@ribby said in [JANUARY 9, 2017 BANNED AND RESTRICTED ANNOUNCEMENT POLL]
Also: I'm sure you're very skilled, but maybe you're overestimating your own skill when you talk about how you're not winning as often now?
I like the passive-aggressive attack on me here. I play magic now maybe 3 times a year, and still ended up with 1 bye at Eternal Weekend by brutalizing people with a Paradoxical Outcome Deck that was drastically different than anyone else's on the weekend. Also, people who watched me play at Eternal Weekend's preliminary event can attest to my ability to play this game. Sometimes you make the right decisions, and they just don't pan out. (Such as my keeping a hand against a known shops opponent that could play through anything but Trinisphere when he had mulled to 6 on the play, but he had it).
Being able to make see the right decisions is a huge factor in this game, but without perfect information, some of the time you can make the right decision, and it ends up being wrong due; the Odds aren't always absolute, sometimes you're favored and still lose due to variance. I chalk this up to 'Vintage Happens'.
Skill in this game doesn't always equate to winning; the real skill is having the ability to play your cards in a way that cuts off your opponents chances to get lucky -OR- play well enough to get themselves into the game. Unfortunately, cards like Gush, Preordain, and Gitaxian Probe give your opponent many more chances to get ahead of you, even if they make mistakes that in theory should bury them:
Examples of this include:
My opponent, on the play, plays Mox Sapphire and Mox Ruby, a Tundra, and Plays Monastery Mentor. I Gitaxian Probe him, and he has Force of Will and 2 Fetchlands and a Dual in hand. I play Sol Ring and Voltaic Key, and set up a turn where I can Paradoxical Outcome for at least 4 on my following turn with Force of Will backup. He draws, plays a Dual, floats 2, plays Gush, plays Probe, Plays Preordain, attacks me for 5 (14 due to fetchland), and passes with Sapphire and Ruby up. On my turn, I go to Paradox, and he has the blue card for Force of Will. Okay, cool, I can force of will back! He should have mulliganed his Mentor + nothing hand, and now I am going to make him pay for it. But oh, his random topdeck into 6 cards means he also found the fucking Flusterstorm. Now I'm stairing down a Mentor, 5 tokens, and an empty hand. On his turn? He draws a Probe and I die.
Another example: I probe my opponent on either my turn 2 or 3, and then my opponent Probes me on his following turn. We both know each other's entire hand, minus the 1 card he probed into (because he drew the probe) He then casts Ancestral. I misstep it with the mistep he knows I have. So he forces, removing a blue card. So I let the force resolve, then mistep the Ancestral AGAIN, and he pyroblasts. He has 1 card in hand (Gush). He knows I have it, so I Mindbreak Trap. Cool donkey, you're left with Gush in hand and stone-nothing, and I have a Paradox in my hand that draws me 4 with my top trigger adding a 5th. Good luck. He gushes, and hits fucking Force + Blue card. Okay, I'm still in this game.
He draws, plays a land, plays preordain, and passes. I go for the Paradox: He has Flusterstorm. I die shortly later when he finds Dig into Cruise + Mentor.
Let me state that I am fine with variance playing a part in the game. Any game where the best player always wins would be boring for everyone... but I hate more than anything when my opponent is clearly a braindead Turtle, but it doesn't matter because they drew Gitaxian Probe so they knew my hand, then they drew their 2nd Gush and Resolved Dack, then sat there with their thumb up their ass because they're just burying me anyway because I didn't happen to draw those cards. It may just be that I don't just follow the lemmings and play Gush decks often anymore myself. Who knows.