Navigation

    The Mana Drain

    • Login
    • Search
    • Strategy
    • Community
    • Tournaments
    • Recent
    1. Home
    2. VintageFamiliar
    • Profile
    • Following 0
    • Followers 0
    • Topics 6
    • Posts 27
    • Best 11
    • Groups 0
    • Blog

    VintageFamiliar

    @VintageFamiliar

    21
    Reputation
    3045
    Profile views
    27
    Posts
    0
    Followers
    0
    Following
    Joined Last Online

    VintageFamiliar Unfollow Follow

    Best posts made by VintageFamiliar

    • RE: B&R Update

      So what it boils down to is that people are unwilling to play cards against a certain deck because the peirce perceived number of pilots is small.

      Whether the numbers are actually larger or simple tournament variance you have to face then "more than your fair share" things feel pretty shitty and you go home . That's life.

      Decks preying on the opponent not being prepared for game 1 has such a long history in magic it is really hard to see that as a reason for changing. Weissman and a bunch of his contemporaries brought zoo to one of the first GP's because everyone else was on something soft to it. Dredge had played on this since the mechanic was printed. Dark Times had Leylines for dredge. With so many blue pilots perforating for the mirror, workshop falls into this category as well.

      Did people call for banning rocket launchers in halo 1 because they disrupted honorable pistol duels? Yes but everybody laughed them off because they were part of the format and gave the user haggling weaknesses in other areas. Artillery in world of Tanks; same thing. Why do magic players feel they are different?

      There are so many choices to be made in vintage. Not just the ones you make during the game. You CHOOSE to pay the archetype you do. You CHOOSE to play with that 75. You CHOOSE every game action to take you to that point in the tournament. Yes it can be frustrating, yes it can leave you cold when you hit an unwanted or unexpected match up but you live with it. Maybe next time you learn.

      posted in Vintage Community
      VintageFamiliar
      VintageFamiliar
    • Eternal MASTERS #7 Results

      Well another year has come and gone this past weekend saw the Eternal players of Australia descend upon Melbourne to battle it out to be named the Australian Champion of their respective format. Players keen to show off their abilities in Vintage, Legacy, or Australian 7pt Highlander or any combination of the three made their way to battle it out it what promises to be one of our largest eternal events of 2016.

      Since its inception in 2010 (well preexisting 2016's Eternal Masters Product :P) , the Eternal MASTERS series of tournaments have captured the psyche of the Australian Eternal players and the winners are routinely dubbed National Champions in their respective formats, doubly so for Vintage. Without further Ado I would like to congratulate Andy Horne, a longtime stalwart of Vintage, for becoming our newest Australian Vintage Champion. Andy and his trusty Walking Fish deck - whose evolution can be found among my various tournament reports on archive.themanadrain.com - defeated his opponent, Morgan Sedaitis, on his trusty Dredge list in three games to become Champion.

      A great big thank you to everybody who made it out this year. It was such a pleasure to see all of you again. It was unfortunate that the Vintage numbers were smaller this year but I have no doubt this will jump back up in future years. Seeing everybody in the community at these events is such a big thing for me personally and I love the chance to catch up, play some games and smash the various metagames from around Australia to see who really is the best 😛

      At the end of the day the final standings were:
      Final Standings - Name - (Swiss points)

      1. Andy Horne - Walking Fish (10)

      2. Morgan Sedaitis - Dredge (10)

      3. Joshua Butler - Dark Petition Storm (13)

      4. Lachlan Saunders - Salvagers Oath (10)

      5. Beckett Wolfe - BUG Oath (12)

      6. Graham King - Terror Nova (11)

      7. Daniel Unwin - Doomsday Gifts (11)

      8. Karl Reeves - Burning Oath (10)

      9. Jared Allsop - 5C Humans (10) - Missed by 4% OMW%

      10. Jacob Dunn - Grixis

      11. Nicholas Chmielewski - SYlvan Mentor

      12. Jared Mallet - Sylvan Mentor

      13. Tim Hughes - Merfolk

      14. Lee Greaves - Eldrazi

      15. Ben McCoy - Esper Mentor

      16. Leigh Holland - Jeskai Delver

      17. Phillipe Vincent - Jeskai Delver

      18. James 'Jimbo' Dowling - UWr Landstill

      19. Stephen Meade - BUG Fish

      20. Lachlan Ward-Smith - GW Hatebears

      21. Tom Sullivan - Tezzeret

      22. Christopher Turner - Z.Orb Mentor

      23. Jackson Mcall-Pearce - Abzan Hatebears

      24. Jitesh Raniga - Sylvan Mentor

      25. Tom Ribet - Mono R Stax

      26. Timothy Tai - Golden Gun Oath

      27. Will Wong - Grixis Control

      28. Socrates Stavropolous - U/W Landstill

      29. Tim Dolphin - Elephant Oath
        30)Jacen Bishop - Blistercoil Combo

      30. Matthew Larcombe - High Tide

      31. Jason Mcalister - Illusions/Donate

      32. ???

      Top 9 Decklists - 9th place ended on the same points as 5th at the end of the Swiss after all.

      1. Andy Horne - Walking Fish
        2 Path to Exile
        2 Abrupt Decay
        3 Swords to Plowshares
        1 Kataki, War's Wage
        1 Trygon Predator
        2 Aven Mindcensor
        3 Knight of the Reliquary
        3 Qasali Pridgemage
        4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
        3 Containment Priest
        4 Dark Confidant
        4 Noble Hierarch
        1 Time Walk
        1 Ancestral Recall
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Mox Emerald
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Lotus Petal
        1 Bayou
        3 Cavern of Souls
        2 Horizon Canopy
        1 Karakas
        2 Savannah
        1 Scrubland
        1 Strip Mine
        1 Tropical Island
        4 Wasteland
        4 Windswept Heath

      Sideboard:
      1 Glissa, the Traitor
      1 Abrupt Decay
      2 Mindbreak Trap
      3 Grafdigger's Cage
      1 Yixlid Jailer
      1 Ravenous Trap
      1 Gaddock Teeg
      1 Zealous Persecution
      1 Illness in the Ranks
      1 Path to Exile
      2 Mental Misstep

      1. Morgan Sedaitis - Dredge
        1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
        4 Unmask
        4 Narcomoeba
        4 Bloodghast
        4 Bridge from Below
        4 Cabal Therapy
        2 Dread Return
        2 Golgari Thug
        4 Ichorid
        4 Leyline of the Void
        4 Stinkweed Imp
        4 Golgari Grave troll
        1 Dragonlord Kolaghan
        4 serum Powder
        4 Bazaar of Baghdad
        2 Darkmor Salvage
        4 Mana Confluence
        4 Undiscovered Paradise

      Sideboard:
      4 Barbarian Ring
      4 Ingot Chewer
      4 Leyline of Sanctity
      3 Nature's Claim

      1. Joshua Butler - Dark Petition Storm
        3 Polluted Delta
        2 Bloodstained Mire
        4 Underground Sea
        1 Badlands
        1 Tolarian Academy
        1 Library of Alexandria
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Mox Emerald
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mana Crypt
        1 Sol Ring
        1 Lotus Petal
        1 Lion's Eye Diamond
        1 Mana Vault
        1 Necropotence
        1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
        4 Thoughtseize
        4 Gitaxian Probe
        4 Dark Petition
        2 Cabal Therapy
        1 Demonic Tutor
        1 Wheel of Fortune
        1 Timetwister
        1 Ponder
        1 Time Walk
        1 Mind's Desire
        1 Tendril's of Agony
        1 Yawgmoth's Will
        4 Dark Ritual
        2 Cabal Ritual
        2 Hurkyl's Recall
        1 Vampiric Tutor
        1 Ancestral Recall
        1 Brainstorm
        1 Chain of Vapor

      Sideboard:
      3 Defence Grid
      3 Ancient Tomb
      1 Rebuild
      1 Island
      1 Empty the Warrens
      1 Toxic Deluge
      2 Ravenous Trap
      1 Sadistic Sacrament
      1 Yixlid Jailer
      1 Tendrils of Agony

      1. Lachlan Saunders - Salvagers Oath
        4 Oath of Druids
        1 Griselbrand
        1 Auriok Salvagers
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Mox Emerald
        1 Ancestral Recall
        1 Time Walk
        1 Time Vault
        1 Voltaic Key
        1 Dig Through Time
        1 Treasure Cruise
        1 Vampiric Tutor
        1 Demonic Tutor
        4 Mental Misstep
        2 Flusterstorm
        1 Black Lotus
        4 Force of Will
        1 Ponder
        2 Preordain
        2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
        1 Brainstorm
        1 Pyryte Spellbomb
        1 Tendrils of Agony
        1 Engineered Explosives
        1 Ancient Grudge
        1 Yawgmoth's Will
        1 Sol Ring
        1 Mana Crypt
        2 Dack Fayden
        4 Forbidden Orchard
        4 Scalding Tarn
        1 Underground Sea
        1 Tundra
        1 Tropical Island
        1 Volcanic Island
        1 Library of Alexandria
        1 Tolarian Academy
        1 Island

      Sideboard:
      1 Balance
      2 Steel Sabotage
      1 Mindbreak Trap
      2 Toxic Deluge
      2 Energy Flux
      1 Magus of the Moat
      2 Tormod's Crypt
      1 Nihil Spellbomb
      3 Ravenous Trap

      1. Beckett Wolfe - BUG Oath
        4 Forbidden Orchard
        4 Oath of Druids
        3 Underground Sea
        2 Tropical Island
        3 Misty Rainforest
        3 Polluted Delta
        1 Island
        1 Strip Mine
        1 Library of Alexandria
        4 Preordain
        1 Mana Drain
        1 Ancestral Recall
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Yawgmoth's Will
        4 Force of Will
        1 Chalice of the Void
        1 Time Vault
        1 Flusterstorm
        1 Treasure Cruise
        1 Dig Through Time
        1 Ponder
        2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
        1 Sensei's Divining Top
        1 Pernicious Deed
        1 Tinker
        1 Blightsteel Colossus
        1 Griselbrand
        1 Time Vault
        1 Voltaic Key
        1 Tezzeret the Seeker
        3 Mental Misstep
        1 Misdirection
        1 Engineered Explosives
        1 Demonic Tutor
        1 Sol Ring
        1 Brainstorm
        1 Memory's Journey
        1 Spell Pierce

      Sideboard:
      1 Null Rod
      1 Swan Song
      4 Leyline of the Void
      1 Ravenous Trap
      2 Pithing Needle
      1 Toxic Deluge
      2 Nature's Claim
      2 Abrupt Decay
      1 Pernicious Deed

      1. Graham King - Terror Nova
        4 Mishra's Workshop
        4 Ancient Tomb
        4 Wasteland
        4 Mishra's Factory
        4 Mutavault
        1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
        1 Tolarian Academy
        1 Strip Mine
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Mox Emerald
        1 Sol Ring
        4 Dismember
        4 Thought Knot Seer
        4 Phyrexian Revoker
        4 Phyrexian Metamorph
        1 Lodestone Golem
        4 Sphere of Resistance
        4 Thorn of Amethyst
        4 Null Rod
        2 Sculpting Steel

      Sideboard:
      4 Wurmcoil Engine
      4 Grafdigger's Cage
      2 Smokestack
      2 The Tabernacle at Pendrel Vale
      2 Pithing Needle
      1 Karakas

      1. Daniel Unwin - Doomsday Gifts
        4 Underground Sea
        3 Bloodstained Mire
        2 Marsh Flats
        2 Verdant Catacombs
        4 Polluted Delta
        1 Swamp
        4 Doomsday
        4 Gifts Ungiven
        4 Dark Ritual
        4 Force of Will
        2 Gitaxian Probe
        1 Street Wraith
        1 Laboratory Maniac
        1 Sol Ring
        1 Mana Crypt
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Cabal Ritual
        1 Lotus Petal
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Gush
        1 Thoughtseize
        1 Imperial Seal
        1 Duress
        1 Time Walk
        1 Brainstorm
        1 Ponder
        1 Demonic Tutor
        1 Vampiric Tutor
        1 Mystical Tutor
        1 Night's Whisper
        1 Yawgmoth's Will
        1 Ancestral Recall
        1 Necropotence
        1 Tendrils of Agony
        1 Hurkyl's Recall
        1 Defense Grid

      Sideboard:
      3 Hurkyl's Recall
      4 Tormod's Crypt
      1 Thing in the Ice
      1 Snuff Out
      1 Chain of Vapor
      2 Defense Grid
      2 Mental Misstep
      1 Library of Alexandria

      1. Karl Reeves - Burning Oath
        2 Chrome Mox
        4 Mana Confluence
        4 Duress
        2 Hurkyls Recall
        1 Yawgmoths Bargain
        4 Oath of Druids
        2 Mox Opal
        4 Forbiden Orchard
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Mox Saphire
        1 Mox Emerald
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Time Twister
        1 Ancestral Recall
        1 Time Walk
        4 Burning Wish
        4 Dark Ritual
        1 Tinker
        2 Gemstone Mine
        1 Ponder
        1 Necropotence
        1 Mana Vault
        1 Vampiric Tutor
        1 Mana Crypt
        1 Demonic Tutor
        1 Lotus Petal
        1 Sol Ring
        1 Tolarian Academy
        1 Lion's Eye Diamond
        2 Griselbrand
        1 Wheel of Fortune
        1 Windfall
        1 Brainstorm
        1 Memory Jar
        1 Mind's Desire

      Sideboard:
      1 Yawgmoth's Will
      2 Nature's Claim
      1 Empty the Warrens
      1 Ancient Grudge
      1 Hurkyl's Recall
      1 Show and Tell
      1 Diminishing Returns
      1 Laboratory Maniac
      4 Ancient Tomb
      1 Tendril's of Agony
      1 Balance

      1. Jared Allsop - 5C Humans
        1 Strip Mine
        4 Mana Confluence
        1 Wasteland
        4 Gemstone Mine
        4 City of Brass
        4 Cavern of Souls
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Mox Emerald
        1 Ancestral Recall
        1 Time Walk
        3 Abrupt Decay
        4 Noble Hierarch
        3 Containment Priest
        3 Dark Confidant
        2 Grand Abolisher
        3 Mayor of Avabruck
        3 Qasali Pridemage
        4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
        3 Mantis Rider
        2 Reflector Mage
        4 Scab-Clan Beserker

      Sideboard:
      1 Izzet Staticaster
      1 Reflector Mage
      1 Grand Abolisher
      2 Meddling Mage
      3 Stony Silence
      3 Surgical Extraction
      2 Rest in Peace
      2 Grafdigger's Cage

      Once again a great thanks to all the players who made it down to to the event. I hope you had as good of a time as I did. I hope to see you all again next year.

      posted in Official Tournament Results
      VintageFamiliar
      VintageFamiliar
    • Vintage Streamers Info

      Hey everybody.

      I thought it would be a good thing to have a resource to have the info of which players in our community are streaming, at what times, and most importantly where it will be streamed.

      Whether you are a regular streamer or you have an event coming up that is likely to be streamed feel free to add the info in this thread. I will regularly update the OP with the information given below for regular streamers etc.

      Please note that this is not restricted to MTGO. If you have a paper event coming up add the info to get the address out there so more people can find your stream etc. Consider it more free advertising!

      posted in Vintage Community
      VintageFamiliar
      VintageFamiliar
    • RE: Formatting the site

      I am really unnerved at there being no borders.

      The alternating borders would be a step in the right direction but there is just too much white space for me all over the site. I assume it will be filled in with stuff in the future but it looks pretty threadbare at the moment.

      posted in TheManaDrain Metadiscussion
      VintageFamiliar
      VintageFamiliar
    • RE: Eternal MASTERS #7 Results

      Some similar tables to what has been done for various other events recently.

      alt text

      alt text

      posted in Official Tournament Results
      VintageFamiliar
      VintageFamiliar
    • The Mana Drain user changes

      Hi everybody.

      As we have to re-register for the new Mana Drain we all get the chance to choose a new username if we wish.

      I have chosen to intergrate this and my twitter account @VintageFamiliar so others don't get confused when trying to contact me. My old account "Shrewarmies" has been retired.

      I was wondering if anyone else has chosen to change their username so we can provide a continuity of style/personality despite the changes.

      posted in Vintage Community
      VintageFamiliar
      VintageFamiliar
    • RE: Tournament Results

      Decklists would ideally be capitalised and not contain "short hand" card names,

      posted in TheManaDrain Metadiscussion
      VintageFamiliar
      VintageFamiliar
    • RE: MTGO DE Results - the post-LSG-restriction metagame

      @Smmenen said:

      Except, I was actually right, using the measure we were discussing.

      The statistic we were discussing was % of DE/ month.

      Using the daily event breakdown by week, your data obscures this trend:

      Here is the percentage of Gush decks in the DE's during the time period you covered, but organized by month:

      Gush as % of DEs by Month

      Gush was 61.66% of the April (post-restriction) metagame, but 41.4% of May, but declined to 38% in June. The declines are even more steep if you slice up the data in other ways, like focusing on 4-0s, etc.

      I applaud this kind of detailed analysis, and really appreciate your hard work here - but it's not only tasteless (and rude) to throw digs at me (or anyone) like you did with your parenthetical jab, but it's embarrassing when what you are trying to critique me for isn't even accurate, using the metrics from the original context.

      Suggestions: in the future, I recommend doing breakdowns both by week, but also by month. The second half of June had far fewer daily's fire. Also, dis-aggregating 4-0 and 3-1 decks is also worth doing, just to monitor the results, if nothing else.

      You are actually hilarious.

      posted in Official Tournament Results
      VintageFamiliar
      VintageFamiliar
    • RE: B&R Update

      @Aaron-Patten said:

      Oath and Golem are distinct in that Golem is a threat and disruption while Oath is not. Golem requires a very specific and narrow set of answers while oath has a plethora of non Force of Will answers available in almost every colour and every strategy. Another issues is that you absolutely have to have a restricted card in your opening hand or you auto lose against Golem whereas with other threats you don't.

      Yet if you look at most "blue" decks in the format you will see that most will run removal for golem in the main. Be this Lightning Bolt, Swords, TMS, or the rarer Disenchant/Hurkyls. Very few decks run enchantment removal main. So whilst you are correct that Golem requires more specialised removal, pilots are more prepared for Golem than oath in the main at least.

      I think one of the major things to happen in this story that nobody is talking about is the loss of the spell-like creature. The rise of the delver deck (and its variants e.g. mentor) has really driven out many of the non-combat oriented creatures. Which would continue to have their effects under spheres etc. That has made workshop pilots lives a lot easier in terms of controlling the board.

      posted in Vintage Community
      VintageFamiliar
      VintageFamiliar
    • RE: ANNOUNCEMENT: archive.themanadrain back online

      Better late than never but thank you so much for keeping these pages live. There is simply so much on those old pages that for them to go dark it would have been heartbreaking.

      Here in Australia I have been following up with the the owners of many of the Local forums from the late 20's and early '10's which have gone dark and in most cases it seems like we have simply lost all the data from those times. This includes Vintage but it is especially hard in the case of Australian 7pt Highlander which is obviously not played anywhere else.

      Thank you once again.

      posted in TheManaDrain Metadiscussion
      VintageFamiliar
      VintageFamiliar

    Latest posts made by VintageFamiliar

    • RE: Notes on the State of Vintage, Jan 2017

      I can also attest to playing fewer vintage games in the past year or so.

      For years I ran or took part in nearly every single vintage event in Australasia. I have the decklists for every non-league Vintage event in Australia since september 2010 .

      There have been other factors such as long hospital stays and basically being homebound for two years but Vintage has lost some of its lustre for me.

      I have lent my power out and played the rare tourney but most of the time my cards sit in my cube where they see more play.

      Part of this is the homogenized nature of the format at the moment, partly the low power level, and partly the erosion of the old decks that can't compete. I recognise that the last point particularly is nostalgia speaking but the other points remain true.

      The biggest issue we have here (Australia) is the proxy scare of late 15, early 16. Since then Vintage as a whole just died here. Suddenly no store was willing to run proxy/playtest events. Literally none. We had 2.5 stores that would run monthly/quarterly vintage and they all instantly stopped holding these events.

      Some stores ran other events with playtest cards but wizards hit them all before the event fired and with a couple of weeks legacy in Melbourne and Vintage in Australia as a whole was dead. There has been a little revival lately but for the 12 or so months we had a (singular) GP side event and two annual events which were both smaller than previous years.

      I really fear all my work from 2010-14 will have been for nothing if it doesn't change is direction soon.

      This format needs to give is players a reason to play it again and the stale homogenous system is not doing that for many players.

      posted in Vintage News
      VintageFamiliar
      VintageFamiliar
    • Vintage Streamers Info

      Hey everybody.

      I thought it would be a good thing to have a resource to have the info of which players in our community are streaming, at what times, and most importantly where it will be streamed.

      Whether you are a regular streamer or you have an event coming up that is likely to be streamed feel free to add the info in this thread. I will regularly update the OP with the information given below for regular streamers etc.

      Please note that this is not restricted to MTGO. If you have a paper event coming up add the info to get the address out there so more people can find your stream etc. Consider it more free advertising!

      posted in Vintage Community
      VintageFamiliar
      VintageFamiliar
    • RE: MTGO DE Results - the post-LSG-restriction metagame

      @Smmenen said:

      Except, I was actually right, using the measure we were discussing.

      The statistic we were discussing was % of DE/ month.

      Using the daily event breakdown by week, your data obscures this trend:

      Here is the percentage of Gush decks in the DE's during the time period you covered, but organized by month:

      Gush as % of DEs by Month

      Gush was 61.66% of the April (post-restriction) metagame, but 41.4% of May, but declined to 38% in June. The declines are even more steep if you slice up the data in other ways, like focusing on 4-0s, etc.

      I applaud this kind of detailed analysis, and really appreciate your hard work here - but it's not only tasteless (and rude) to throw digs at me (or anyone) like you did with your parenthetical jab, but it's embarrassing when what you are trying to critique me for isn't even accurate, using the metrics from the original context.

      Suggestions: in the future, I recommend doing breakdowns both by week, but also by month. The second half of June had far fewer daily's fire. Also, dis-aggregating 4-0 and 3-1 decks is also worth doing, just to monitor the results, if nothing else.

      You are actually hilarious.

      posted in Official Tournament Results
      VintageFamiliar
      VintageFamiliar
    • RE: coax from the blind eternities, could it change the wish cards?

      @Brass-Man said:

      Running Living Wish to get back creatures that might have been exiled by Swords feels a lot worse than just running redundant creatures. The advantage of Burning Wish is that it lets you play the same restricted card multiple times, possibly multiple times in a turn. Living Wish just isn't doing that for you.

      Unless it's lodestone now 😛

      posted in Vintage Community
      VintageFamiliar
      VintageFamiliar
    • RE: ANNOUNCEMENT: archive.themanadrain back online

      Better late than never but thank you so much for keeping these pages live. There is simply so much on those old pages that for them to go dark it would have been heartbreaking.

      Here in Australia I have been following up with the the owners of many of the Local forums from the late 20's and early '10's which have gone dark and in most cases it seems like we have simply lost all the data from those times. This includes Vintage but it is especially hard in the case of Australian 7pt Highlander which is obviously not played anywhere else.

      Thank you once again.

      posted in TheManaDrain Metadiscussion
      VintageFamiliar
      VintageFamiliar
    • RE: Tournament Reports and the Metagame "Data" Trend

      @ChubbyRain said:

      My opinion is more data is always better BUT you must have the ability to accurately interpret it. How I generally handle it is,

      1. Arguably, the most valuable information is still the top 8 or top 16 of a large event. These are the decks that are winning, either because they are good decks or good players thought they were good decks or otherwise someone was running hot that day. It's what most people look at and has the most influence on what people play (that and the VSL, though the VSL doesn't have the gauntlet of tournament play behind it).

      2. The metagame breakdown is also very important in my opinion - what are people actually showing up to a tournament with? It influences my deck selection and deck construction greatly but also has more broad ramifications. Normally the top X is used as a proxy of the metagame but it needs validated and if there are incongruencies, I would look for reasons. For instance, the NYSE top 16 was all Gush, Eldrazi, and Dredge (with Belcher getting a scoop from Delver so make of that what you will). You don't know whether non-Gush Blue decks, Oath, and DPS were absent or there but none of the players did well. If absent, you might be tempted to look at these as potential solutions for the metagame. From the metagame breakdown, we see that Oath, DPS, and Blue Control were nearly 30% of the field - people were playing the decks but none did well enough to top X. Which leads you into asking why these decks didn't top X. Are the decks bad or are good/experienced players disproportionately not playing them? If the latter, why are they not playing them?

      3. The least valuable piece of information by far is the matchup win percentages.

      This is basically what I was saying. More data is always better but the rate at which TO's have picked this up spurred me to writing the OP. These MW% are not great indicators of anything, especially in such small sample sizes.

      posted in Vintage Community
      VintageFamiliar
      VintageFamiliar
    • Tournament Reports and the Metagame "Data" Trend

      Hi everybody,

      I was not sure if I wanted to post this within one of the SMIP announcement threads or within General Discussion. PLease forgive me if you have real training in stats as I am trying to keep things relatively simple.

      This is a topic I have been thinking about quite a bit over the last few weeks, naturally kicked off by the new trend we have witnessed coming out of our community. Looking at Metagame data has always been a pet project for many of the most dedicated members of our community. With the coming of Magic Online we have been given access to a source of information which has only rarely been seen in the paper world, whole Metagame Data. That is, analysis of all decks which appeared at certain tournaments. A historical example of this can be found here: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/retired-forums/retired-forums/vintage-news/event-reports/130714-results-melbourne-legends-decklists-50-player

      This kind of reporting allowed sharp members of the community to piece apart the metagame to a greater degree than possible with more simple Top 8 only or similar styles of TO reports. It would allow people to look at metagame saturation of individual decks (how many copies of that deck were played) or other similar data points. With the arrival of MTGO and the ability to replay games it has become easier to look at more than just metagame saturation. More and more, we have seen various members of our community delving even deeper into the tournament data.

      Working with MTGO (or WER for the more dedicated) and third party software (generally Excel) the trend has become for TO's (or the like to @ChubbyRain & Co for the Online events) to report not only the top performing decks but to also include a more detailed and incricate "matchup analysis". Where after rewatching enough of the tournament to get the copy down who was on what archetype and extrapolate that using the final results of each round to get a total matches played/matches won for each matchup.

      There are so many places where you can find this information but for ease of communication I have attached a copy of the NYSE #4 breakdown below.

      alt text
      alt text
      alt text

      NYSE #4 is to my knowledge the largest of the recent events to have received this treatment so this is a great place to start.

      As cool as the pretty colours and lots of fancy numbers look most of these numbers mean absolutely nothing.

      .
      .
      .
      Thats's right. Most of this data is unusable for any real statistical analysis. There are simply too few data points to draw any conclusions from the data presented. Excel is a great program which I used every day for years and years but it is not a fantastic program for the kind of analysis we are trying to do here. Trying to put this kind of data into a more rigid program such as R-Tools really shows the deficiency in our data. For example, between the two largest groups (Gush & Shops) we have only 41 games. As you go down the list it gets worse and worse.

      It is also quite poor as Vintage is not in the position it has been in the past with 60+ cards within archetypes being the same. By grouping decks like this we lose sight of any individual changes between the various decks. That being said, that has always been an issue with looking at tournaments as whole entities.

      While 41 data points is enough for a binary Y/N kind of thing. Its hard to even ask something as simple as is deck X favoured in this matchup with any real certainty with so little information. As you may know, the higher the number of games you have the more accurate you can expect your data to be. Small sample sizes are more prone to variation from what you would expect. Take a look at the Oath of Druids vs Combo matchup in the NYSE #4 data above. If you were to take this as gospel and you expected your next event to have a lot of storm you might end up leaning toward Oath as a foil to that metagame.
      .
      .
      .
      Let me know how that works out for you.

      Now I am not asking people to not do this kind of analysis. As I said, I have taken part in this sort of analysis but PLEASE take all of this data with a grain of salt. I don't actually think anyone is seriously taking the above as Gospel but words from the SMIP Podcast had me worried. This kind of analysis should have little to no place in B&R discussion. We simply do not have the information to reliably draw conclusions with any sort of certainty from what we have. Especially if we keep the information restricted to individual tournaments.

      I see a few options going forward regarding this kind of analysis.

      1. Keep doing this analysis but for the love of God keep it away from any kind of B & R discussionin its current form. I fear that this kind of data, as restrictive as it is, changes the focus from winning decks and decks which have an unhealthy metagame saturation to decks which meet various other factors/requirements. The numbers for decks with larger metagame saturation using this kind of data will naturally fall, despite perhaps having a good performance at top tables simply due to the numbers that did not make top 8 (which will generally be more than those that do make it) We saw an example of this in a recent SMIP pocast where despite Gush being 4/8 its MW% was low. This would always have been expected as 30% of the metagame cannot make top 8 etc. I don't point this out to rag on Gush but simply to use it as an example of the possible unintended consequences of changing our policies RE: B & R

      With the current set up we can expect to see decks see well metagamed decks that appear in small numbers to hit hit much harder through B&R policy than decks with higher metagame saturation.

      1. Expand the analysis. Working together with the various TO's who have made this data available to smash them up together to get a much broader "Vintage Metagame over Time" analysis. This does have its own issues however as you would lose all sense of metagame changes over time. Even more so than the standard loss of deck individuality in individual tournaments. We would also lose any kind of trend data if we were to rely on this kind of analysis.

      2. Ignore this data.

      Now clearly we should not use any single form of analysis as our sole source of data for B&R discussion. We should be using everything that we have at our disposal and working out what is correct from there - not that we have any real power to affect change at the DCI level. I simply want to avoid bad data and bad analysis being used as a soap box for Vintage community outcry - or lack thereof- at various cards/decks etc. Without proper instruction etc, this new rage for 'big data' may do more harm than good in the long run if it is kept in its current form.

      @Smmenen @CHA1N5

      posted in Vintage Community
      VintageFamiliar
      VintageFamiliar
    • RE: Advice on deck choice?

      I don't actually know who dragon is but the event results are here:

      http://www.themanadrain.com/topic/374/eternal-masters-7-results

      posted in Vintage Strategy
      VintageFamiliar
      VintageFamiliar
    • RE: Eternal MASTERS #7 Results

      Some similar tables to what has been done for various other events recently.

      alt text

      alt text

      posted in Official Tournament Results
      VintageFamiliar
      VintageFamiliar
    • RE: MTGO May 2016 Power 9 Challenge

      How did you guys deal with draws, especially non intentional draws e.g. going to time.

      I am trying to do a similar table for our events. My initial though was for it to count as a loss for both parties but for completeness sake I thought I would defer to what you did.

      posted in Official Tournament Results
      VintageFamiliar
      VintageFamiliar