Author of Understanding Gush
I have never played Pioneer and likely never will, so I can't say whether it's fun or not. But I had a rule of thumb long ago that I only play formats with Dark Ritual in them. Those formats are just more fun to me.
@grandpabelcher said in [Article] Information Cascades in Magic:
@tittliewinks22 said in [Article] Information Cascades in Magic:
If the game is so bad why play it?
There have been a number of people through the years where I've wondered why they play Vintage instead of another format, or even Magic instead of another game. I think some people actually enjoy complaining.
This might be the funniest thing I've ever heard you say.
I think people are chasing some feeling or experience they had at some point. Vintage offers some pretty potent experiences. The problem is that everyone has a different conception of what that experience is or should be.
@vaughnbros said in [ELD] Deafening Silence:
I’m not solely a dredge pilot. I play every deck in the format.
I don't think I've ever seen a your name in top 8 that wasn't on a Bazaar deck.
You will play that maindeck card in your opening 60 in 100% of matches.
You will play that exclusive Dredge hate card in your game 2/3 in ~5% of matches.
The main deck card choice is in your deck ~10-20 times as frequently played as that hate card.
This isn’t that hard, but you seem to want to make it so.
Your math here is super misleading, and it reveals two key flaws in your reasoning.
To begin, Frequency of Use (that is, number of times a card is played per tournament) is not the same thing as Significance or Importance. DPS players will cast Dark Rituals many more times than they will cast Yawgmoth's Will or Necropotence or Tendrils of Agony (or nearly equivalent finisher), but those cards are just as strategically significant.
Moreover, if a player plays with 4 "Random Card X" in their sideboard, but a 1 "Random Card Y" in the maindeck, like a Brian Kelly Peek or Sorcerous Spyglass, for example, although the 1 "Random Card Y" may technically be played more (meaning, actually cast) during the course of a tournament, but the 4-of "Random Card X" may actually be far more important in determining whether the pilot makes Top 8.
Thus, again, frequency of use (rather than appearances) is not the same thing as importance or significance, where importance and significance is how and where a card helps a player win matches or games.
But aside from how you are conflating 'frequency' of use in a tournament with strategic importance in a tournament (they are not even close to the same thing), there is an even more fundamental problem, and it's your main blind spot here: there is no such thing as a "sideboard card."
Again, is Pyroblast a sideboard card? Force of Vigor? Stony Silence?
What makes a card more likely to be played in a sideboard v. a maindeck has nothing to do with a card's inherent qualities, and everything to do with the structure or composition of the metagame, and how that card interacts with that structure.
Simply put, cards that are excellent against certain strategies, but weak against most of a metagame are more likely to be used in a sideboard. Whereas cards that are great against a wide range of strategies, but weak against a smaller portion of a given metagame are more likely to be played maindeck.
So, for example, in a metagame that is 70% blue decks, Pyroblast is more likely to be a maindeck card, and if the metagame is only 10% graveyard based, then Tormod's Crypt is more likely to be a sideboard card.
But if the compositional structure of a metagame shifts, so that graveyard strategies are 70% of the metagame, and blue decks are 10%, then then positions of Pyroblasts vis-a-vis Tormod's Crypts between maindeck and sideboards shifts accordingly.
Some decks, like transform boards and Dredge, use most of their SB in every matchup so that is certainly different. But these are atypical from Blue/Shops/others that devote large portions of their SB for 1 or 2 MUs.
The other part of my argument. Leyline vs Crypt vs Cage is again marginal differences. Just like this card vs Pyroblast vs Kambal vs Flusterstorm are only marginally different in power level. Just like me choosing to eat chicken wings vs a fried chicken sandwich. I’m likely to get very similar utility from it.
I could not disagree more with this principle that strategic answers are basically fungible or just different at the margins. The differences between options at a tactical level are actually massive gulfs in any particular event, even if the oscillations between the value or utility of options changes so frequently that in the very long run the differences appear marginal. Optimization per tournament matters. It can be the difference between making Top 8 or not, and winning a tournament or not.
If you are guaranteed to have X copies of a particular effect the existence of the card is only responsible for the additional marginal value it is providing you. This card might win you a few more games against Storm than a Flusterstorm would, when they Duress you before going off. But could also lose them too, when they just bounce it and go off.
Yes, but the card that actually wins you more games in a particular tournament is the optimal card. And tournament results, in the aggregate, are the means by which we observe this, combined with experienced judgment and insight of players in assessing this.
This is dramatically different from the impact of say Bazaar of Baghdad or Mishra’s Workshop that make an entire class of decks possible. Comparing the frequency of Bazaar top 8s to the frequency of Bazaar-hate cards top 8ing is missing the entire context of the results.
No, actually - they are interrelated. That's what makes your original comment that frequency of appearances in a sideboard top 8 is irrelevant so erroneous.
Large scale use of a particular tactic in sideboard of Top 8 decks is indicative of some underlying fact or set of facts, which we then use our judgment to discern.
If there are alot of Workshop or Dredge hate in a sideboard, then that may tell us both about the prevalence and/or power of the Workshop and Dredge strategies. We then use our experience and judgment to know the difference, and whether it is one, both or something else.
In the case of Grafdigger's Cage, part of the reason the card saw so much play wasn't just that was optimal in any particular matchup, but that it was broadly useful and hyper-efficient in a range of matchups. Thus, for example, it could be used against Oath and Dredge. If we see alot of Grafdigger's Cages, then it's a signal to see what role it's playing in the metagame, to try to understand why it's there, and then we can glean new insights about the structure of the format and the dynamics in tournament play.
On top of this all, top 8s frequency or prevalence in general as a measure of success, as Mikey just pointed out, can be highly inaccurate even for MD cards.
That's why we look over time and in the aggregate rather than a single case.
Top 8 appearances of a particular card tells us how good a card is because, in the aggregate, cards help players win games, matches, and thereby tournaments.
If a card is really bad or just suboptimal, over time, it will be weeded out, even if a single player sticks with it. Tournaments are basically simulations of a format, over and over again, and aggregate results give us insight into optimization. It's just a hive mind attacking a problem over and over again.
@vaughnbros said in [ELD] Deafening Silence:
Sideboard cards do not impact top 8 results as much as you are implying that they do. That is what you are missing. I’ve enumerated the reasons. If you want to ignore them and continue to use bad data then who am I to stop you? You clearly have your mind made up.
You must not be playing the same format as me then. Deck lists are integrated systems, especially in Vintage Magic. They matter almost as much as the cards in the main deck, and sometimes more. For example, a sideboard card is often more important than the 60th, 59th, 58, 57th, etc. Maindeck card. After all side boards are used in a majority games.
Your reasons are bad because they assume that hate cards are roughly equivalent. It’s pretty surprising coming from a dredge player. I’ve also explained how sideboards signal what is strategically significant in a format, e.g. Leyline v Flash combo.
@vaughnbros said in [ELD] Deafening Silence:
Stephen, there is an important concept when interpreting numbers: Correlation is not causation. What this phrase requires is that you add the context and assumptions to all numbers when attempting to infer things from them.
Top 8 numbers on sideboard cards are highly irrelevant because they are very often not the reason the deck is performing well. This is a classic correlated by not caused reasoning.
That principle - a generally acknowledged statistical and scientific principle - has no relevance here.
If you are saying that Top 8 appearances is just correlation, and doesn't reveal anything about a format, I disagree.
If there are literally dozens of top 8 appearances for a particular card, it suggests quite a bit.
First and foremost, if a card is appearing in sideboards, but not maindecks, then that is an important signal in and of itself. It means that the card is quite important at certain matchups, but the structure of the metagame is such that that card isn't good enough against most matchups.
Thus, take 2008: If Leylines are in 90% of sideboards, but 0% of maindecks, then that signals that a the card is tremendously important (and the reason it was important was primarily Flash, and secondarily Dredge), but it's not of broad enough utility to employ maindeck.
Top 8 appearances of particular cards are a signal about the structure of the overall metagame. Evaluators and format analysts must then use judgment to assess what that information means. But to say that it is 'irrelevant,' as I said, is dumb.
Especially when we look at Dredge hate, where nearly every deck has 4-10 hate pieces. You are guaranteed to find something like 32+ Dredge hate cards in every random top 8.
On top of that, we have the top 8 cut point bias. You needed approximately 3 wins to reach a top 8 at NE events for a long time.
Our Top 8 methodology excludes tournaments of 32 or fewer players, so the cut-off point is usually 4 wins. And, in any case, the vast, vast majority of data points in our data set are Vintage Challenges, which are mostly 7 rounds now.
To bring this back to this card, this card could get some top 8s. That won’t suddenly make this card better or more impactful. We can read it and realize it does not hurt near 50% of the metagame. People can put it in their Flusterstorm/MB trap/Pyroblast slots, but let’s not pretend that these other cards you are playing it over aren’t also very powerful.
It's not about "power" in the abstract. It's about how a card interfaces strategies in the metagame. The existence of a card - maindeck or sideboard - over time signals a structure. Lots of Pyroblasts signals strategically significant blue spells.
Similarly, lots of Stony Silences or Hurkyl's Recalls in winning decklists signal something about the metagame. You can extrapolate that further.
It doesn't matter whether a card appears in a maindeck or sideboard - when you see patterns in deck construction, those are signals about what's happening the metagame, not "irrellevant" information or noise. It's a signal about the structure and leverage points in the complex system that is the Vintage metagame.
I think this card will see more play than Damping Sphere because:
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it is great against big blue decks, and basically a silver bullet against PO
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it is frustrating for cantrip-based Xerox decks
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It slots easily into Survival and WhiteEldrazi, two upper tier strategies and can be used easily by lots of marginal strategies, like Landstill, emergent combo decks, etc.
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it's hyper-efficient, and a reliable first turn play
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it can just steal wins in a Mox format, the same way that Chalice used to. Even against matchups where it's supposedly "bad," it can steal wins, like when Shops keeps Mox, Mox, Sol Ring, Factory.
Damping Sphere only had 10 top 8 appearances. I think this will have more, but also be a Vintage playable for a long time.
@mike-noble said in [ELD] Deafening Silence:
I wish Deafening Silence existed during the Noble Fish days.
I wish this card existed 15 years ago.
@chubbyrain
I disagree with that. I think it will be better off the bat, and more enduring than Damping Sphere. Damping Sphere only had 10 top 8 appearances, and tapered off significantly since.
I think Defeaning Silence will be better than that.
The main reasons are:
- It only costs 1 mana, and is basically a silver bullet first turn play against PO, and not bad against Xerox either. It significantly slows Xerox strategies.
More broadly, I think this is good against big blue decks that players like you gravitate towards.
- It easily fits into Survival and White Eldrazi, as well as the various Fastbond decks emergent. Both Survival and White Eldrazi, in the three weeks since the restriction, have consistently Top 8ed Vintage Challenges.
Those two facts put together mean that this will see more play, in my estimation, than Damping Sphere. I don't know if it will be significantly or modestly more, but I am confident it will be more.
Damping Sphere was pricier, easier to remove, and much more difficult to break symmetry on. This is easy to break symmetry on. That also makes it more promising than Sphere.
@vaughnbros said in [ELD] Deafening Silence:
Number of top 8 performances for a sideboard card has to be one of the worst stats I’ve ever seen. I mean, I don’t even know where to start on how irrelevant that number is.
Leyline of the Void in 2008 was the second most played card in the entirety of Vintage, and second only to Force of Will. And almost all of it's play was in sideboards.
To say that's irrellevant as a statistic is just dumb. It's hugely significant in terms of what it says about the composition and structureof the metagame and the value of the tactic in that metagame.
Moreover, it's not always clear what's a "sideboard" card and what's not. Is Force of Vigor a sideboard card? Is Collector's Ouphe? Pyroblast?
Force of Vigor is almost evenly split between maindeck and sideboards. What matters is whether a card is good or not. That is, whether it sees play or not.
@chubbyrain said in [ELD] Deafening Silence:
Of course not. I only paid attention to the numbers when they were 0 and it was a card I thought should see play. The actual non-zero numbers have no actual meaning to the typical listener, but I didn't criticize them because it was your show and I was grateful for the content. I assumed it was some game you and Kevin played for entertainment purposes. If you want to take it seriously, I recommend dividing the number of "appearances (number of copies or simply being in a deck?)" by the number of events.
It's whether a card appears in a deck that makes Top 8. Not the number of copies per top 8.
We used to track number of events, but the number of events that fit the criteria, in the long run, averages out to be pretty even for any slice of time, and any changes are basically static changes for comparison purposes: advent of Challenges, etc.
And it still tells you nothing about what a card is doing, because if I remember correctly, you are basically talking about a fringe playable card in Brian Kelly's Oath deck. A literal one of in the SB. The lowest possible impact imaginable. It passed the "Brian Kelly will play this card" test.
I disagree. There is a big difference between a card that has 80 top 8 appearances, a card that has 30 top 8 appearances and a card that has 12 and a card that has 1. A card that has 80 top 8 appearances is a broadly used format staple, a card that has 30 top 8 appearances is basically a narrowly used Vintage staple, or nearly so. A card that has 12 appearances is a role player. And a card that has just a few appearances is a fringe card. It's not science, but it is helpful.
Believe it or not, this wasn't about you being right but I have been comparing this card to Damping Sphere since it was first printed and people were complaining about it for some time. There is a pervasive belief that hate cards such as this are anti-Vintage and going to have a profound or event warping effect on the format. It overestimates the effect on those cards - Damping Sphere is a key example:
This card, in theory, should stop all the whining about our favorite repeatable lotus land and its call for restriction. . . But it won’t. Mark my words. facepalm.
I love this card so much. This is the most potent hate card we've seen since Grafdiggers' Cage! I don't know that it stops Shops in Vintage exactly, since mana rocks can pretty much cover the spread after turn 2, but it seems absolutely brutal, BRUTAL in Legacy.
I suspect this is going to rock the sideboards forever now.
If this card sees any decent amount of play, it will certainly undermine the case for restricting Mental Misstep
It can't be Misstepped, and makes Misstep wars much more difficult to sustain.
It's clear that this card has lots of Vintage potential, given that it directly affects the three most prevalent strategic approaches in the format, Shops, PO, and Xerox decks, which are spell dense.
But, I'm also not particularly thrilled with cards designed in this manner. Like Grafdigger's Cage, I feel that cards of this type or class may inadvertently have too much influence on the format, and tend to bend the format away from powerful strategies and tactics that make Vintage appealing and fun. Making Vintage "fair" does not necessarily make it better.
Damping Sphere may well live up to it's name, and be a big party pooper.
Replaying to this above
Well said, pretty much sums up my fears about this card. I have the same opinion regarding Grafdigger's Cage. It was ultimately too successful in influencing Vintage and changed it irrevocably.
I don't want to attach names, because it's not about putting players on blast. My point is that I've seen this before and I don't think it's very different. The card is better than Damping Sphere was but has narrow applications and it best used in the SB where you have more control over the matchups and situations in which it can be good. And unlike Collector Ouphe, this card exerts absolutely no pressure on the opponent. I checked MTGGoldfish and both Null Rod and Stony Silence have not cracked the top 50 spells. Ouphe is hanging out at #11 with the Dredge creatures. The pressure is a huge component especially as a top deck and late in the game.
And if anyone was curious, the Damping Sphere thread also had Storm talking about his Knight of the Reliquary Humans deck.
Some things change, others stay the same.
Was this a TMD post?
There are lots of problems with Damping Sphere. The main one is finding a good home for it. Defeaning Silence has obvious, high level applications (WEldrazi, Survival, etc.)
@chubbyrain said in [ELD] Deafening Silence:
Ok, now do Damping Sphere. I think people are always prone to overestimate the effect of hate like this...
I think the exact opposite. People tend to underestimate answers or disruptive effects like this, Force of Vigor, Leyline of the Void, Ouphe, etc.
But OK:
Damping Sphere
Stephen: 17
Kevin: 10
Actual: 10
I was in striking distance. Kevin got it on the nose. Our assessment was basically correct.
I'm not going to reveal my exact prediction for Defeaning Silence, since the podcast will be live soon, but suffice to say it is a double digit.
I will say that my prediction is greatly influence by the fact that I was extremely bullish on Force of Vigor and Collector's Ouphe and still dramatically underestimated both.
For comparison:
Collector Ouphe
Stephen: 15
Kevin: 12
Actual: 34
Care to make a top 8 prediction for Defeaning Silence?