@chubbyrain Sometimes when a part of the game is not fun it is better to focus on a different part that you enjoy.

I am focusing my attention on deck building right now, so I am enjoying the game. With that said, I am looking the at meta-game in a different way and I want to play different decks.

I think MTGO does offer a lot but for me sometimes going back to paper is just more fun.

Interestingly enough, I did change my PO deck to play in the new meta and it plays very well. I just need a break from MTGO for a while.

Looking at the Challenge results from this weekend, there is only 1 deck with Lavinia in the top8. There are 3 Shops decks.

Is Lavinia making Shops better? There were no Jeskai decks in top 8. Is she cannibalizing the Jeskai decks? Where is BUG and Survival in the meta right now?

@moorebrother1 said in Is anyone enjoying this new meta?:

Looking at the Challenge results from this weekend, there is only 1 deck with Lavinia in the top8. There are 3 Shops decks.

Is Lavinia making Shops better? There were no Jeskai decks in top 8. Is she cannibalizing the Jeskai decks? Where is BUG and Survival in the meta right now?

Because there are 3 decks.

4 Sphere
4 Misstep
4 Outcome

That's why this format is miserable. Even the 'best' Dredge deck is now universally on 4 Misstep.

That's it. 3 decks. Missteps, Spheres and Outcome. This Vintage challenge has like 2 decks in the top 32 that deviate.

There's the occasional person who puts a Glyph Keeper, a Kaya or some other random 1 or 2 of in his Misstep deck and waves the innovator flag but it's the same play pattern. The Glyph Keeper could have been a Phantom Monster in 95% of games. Same for Shops, somebody plays a Triskelion again and acts like he's invented nuclear fission.

Until Misstep goes expect the same, there's just no room left to build a deck after you've added the Blue Stew (tm), 4 Missteps to Misstep the other Blue guys Missteps. Same with the best core Shop cards, Ravager x 4, etc..

@moorebrother1 Isn't jeskai a Lavinia deck by itself now?

Survival is pretty cool, lavinia is good against it, but decks that play lavinia are good matchups for bug survival in general.

@nedleeds

You mean there are two decks: Force of Will decks and Sphere decks.

Edit:
Did the count: 31 out of 32 decks have 4 Forces or 4 Spheres. This is a more complete taxonomy but you don’t use it. Why not? Restricting Force would reduce the deck building burden of including 20+ Blue cards, which is a more significant constraint for “Blue stew”than 3 missteps. I guess you understand that limiting interaction in a broken format is a bad idea. War tournaments aren’t exactly popular.

Instead of railing against the card, you should look at ways of using it to break from the Bazaar, Shops, Force triumvirate that has dominated vintage. Or don’t. Keep arguing that my cindervines jund list is the same as pitch dredge and rug pyromancer because they run 4 missteps. I’m sure the DCI will get a good chuckle at that.

@chubbyrain said in Is anyone enjoying this new meta?:

@nedleeds

You mean there are two decks: Force of Will decks and Sphere decks.

Edit:
Did the count: 31 out of 32 decks have 4 Forces or 4 Spheres. This is a more complete taxonomy but you don’t use it. Why not? Restricting Force would reduce the deck building burden of including 20+ Blue cards, which is a more significant constraint for “Blue stew”than 3 missteps. I guess you understand that limiting interaction in a broken format is a bad idea. War tournaments aren’t exactly popular.

Instead of railing against the card, you should look at ways of using it to break from the Bazaar, Shops, Force triumvirate that has dominated vintage. Or don’t. Keep arguing that my cindervines jund list is the same as pitch dredge and rug pyromancer because they run 4 missteps. I’m sure the DCI will get a good chuckle at that.

Lol, build a fucking Jund deck without Mental Misstep then we'll talk.

Edit: and I don't include Force of Will because nobody ever discards a card from inclusion in a deck during deck building because it gets countered by Force of Will. The scrap heap of decks could have been is littered with shit that gets Misstepped because the deck had no more room after cramming 3.8 of the stupid POS in every non-sphere, non-PO (defense grid) deck in the format.

I've said that a million times. In my opinion Mental Missteps misery starts in the deck building process and continues in the play pattern of whoops I had more.

I will chime in and say that I've not played enough lately to fully know what I think of it, but its been fun.

I really don't know how to make a format people will stop complaining about. It's tiresome to spend years walking in circles on this Misstep debate

I mean, is there even a way that people will stop complaining?Misstep gets restricted and I bet players just migrate to complain about another "aberration".

Seriously, what would be a good Vintage? Blue x Blue shenannigans? Everything Midrange? Rock-papers-scissors Modern? I really don't get it.
Please tell me ONE Vintage format you actually enjoyed and how it had 8 tier 1 decks like people seem to think we ever had.

The year before Khans when Champs was won by Joel Lim on Merfolk and the Top 8 was 2 RUG Delver, Esper Big Blue, 4c Keeper, Dredge, Blue Angels, and Oath. Shops was there, but didn't crack the top 8.

But I really like this format. Control was much better then, aggressive/linear strategies are much more powerful now. Despite getting the reputation for a durdler, I much more prefer having a diversity of archetypes and the ability to explore space in the metagame, which exists despite oversimplifications as a "3 deck format".

@chubbyrain that year was cool. But weren't those time also perceived as a 3 deck era of Shops, Big Blue and Delver?

EDIT: my point being, what were the Tier 1 decks? I remember Merfolk being a surprise since it was a tier 1.5 / 2 deck

@fsecco A lot of Vintage has been defined by a relatively small number of "tier 1" decks since 2002. The main reason for this are the power cards in Vintage. As @nedleeds keeps pointing out Vintage is defined essentially by genres. The point of this thread is to examine the meta and analyze it, but also to get a pulse of how people feel about it.

I am past complaining and I just want to enjoy magic. This meta feels off to me, and I keep thinking about the comments from @The-Atog-Lord at Eternal Weekend 2018 and the article from hipstersofthecoast.com where they interviewed him about the VSL.

I am trying to understand from the community if this is the preferred meta-game for Vintage. It appears that some love it and some hate it. I am trying to find my way here. I was enjoying the meta and then RNA was released and my enjoyment dropped. I am studying the meta-game now and I want to be like @ChubbyRain, I want to have fun and enjoy it. My issue may not be the decks or the cards. I think for me the issue is understanding that Vintage has evolved into digital format and if you want to play competitively where with a large pool of players it is on MTGO. Otherwise, there are about 3 or 4 large-ish events that get over 100 people in the US and a few local events if you are lucky.

@moorebrother1 my point is that there's always people complaining, no matter how the format is. Players feel entitled to a format "they spent to play in". It's everywhere in Magic and in the gaming community. People complain about the game, about transgender Alesha, about black Teferi, women pirates, Misstep, etc. It's all in a similar scope for me. Complaining about something out of your control to unleash frustration about... I have no idea.

Magic has always been like this. Vintage too. Tier 1 dominating decks and tier 1.5/2 decks attacking the meta. Problem is MTGO got the collective mob mentality to Vintage (which was always free from it due to its small size).

Anyway, For me I just want to stop giving a stage to this bull***t. Just enjoy the game and let people be bitter about "Misstep ruining the format" by themselves. Also look for a scenario topic here on TMD that demonstrates clearly how Misstep makes the format way more interactive, slow paced and strategic.

I think Lavinia will prove to be a net negative for the format.

My problem is that it's incredibly polarizing. Not in the sense that it divides opinion or bifurcates the metagame, but in the sense that it makes individual matchups less close with more blow-outs, and thereby polarizes particular matchups.

@smmenen My early impressions of Lavinia are similar. In time I believe it will be compared to Chalice of the Void in terms of how it impacts the game, and the "unfunness" of games where it hangs around for extended periods. Playing alternating rounds of Shops, PO (w/Lavinia), Jeskai Xerox (w/Lavinia), and Dredge can lead to some pretty unfun 5-7 round events depending on draws/mulligans.

I think the format is pretty good from a balance standpoint in terms of deck diversity and construction, but man is it boring to actually play out the games. Seems very rare to have a game, where actual skill, and not just die rolls, opening hands and top decks decide the match.

I could also do without watching outcome players take 10 minutes to play one turn, while I hope the MODO clock burns out on them because they can get away playing 1 win con (Mentor) in their entire 60 card deck.

@chubbyrain

Time to restrict Force of Will. How long must we sit under the oppression of this card? Too long have we had to live in constant fear that no matter what my opponent is playing they can suddenly announce Force + Blue card to deny anyone of my spells.

@vaughnbros said in Is anyone enjoying this new meta?:

@chubbyrain

Time to restrict Force of Will. How long must we sit under the oppression of this card? Too long have we had to live in constant fear that no matter what my opponent is playing they can suddenly announce Force + Blue card to deny anyone of my spells.

Let me know when you choose not to include a card in a new deck (without your own 3.8 Missteps) because it gets countered by Force of Will. Or when you hear a set review riddled with a constant drone of "well this is an interesting card but it does get Force of Willed".

@nedleeds FWIW I have a lot of turn one kill decks I can't play because they auto loose to Force of will.

@nedleeds

I primarily play Dredge because I hate losing to Force of Will so much.

I also put my own Force of Wills in the deck to counter my opponents Force of Wills.