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Thread: [Free Article] A Mystifying Decision

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    [Free Article] A Mystifying Decision

    Well reasoned, eloquent, and ultimately pretty convincing analysis of the B&R announcement.

    Chris Coppola discusses the banning of Mystical Tutor within the context of past Legacy B&R policy, and then examines Tom LaPille's Latest Developments column in-depth, without being overly speculative or straying too far from empirical evidence. It's a great read, even if there have already been dozens of articles on the subject.
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    Re: The best article yet about the Mystical Tutor banning

    Although I think some things in part III were incorrect, it still was a really good article.

  3. #3

    Re: The best article yet about the Mystical Tutor banning

    Actually after reading this article, I think he has missed the mark on many things, I think is very far off by saying that Ant is a tier 2 deck, I think it has always been a tier 1 deck, it just finally found a more optimal build that is being consistently played and was winning.

    At this link http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/l...ven_There.html
    Steve broke down the stats for madrid and this itself proves that ANT is tier 1, while this link shows how they did against certain decks
    http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/l...n_Seattle.html

    This article proves that this deck is really powerful, The one deck which is supposed to be optimal against ANT is Merfolk, I mean c'mon, you play cursecatcher, FOW daze, stifle, wasteland, and a fast clock, and your telling me this deck went 4-6 against ANT???????????? The only deck that it did not beat really was New horizons, which I think only 4 games is not enough to see what the ratio is.

    Now this isn't my testimony that the card should be banned, but I think that this article is running like a mob fashion, saying everything that people want to hear through this instead of actually researching the facts.

    MY personal opinion on the banning is that 1. Wizards hates combo decks like ANT, Wizards only needs a small reason to ban something to keep these decks from winning. 2. Which I think is the bigger reason, is that because of Reanimator just jumping into the picture from only 1-5 players playing it to 40 put the thought into wizards mind that this was a flash all over again and made them panic(I do believe they panicked for no reason) and so they banned a card that would slow down reanimator but not remove the deck because they like the idea of big beats, and at the same time, they took a swipe at a deck that they hate which is ANT.


    Am I happy the card got banned, yes because I have bad records against ANT and lose to it a lot, does it actually deserved being banned... No.

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    Re: The best article yet about the Mystical Tutor banning

    I found it particularly awful. I think also people should specify first what accounts for a "degenerate deck" before trying to defend an overpowered deck. I personally think that a blazingly fast combo deck that works as a toolbox of threats (instead of answers) and also packs 16 protection spells and several routes to victory to make it even more difficult to hate qualifies.

    Also, even if you agree with the people that think that Mystical Tutor is balanced, there are other reasons for the DCI to ban cards:

    - If a card makes matches go to time every single time (Sharazad)
    - If a card warps the format so that the correct play is not to play a deck that feels like playing magic (Landtax, Oath)
    - If a card is too efficient at reducing the randomness of the game

    The last one being the main reason to ban the card.

    I also think both him and the DCI were wrong when they thought Entomb was safe, and I still remember the vintage Flash and Gush fiasco. That he defended that Hermit was safe back then shows that his eye for game balance is very off, and his assertment that "it's vital that banned lists are kept as small as possible" seems an irresponsible goal. What is vital is that the format feels like playing magic, that is balanced, and that is fun, and if it's better achieved with a larger banned lists, then that's they way to go.

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    Re: The best article yet about the Mystical Tutor banning

    Sigh.

    One of the hallmarks of Legacy, one of the unique qualities which has made this format continuously interesting for six years, is a principle that was used in creating the original banned list, and which has so far been followed well (with one terrible accident in April 2007). This principle is that all of the cards that make both new and classic decks powerful, fun, and sometimes competitive will be allowed in this format unless they are so egregiously degenerate that there is no way to balance them in a diverse environment. This means they must generate massive card advantage, easily abusable amounts of mana, or some other effect which would eclipse the normal interactivity and pace of a game of Magic. This is a subtle but amazing principle which is basically responsible for the popularity of Legacy; it does not mean that cards will be banned on power level alone, but a much stronger condition - their tendency to warp individual decks and as a result the entire format.
    The amazing thing about this paragraph is how towering an edifice can be built on nothing but sand.

    This is not at all the parameters for banning laid out by the DCI or Wizards for Legacy. Moreover, it has nothing to do with why Legacy is enjoyable. No one enjoys Legacy because Enlightened Tutor is legal and Demonic Tutor isn't.

    At a very basic level, the object in managing formats is to remove cards which tend to warp them - cards that have such strong effects that merely not putting them in your deck puts you at a competitive disadvantage.
    This isn't true either. If you think it's true you haven't been paying attention. If Trinisphere's banning in Vintage and Shahrazad's banning in Legacy weren't enough to let you in, here's the secret that Wizards has made explicit numerous times; Wizards will ban and unban with the intent of making the game more fun. Wizards considers combo less fun than other archetypes because most players consider combo less fun. Just like they banned Ancient Tomb and Aether Vial in Extended for enabling stupid combo deck after stupid combo deck, they gave Mystical Tutor the axe for creating an environment in which combo was more powerful than they wanted it to be.

    It is also vital that banned lists are kept as small as possible. Banning cards unnecessarily reduces design space, limiting the possibilities for deck construction, and as a consequence is incredibly unpopular among players.
    Again, not true. Lots of bannings explode design space; Legacy has much more design space than Vintage, which has a smaller banned list. For that matter I think recent Extended was more diverse than Legacy has been for a while. To say that more cards being legal necessarily implies more functional choices is stupid and obviously stupid. And lots of bannings have been incredibly popular amongst players.

    Ad Nauseam is an eminently fair card, as is the Legacy deck with the same name. In fact, Ad Nauseam is so fair that it is not even a tier one deck. This is mainly because it does not reliably beat Blue disruption, which is ubiquitous at the top tier of Legacy in decks such as Countertop, Merfolk, New Horizons, and Reanimator.
    Alternately, blue disruption is ubiquitous at the top decks because combo pushes everything else out. That wasn't too hard to piece together.

    Tom does not say what specifically he learned about Mystical Tutor that was unknown when it was originally allowed into Legacy, but I don't think it would be helpful in justifying its banning. Mystical Tutor is a utility card for combo decks that was deliberately left off the banned list because it is a fair card.
    Here again Machinus is unable to see the forest because he walked in under the deliberate assumption that trees were orange and mostly oval.

    What was learned was that Mystical Tutor was not as fair a card as the format designers had originally thought.

    The data speaks for itself: 92% of players who entered the tournament in Madrid decided that a deck without Mystical Tutors offered them the best chance of winning some of the $30,000 in prizes given away at this event. This is a clear sign that the card does not offer any unfair advantages.
    Here Chris completely abandons the attempt to avoid logical fallacies.

    Among the most popular decks, Zoo increased its field fraction by a huge margin. Normally, if an archetype is overrepresented in a given field (for example, if it were outclassed by a deck with an unfairly high power level), it will be thinned by exposure to better decks, but in this case Zoo succeeded because the format was well balanced throughout the entire tournament.

    The field fractions of Reanimator and Ad Nauseam also increased somewhat, and the rest of the decks stayed at approximately the same ratio.
    Zoo increased it's field size about 70%. Reanimator and Ad Nauseam increased by about 60% each. This isn't a huge distinction, but here Chris attempts to make it sound like one for no real reason other than choice supportive bias.

    Zoo maintained the dominant position in the field all the way through to the Top 8. The fact that three Zoo decks made Top 8 in a field with almost an equal number of Ad Nauseam and Reanimator decks is another sign that the format is well-balanced.
    This doesn't follow even from the arbitrary assumption that Ad Nauseam and Reanimator both beat Zoo. Reanimator in fact doesn't have a very good Zoo matchup.

    This article starts and stops with fundamentally flawed assumptions and an unwillingness to take the offered explanation, that the purpose of banning Mystical Tutor was to make the format more enjoyable, at face value.
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    Re: The best article yet about the Mystical Tutor banning

    When we saw the Grand Prix–Madrid finals decks, a few of us got worried, jumped onto Magic Online, and started playing some Legacy with them.

    This is inaccurate. There is no such thing as Legacy in Magic Online, mainly due to the fact that Magic Online is missing around fifteen expansions. So this anecdote has no relevance to what is going on in real Legacy. It is not a rigorous testing environment anyway, especially if you are playing with no tournament incentive and against unknown players with unknown skill levels.
    I stopped reading after I read this.

    This is inaccurate. MTGO is missing 4 sets and parts of the sets released before Mirage. MED4 is being released in December which will further decrease the differences between paper legacy and online legacy. There are about 1023 cards which are missing from those expansions but next month there will only be 1021 because of the release of Maze of Ith and BEB.
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    Re: The best article yet about the Mystical Tutor banning

    Reanimator in fact doesn't have a very good Zoo matchup.
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    Re: The best article yet about the Mystical Tutor banning

    Quote Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin View Post
    This doesn't follow even from the arbitrary assumption that Ad Nauseam and Reanimator both beat Zoo. Reanimator in fact doesn't have a very good Zoo matchup.
    Maybe if they do something silly like get Iona and not get Sphinx of the Steel Wind.

  9. #9

    Re: The best article yet about the Mystical Tutor banning

    There are some good ideas here, but they are drowned out in a sea of outlandish hyperbole.
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    Re: The best article yet about the Mystical Tutor banning

    Quote Originally Posted by DragoFireheart View Post
    Maybe if they do something silly like get Iona and not get Sphinx of the Steel Wind.
    Right. So you need to not be in burn range when you reanimate Sphinx (which means you need to Exhume Sphinx), and they need to not Path it and/or have a Knight of the Reliquary that doesn't give a shit about Sphinx of the Steel Wind and/or not be able to sit you out because you can't attack with Sphinx without opening yourself up to an Alpha Strike.

    It's certainly not unwinnable, but it's by no means a bye for Reanimator. It is a very difficult matchup.
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    Re: The best article yet about the Mystical Tutor banning

    Right. So you need to not be in burn range when you reanimate Sphinx (which means you need to Exhume Sphinx), and they need to not Path it and/or have a Knight of the Reliquary that doesn't give a shit about Sphinx of the Steel Wind and/or not be able to sit you out because you can't attack with Sphinx without opening yourself up to an Alpha Strike.
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    Re: The best article yet about the Mystical Tutor banning

    Quote Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin View Post
    Right. So you need to not be in burn range when you reanimate Sphinx (which means you need to Exhume Sphinx), and they need to not Path it and/or have a Knight of the Reliquary that doesn't give a shit about Sphinx of the Steel Wind and/or not be able to sit you out because you can't attack with Sphinx without opening yourself up to an Alpha Strike.

    It's certainly not unwinnable, but it's by no means a bye for Reanimator. It is a very difficult matchup.
    Sphinx has Vigilance attacking is awesome! and can not be raced back with First Strike+Lifegain, KotR is Green and Sphinx is Pro Green.

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    Re: The best article yet about the Mystical Tutor banning

    Quote Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin View Post
    Right. So you need to not be in burn range when you reanimate Sphinx (which means you need to Exhume Sphinx), and they need to not Path it and/or have a Knight of the Reliquary that doesn't give a shit about Sphinx of the Steel Wind and/or not be able to sit you out because you can't attack with Sphinx without opening yourself up to an Alpha Strike.
    Sphinx of the Steel Wind

    Pro Green, Vigilance, Lifelink mean anything to you? It can chump Knight all day and can attack without opening yourself up to alpha strike. Oh, and I hear reanimator decks don't run counters. Nope, that makes too much sense.


    It's certainly not unwinnable, but it's by no means a bye for Reanimator. It is a very difficult matchup.
    It's difficult if Reanimation makes it difficult. Reanimate/Exhume Steelwind, counter Path to Exile, swing until victory.

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    Re: The best article yet about the Mystical Tutor banning

    Quote Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin View Post
    Right. So you need to not be in burn range when you reanimate Sphinx (which means you need to Exhume Sphinx), and they need to not Path it and/or have a Knight of the Reliquary that doesn't give a shit about Sphinx of the Steel Wind and/or not be able to sit you out because you can't attack with Sphinx without opening yourself up to an Alpha Strike.

    It's certainly not unwinnable, but it's by no means a bye for Reanimator. It is a very difficult matchup.
    I've found that the matchup is pretty basic. The Reanimator player just moves in on Sphinx or Archon. Zoo has to draw more Paths than Reanimator draws Forces or Thoughtseizes, and Reanimator has Mystical, Brainstorm, and Study to filter. I've never seen a Zoo list with Sejiri Steppe, but there's a one-turn window for Steppe to clear a path, and turn four is really fairly slow for a decent Reanimator draw.

    I don't think the matchup is at all close in game one, and that it's only close to even after sideboarding depending on how many cards (and which) Zoo brings in.

    edit: I'm not trying to pile on or anything but there seems to be this persistent myth that Zoo is favored against Reanimator when that is just not true.
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    Re: The best article yet about the Mystical Tutor banning

    Quote Originally Posted by frogboy View Post
    Zoo has to draw more Paths than Reanimator draws Forces or Thoughtseizes, and Reanimator has Mystical,
    Mystical Tutor is banned.

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    Re: The best article yet about the Mystical Tutor banning

    Quote Originally Posted by DragoFireheart View Post
    Mystical Tutor is banned.
    I was referring to the matchup prior to Mystical's banning.
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  17. #17

    Re: The best article yet about the Mystical Tutor banning

    Quote Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin View Post

    This article starts and stops with fundamentally flawed assumptions and an unwillingness to take the offered explanation, that the purpose of banning Mystical Tutor was to make the format more enjoyable, at face value.
    I liked Chris's article, but I think your criticisms are largely justified.

    Jared Sylva has given me a sneak peek of the St. Louis data, and in the final part of my article next Monday, I offer a comprehensive critique of the banning of Mystical Tutor. I hope you find my arguments, which are tighter, more persuasive.

  18. #18

    Re: The best article yet about the Mystical Tutor banning

    Quote Originally Posted by frogboy View Post
    I was referring to the matchup prior to Mystical's banning.
    Why?

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    Re: The best article yet about the Mystical Tutor banning

    Because I was contesting Jack's statement that Zoo had a strong Reanimator matchup prior to the ban.

    This doesn't follow even from the arbitrary assumption that Ad Nauseam and Reanimator both beat Zoo. Reanimator in fact doesn't have a very good Zoo matchup.
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  20. #20

    Re: The best article yet about the Mystical Tutor banning

    Quote Originally Posted by frogboy View Post
    Because I was contesting Jack's statement that Zoo had a strong Reanimator matchup prior to the ban.
    I don't think the matchup before the ban matters much now that MT is banned. It goes without saying that regardless of how good or bad it was, it's now worse without MT.

    I'm arguing that even without MT, Reanimator still has a good Zoo matchup. The fact that IBA didn't even know that Steelwind has vigilance and pro-green basically makes his argument on that regard moot.

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