn't recall if the push for Gush's re-restriction was centered around EW last year or not. If it did, add it to the list.
At this point I'm not convinced that Gush truly needed to go. Gush combined with Mentor was problematic, certainly. But I'm not entirely certain that adding 3 more gush into the current mixture of cards creates an overwhelming advantage to the pyromancer decks. Kaladesh altered the artifact decks and the combo decks in ways that hadn't fully unfolded when Gush went back on the list. Knowing what we have now, I think Gush might have been fine to stay off the list.
But again, I come down on the side of "Restrict as little as possible" when talking B/R.
Of course, I argued that for months, and believe I've been proven right, but it's a little late now...
I seriously doubt that unrestricted Gush would have made much difference in the tournament this past weekend.
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@smmenen I agree. It definitely wouldn't have. What are they gonna do? Gush on T2 and die between T2-4 anyway because they are behind on land drops/can't cast anything? lol
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@smmenen I understand your response, but I am not talking about top8 % when I talk about the metagame. I am also not making claims about the DCI's metric for evaluating restriction.
My personal opinions about restrictions are simply that.
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@archae said in October 17, 2017 Banned & Restricted announcement:
@smmenen I understand your response, but I am not talking about top8 % when I talk about the metagame. I am also not making claims about the DCI's metric for evaluating restriction.
My personal opinions about restrictions are simply that.
But you specifically critiqued the idea that a deck that is "only 20% of the metagame" could be a candidate for restriction.
What if a deck is 70% of the metagame, but 0% of Top 8s? According to % of the field, it appears dominant. But it's actually terrible.
% of the field is a terrible metric for evaluating B&R policy. It only indirectly, at best, includes anything about winning or performance. that's why % of the field isn't a "performance" measure at all.
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@winterstar The concept of "restricting as little as possible" serves no purpose behind it. It's just an arbitrary preference that does not accomplish anything.
If your motto is restricting as little as possible, then restricting mishra's workshop is the correct decision. The alternative is to continue to restrict artifacts from the deck, but that goes against your concept of "restricting as little as possible". So which one is it lol. Everyone knows the deck is overpowered. This whole giving it a free pass really has to stop. I understand why people do it, but that doesn't make it healthy for the format.
I pray every day I can live in a vintage world where I can play something other than islands/bazaars/shops that will have a shot at taking 1st place. I want to play dark ritual/storm, I want to play enlightened tutor/enchantress, I want to play crop rotation, I want to play berserk/poison. It's a shame that mental misstep and the sheer power of shops pushes these decks out of vintage. Restrict mental misstep and nerf shops already. It's long overdue.
Until this happens i'll continue to boycott vintage and not give TOs my money.
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@Smmenen: I agree with you, but overall metagame percentages do matter for success. I was trying to highlight the tension that exists in maindecking mm/reb and thereby sacrificing slots for another matchup.
I never critiqued the idea that a deck that is 20% of the metagame could be a candidate for restriction. I gave my personal opinion about such a possible restriction, and the point was not based on that percentage at all. Correct me if I'm wrong here.
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@bobbyvictory said in October 17, 2017 Banned & Restricted announcement:
Defending the right for an overpowered deck in its current state is probably tiring. I agree. That's because there isn't anything to defends. Every argument gets busted up and then shops players resort to "O i'll quit if they take my toy away". It's a bunch of malarky.
And here is where I disagree. You've said yourself that without Workshop, the deck is clunky as hell due to the mana base not working. Your suggestion is to print a land, or to hit foundry inspector (for the record, I agree on Foundry Inspector being the mana accelerant on legs that turbocharged the Workshop deck).
So restricting Workshop would likely remove the artifcer deck from being tier one (without a replacement land to even out mana production given the usually greater costs involved with playing artifacts as opposed to colored spells etcetera).
It is completely unclear if other decks would rise to tier one or if the existing tier one decks would just eat the metagame share that Worshop decks currently occupies.
So there is a defense of the archetype, and the promotion of viable non-blue based decks inherent in the discussion of Workshop and its fate.
As to whether it is defenseable or not, that depends on what one accepts as evidence.
The largest body of evidence that allowing a card that is greatly powerful continuing to exist in a format would be a quick glance over into Legacy and the curiosity that is Brainstorm.
Brainstorm is an iconic card for the Legacy format. It is also very high powered and completely over-represented. It likely isn't going to be banned because it is considered an intrinsic part of the format.
Workshop decks likely benefit from a variation of this. This is not necessarily a bad thing, it simply is.
Well guess what, I own the cards to play any deck. I've been boycotting vintage since the end of April 2017. I haven't attended a single event since then. I managed to qualify for NYSE and skipped out even though I had a free spot from qualifying. I skipped out on champs. I even prepaid for last months local vintage 1k and skipped out. This format has no diversity anymore and is stale.
I'm sorry you haven't played the format. I honestly think you should have. I've encountered all sorts of fun games and decks, both on and offline. Sure, I also play aainst a lot of netdecks, but that's magic.
Islands/shops/bazaar or bust. I'm bored of that and feel limited in what I can build. Something needs to change.
With the exception of the emergence oof Jacodrazi- that's more or less been the case for the better part of 8 years.
There is one thing I know for sure. Something needs to be done. in the last 6-8 weeks, shops mwp has been 55%-62% factoring in vintage challenges and champs. It used to be 53%-55%. It just keeps going up and up and up.
There is a great deal of debate on deck approaches that might explain some of this.
We need a nerf to workshops and we need a nerf to misstep.
Possibly.
P.S.- Everyone celebrated for the first 48 hours including myself. No one is discrediting any of the players either.
You might have. The facebook group got out the torches and pitchforks during the Top 8.
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I think another big factor to take into consideration is that the metagame is barely 2 months old. Yes, people are going to say that Workshops have dominated for years, but why is that relevant? Before the restriction of Thorn and Mentor, Vintage was, in theory, a completely different beast. This applies to every single restriction.
Let's take this in for a moment. When I started playing Vintage the only changes to the B&R list were unrestrictions that were long overdue, such as Regrowth and Burning Wish. When these happened, hilariously, some in the community heralded the death of Vintage. Now, we've had 8 restrictions in short order.
Treasure Cruise
Dig Through Time, Chalice of the Void
Lodestone Golem
Gush, Gitaxian Probe
Thorn of Amethyst, Monastery MentorAnd now people want to increase that to 10? The above restrictions happened from January of 2015 to now. This is a staggering number of restrictions in less than 3 years.
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@winterstar I firmly believe inspector is the right choice to axe. It makes spheres more 1 sided than they already are. I understand the risk of restrict workshops itself and I do not believe it is worth risking the playerbase + secondary market.
Inspector is bonkers.
Jacodrazi is meh. It was cool and innovative and I give Jaco big props for his originality, but it's just a weaker version of shops. It had one decent run at champs and was very close to top 8ing NYSE. With thorn gone, the deck is dumpstered. The other thing is that the deck just mimicked shops in a way. It has it's own identity, but doesn't because both decks operated the same way. It's weird.
I guess for now i'll continue to sit out of events and pray that the correct changes to the format are made. I've got so much money wrapped up in cardboard it pisses me off. If I had known vintage was this way, i'd have never bought back in 3 years ago. WOTC/DCI, If you can read this, for the love of god make vintage great again. Restrict Misstep and foundry inspector already.
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@bobbyvictory said in October 17, 2017 Banned & Restricted announcement:
@winterstar The concept of "restricting as little as possible" serves no purpose behind it. It's just an arbitrary preference that does not accomplish anything.
It is a reflection of what I see as the philosophy behind Vintage- the format where we get to play with as many of our cards as possible.
If your motto is restricting as little as possible, then restricting mishra's workshop is the correct decision. The alternative is to continue to restrict artifacts from the deck, but that goes against your concept of "restricting as little as possible". So which one is it lol. Everyone knows the deck is overpowered. This whole giving it a free pass really has to stop. I understand why people do it, but that doesn't make it healthy for the format.
That depends entirely on the desired effect. If leaving Worksop unrestricted maintains the existence of a tier one non-blue deck, then it is a case of adding a few more cards to restriction to maintain the viability of an archetype. I can live with that. Also- there will always be a best deck. I'll agree that Worshops is overperforming right now. What I'm not as certain of is if that is a matter of the metagame still adjusting or if the combination of cards in the deck has created an ultra agressive deck that needs adjustment.
I pray every day I can live in a vintage world where I can play something other than islands/bazaars/shops that will have a shot at taking 1st place. I want to play dark ritual/storm, I want to play enlightened tutor/enchantress, I want to play crop rotation, I want to play berserk/poison. It's a shame that mental misstep and the sheer power of shops pushes these decks out of vintage. Restrict mental misstep and nerf shops already. It's long overdue.
Funnily enough, in the wake of the chalice restriction, there was a time where dark petition storm was very, very potent. To the extent that Dark Petition was bandied about as a possible restriction target. Then the turbo xerox engine really crystallized around mentor and storm was sort of set aside. This was, of course, after the printing of misstep.
Which is why I look at your suggested fixes somewhat askance. I'm not sure that misstep nor workshop decks are keeping you from playing any of the decks you mentioned. Which is to say that there is no real evidence to support that if Workshop as a deck is nerfed or if Workshop as a card is restricted that any of those strategies are suddenly going to become viable. Storm has played for years in a world with Mental Misstep.
Until this happens i'll continue to boycott vintage and not give TOs my money.
It can be hard to convey tone in text, but with no sarcasm, is it possible that Legacy might be more along the lines of what you want from a format? You basically said "I want to play Storm/Enchantress/Lands/Infect" which are all viable archetypes in Legacy. Perhaps as opposed to changing Vintage to be more like Legacy you might find more enjoyment in playing a format that is more along the lines of what you seem to enjoy?
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@hrishi said in October 17, 2017 Banned & Restricted announcement:
I think another big factor to take into consideration is that the metagame is barely 2 months old. Yes, people are going to say that Workshops have dominated for years, but why is that relevant? Before the restriction of Thorn and Mentor, Vintage was, in theory, a completely different beast. This applies to every single restriction.
Let's take this in for a moment. When I started playing Vintage the only changes to the B&R list were unrestrictions that were long overdue, such as Regrowth and Burning Wish. When these happened, hilariously, some in the community heralded the death of Vintage. Now, we've had 8 restrictions in short order.
Treasure Cruise
Dig Through Time, Chalice of the Void
Lodestone Golem
Gush, Gitaxian Probe
Thorn of Amethyst, Monastery MentorAnd now people want to increase that to 10? The above restrictions happened from January of 2015 to now. This is a staggering number of restrictions in less than 3 years.
The metagame became smaller after the latest mentor/thorn restriction. It's actually easier now for blue to build than it was before. Blue mages knew what shops players were up to the week right after the restrictions. They knew we just added 3 creatures in the 3 dead thorn slots. The deck didn't operate much differently. They knew what to expect. Players had plenty of experience with it I cmon, how can you blame blue players for improper deck building when shops also dismantled oath no problem?
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@winterstar I think you might have it slightly wrong. Here is the truth. Vintage-The format where you have the largest pool of cards to choose from that has the least diversity of options and choices available to players. Vintage should have the most competitive options as the format has access to every card in the history of mtg aside from banned cards.
Elves used to be a thing in vintage 7-10 years ago. It was playable at one point. Storm was played for years in a world of misstep, and then flusterstorm came out. Blue has plenty of options to deal with decks, why on earth do they need a free counterspell with a negligible drawback. It's imbalanced. It was banned in legacy for a reason and it needs to get restricted in vintage. Blue mages can still use it, just not 4 of them.
Why is it everyone says to go play a different format? Lets open up vintage to more than just bazaar/shop/island. Telling people not to play vintage is stupid. This is the whole problem with vintage and why the growth has stifled the last 3 years. Vintage only attracts players that want to use bazaar/islands/shop. There are plenty of modern/legacy players out in the world that want to play with some of the most powerful cards in magic (moxes/lotus) but choose not to because there isn't a deck that suits their playstyle. Vintage is selling itself short by limiting who it appeals to. Vintage could explode if the right changes are made. P9 would go up in value, your cards would be worth more. There would be an increased demand for tournaments. TOs would make way more money hosting tournaments more frequently and selling more cards due to increased demand. Misstep really makes it impossible for that to happen when it does things like 2 for 1ing a crop rotation for free lol.
Somethings gotta give. As it currently stands, vintage has plateaued as of 2015, the numbers have never been the same, they've only gone down. I firmly believe this is due to lack of diversity within deck options. It's bazaars/islands/shops or bust. Surely people are tired of only playing against this stuff over and over and over. People can afford to play vintage but choose to play modern/legacy instead because they don't identify with any current vintage decks. Spice things up already.
When are we going to open up our eyes collectively as a community to the big picture? Vintage can double in size within 3 years with my proposal. Doesn't everyone want to have more feasible options, make more money and have more events to goto in the long haul? It's win/win all around. Whoever has the most influence with DCI/WOTC needs to make a phone call already and get things done.
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@bobbyvictory said in October 17, 2017 Banned & Restricted announcement:
how can you blame blue players for improper deck building when shops also dismantled oath no problem?
Where in my post did I blame anybody for improper deckbuilding? All I said was the metagame is less than 2 months old and considering restrictions based on results from previous events would be ill-advised.
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@hrishi Sorry I apologize. I guess I was on autopilot there as i've been hearing the "blue players aren't building properly" argument for the last couple days. Again, I apologize.
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@bobbyvictory said in October 17, 2017 Banned & Restricted announcement:
@winterstar I think you might have it slightly wrong. Here is the truth. Vintage-The format where you have the largest pool of cards to choose from that has the least diversity of options and choices available to players. Vintage should have the most competitive options as the format has access to every card in the history of mtg aside from banned cards.
The options are there, but some are more viable than others. The power levels involved will naturally create a bit of a bottleneck around certain strategies.
Elves used to be a thing in vintage 7-10 years ago. It was playable at one point. Storm was played for years in a world of misstep, and then flusterstorm came out. Blue has plenty of options to deal with decks, why on earth do they need a free counterspell with a negligible drawback. It's imbalanced. It was banned in legacy for a reason and it needs to get restricted in vintage. Blue mages can still use it, just not 4 of them.
Flusterstorm was printed the same year as Mental misstep. Refer back to my statements about Dark Petition storm being viewed as overpowered two years ago- both flusterstorm and mental misstep existed and were in play in that timeframe.
I'm not well versed enough in the history of elves in Vintage to comment one way or the other as to when or why it disappeared from the landscape. My only concern with a misstep restriction is the host of discard spells that might be an issue.
Why is it everyone says to go play a different format? Lets open up vintage to more than just bazaar/shop/island. Telling people not to play vintage is stupid.
It is open. Strange decks come and go- like the rector deck that took down a Vintage Challenge in the last three months. But demanding that the format change from its current incarnation to resemble another format is quixotic.
This is the whole problem with vintage and why the growth has stifled the last 3 years. Vintage only attracts players that want to use bazaar/islands/shop. There are plenty of modern/legacy players out in the world that want to play with some of the most powerful cards in magic (moxes/lotus) but choose not to because there isn't a deck that suits their playstyle.
In general, the biggest pushback I hear against Vintage is the cost prohibitive nature and the high amount of variance in the format. Also, magic players say a lot of things, but follow through is a completely different matter.
Vintage is selling itself short by limiting who it appeals to. Vintage could explode if the right changes are made.
Possibly. Or people will say that they will play in the same way that they say they would play Legacy if only for ____.
Misstep really makes it impossible for that to happen when it does things like 2 for 1ing a crop rotation for free lol.
...I somehow don't think that the inability to play Lands is keeping hordes of players from playing Vintage.
Somethings gotta give. As it currently stands, vintage has plateaued as of 2015, the numbers have never been the same, they've only gone down. I firmly believe this is due to lack of diversity within deck options. It's bazaars/islands/shops or bust. Surely people are tired of only playing against this stuff over and over and over. People can afford to play vintage but choose to play modern/legacy instead because they don't identify with any current vintage decks. Spice things up already.
I do miss some of the diversity that has been lost within some of the archaetypes you've mentioned. I miss the Martello/Terra Nova/Stax differentiation. Though admittedly dredge is starting to branch out a bit.
When are we going to open up our eyes collectively as a community to the big picture? Vintage can double in size within 3 years with my proposal. Doesn't everyone want to have more feasible options, make more money and have more events to goto in the long haul? It's win/win all around. Whoever has the most influence with DCI/WOTC needs to make a phone call already and get things done.
I don't agree we are in a place that needs urgent action. I'm not sure what sort of meta environment you are seeking, and I''m not certain that the meta you are seeking will be reached by the methods proposed. I don't think lobbying the DCI for b/r changes is ever a good idea.
...and stuff.
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@bobbyvictory said in October 17, 2017 Banned & Restricted announcement:
I pray every day I can live in a vintage world where I can play something other than islands/bazaars/shops that will have a shot at taking 1st place. I want to play dark ritual/storm, I want to play enlightened tutor/enchantress, I want to play crop rotation, I want to play berserk/poison.
You want to play Legacy. You just don't know it yet it seems.
EDIT: we're saying you should play other formats because what you're proposing is not the way you should manage a format, at all. You are trying to change how a format works because of your own personal bias (you like deck X, dislike deck Y). This is not good policy, this is just you trying to shape the format the way you want it to be.
@bobbyvictory said in October 17, 2017 Banned & Restricted announcement:
Jacodrazi is meh. It was cool and innovative and I give Jaco big props for his originality, but it's just a weaker version of shops. It had one decent run at champs and was very close to top 8ing NYSE. With thorn gone, the deck is dumpstered. The other thing is that the deck just mimicked shops in a way. It has it's own identity, but doesn't because both decks operated the same way. It's weird.
This is a sidenote, and not meant specifically to Bobby. I still can't understand why people call it Jacodrazi and say it's original. I mean, I love the deck and the effort Jaco put into it's translation to Vintage, but it's basically a port from the already existing deck in Modern and Legacy. It's not a brew, it's not an innovation.
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@fsecco
I would instead argue that what he wants is parity. Some people love the what we see in the NBA right now where there is a battle between two teams with the rest being noise. Others prefer the NFL where there are multiple teams in the running. Neither is absolutely right. I personally prefer multiple viable decks. I believe that in Magic, history supports that parity is more important. You rarely find that someone quits because there are too many viable decks. You do see it the other way. Some quit when their favorite card is restricted or banned, but I’d bet that Wizards knows the numbers and these numbers represent a smaller share than those who feel trapped in a meta they dislike.
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@trius I find the meta quite diverse right now. That's what I'm hinting at. It's not Shops vs Oath, at all.
