[Article] Eternal Europe: The Rise of the Linears

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Next article's up. This time I'm concentrating of the growing number of successful linear strategies. Check it out:

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/l...e_Linears.html

[majikal]

Excellent article! I especially hope the bit at the end gets the attention it deserves.

[Blitzbold]

Nice one Carsten. As you mentionend yourself this probably contains a lot of food for thought for a lot of players who aren't that familiar with Magic theory and strategy.

I also think you hit the nail with your bonus section. My first thought about Faithless Looting was "Oh cool, another functional reprint with powercreep incorporated", but shortly afterwards I thought "How or who can abuse this one?"

[thefringthing]

Facebook tells me you responded to my comment, Carsten, but I don't see any reply. Did you delete it?

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Facebook tells me you responded to my comment, Carsten, but I don't see any reply. Did you delete it?

If you tell me who you are, that would make it much easier to answer your question ;). I unsuccessfully tried to delete one just now because I formulated something badly and wanted to repost it (there doesn't seem to be any other way to correct mistakes), other than that they should all be there. Did the same thing successfully yesterday, too.
If you're Jesse Onland (just guessing by your custom title & location) it should be there. For your convenience:

"Reread the article after seeing your comment. I could indeed have taken a little more care as to when I use which moniker. The original intent was to use "TES/ANT" when talking about a specific version of storm (yes, I know) and to use "storm" when referring to the strategy as a whole independent of the actual implementation (the two decks do share a lot of characterisics, after all) but it seems I used the general term a little more often than I should have. Thanks for letting me know. "

[thefringthing]

I'm satisfied.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Good article, although as far as the Dredge subject is concerned: haters gonna hate.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Good article, although as far as the Dredge subject is concerned: haters gonna hate.

Happy you liked the article anyway, though I don't understand why everybody seems to assume I absolutely hate Dredge. I mean, sure, I said I don't enjoy playing against it (honest truth) but I don't see were all that defensiveness about the archetype comes from. It's not like I called for bans to stop the deck or something.

So that we can actually meaningful discuss the issue, I'll quote the answer I gave to a similar accusation of me simply hating Dredge in the article comments:
"Oh, I don't hate Dredge. While I don't enjoy playing against it (playing with it is a lot more fun), I think it definitely should be part of the eternal format landscape.
Note that I'm not comparing current Legacy Dredge to Survival (edit: part of his point was that comparing Dredge to Survival was ridiculous). I'm saying that IF Dredge becomes a problem because of new printings, the DCI is likely to nuke it from orbit (like they did to Survival) instead of getting rid of the offender that put its power level over the edge. As I said in the end, I don't think Legacy Dredge is even close to there yet but the DCI attitude is something I think needed addressing because it's dangerous for the long term health and variety of the Eternal formats.

I use Legacy Dredge as the example because I heard the R'n'D statement in the context of Faithless Looting and Dredge. The reason I use the example of Vintage Dredge in particular in the bonus section of the article is that the power level of the Bazaar linear in Vintage is so high that you either have hate online by turn 1 or you're dead in about 90% of the games (and the other 10% are split between Dredge fizzling on finding Bazaar and its opponent winning on turn 1/2 themselves), especially on the draw. Dredge isn't just very good in Vintage, it's absurd against everything that doesn't drop a very specific kind of card on turn one. The kind of dynamic that develops in games as a result is something I don't believe to be healthy.
If the same is true for Workshop prison strategies - and the amount of hate people pack postboard might indicate that's true, though the nature of the hate makes that doubtful and I don't have the testing to be sure - so much the worse. When games regularly come down to "do I run enough of the right hate" and "can I mulligan into it", to me that's a problem because it means the way games play out essentially comes down to the luck of the draw before anything else (yes, the cards you mulligan into are as much part of the luck of the draw as your first seven). Not to mention "can I mulligan to card X" isn't a particularly interesting game to begin with.
If you look at a larger picture of a wide open format, another pressing problem becomes apparent. Imagine there were four linear decks with Dredge's power level in Vintage instead of just one (or maybe two). They all need specific hate applicable only to each deck. With fifteen SB cards, there is no way you can pack enough hate to consistently find it and your success or failure during any tournament suddenly mainly depends on the types of decks you're paired against. Seems like that would be a horrible format to be honest.

As to your accusation of trying to defend my pet strategies (edit: that was the second point he made), I guarantee that you won't ever find me whining about a deck simply because it makes it hard for me to win with the decks I personally prefer to play. That's just my bad luck for playing something that can't deal with a certain strategy.

If you'd like to understand where I'm coming from as far as bans/restrictions are concerned, may I suggest reading this?:
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/l..._Question.html

To give you a much simplified version:
I start being concerned in three cases:
1) When the format is totally degenerate and non-interactive (think formats without any banned list or ones in which ten different types of Belcher decks goldfish each other).
2) when there is a deck/enigne that is so much better than everything else that it makes playing most options other than that engine a bad proposition (totally ruining strategic variety) - see Survival. There is no question the deck was beatable if one decided to do so. But trying to do so was just much less likely to lead to success than trying to build the most powerful Survival deck you could.
3) If there is a deck that consistently removes most relevant decisions from gameplay, turning the game into one of random chance (win the coinflip, mulligan to card X) independent of what kind of deck it's facing (or if all/most viable decks share the characteristic that they could be played by a trained monkey). The "independent of what the opponent is playing" part is very important here. In any varied Eternal format there will be strategies that crush other strategies as long as hate isn't involved. Once the linear is powerful enough to crush just about anything if the opponent doesn't have specific hate available in large enough quantities to be mulliganed into, that's when we have a problem. "

With this qualification, wouldn't you say my point of view makes sense? I mean imagine Dredge was strong enough in Legacy to force everybody to have the same kind of sideboard Vintage Dredge requires. Wouldn't you agree that at that point the format has a problem simply because it doesn't leave room to even marginally address the 20+ other viable strategies?
My point there really isn't about Dredge, though I used it because Vintage Dredge is the one glaring example of this situation existing I'm aware off. If we get into the situation that 90+% of viable decks need a dedicated overwhelming hate card by turn 1-2 against an archetype - whatever the archetype, be it fast combo, speed aggro, blue-based control, Elves, Affinity, Reanimator or anything else - to have any chance of winning the match, I think that would be trouble for the format.

[Koby]

I think the article is a good piece for beginners to Legacy as well as veterans. This format is so cyclical that every few years we need to remember why certain decks are rising to the top. You put a lot of good work bringing back some old ideas and introducing some new ones. Keep up the good work man!

[sdematt]

You're one of the few writers I read that I actually think afterwards, "This is a gentleman who knows what he's talking about." A lot of the other articles seem like an SCG mutual-admiration club. Ari's articles aren't too bad (continue writing them Ari, if you're reading, you are one of the few writers/commentators who are pretty decent), but the other writers I just shake my head and wonder what the fuck is going on.

-Matt

[thefringthing]

You're one of the few writers I read that I actually think afterwards, "This is a gentleman who knows what he's talking about."

Don't like Drew?

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Thanks for the props. Always makes me happy to hear people enjoy and value what I have to say.

[Amon Amarth]

You're one of the few writers I read that I actually think afterwards, "This is a gentleman who knows what he's talking about." A lot of the other articles seem like an SCG mutual-admiration club. Ari's articles aren't too bad (continue writing them Ari, if you're reading, you are one of the few writers/commentators who are pretty decent), but the other writers I just shake my head and wonder what the fuck is going on.

-Matt

This. I can't remember if I've ever read a bad article by Carsten.

[lordofthepit]

Don't like Drew?

In my opinion, Drew is also very good and I love that he also writes exclusively about Legacy. Between him and Carsten, there's quality content every week, so thanks to both!

On a sidenote, what's up with all these Modern articles on SCG recently? Is there some big tournament that a lot of SCG grinders are turning their efforts toward?

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Thanks again for the props!

On a sidenote, what's up with all these Modern articles on SCG recently? Is there some big tournament that a lot of SCG grinders are turning their efforts toward?

It's Modern PTQ season and we just had a Modern GP. I'd say that's where the increase in content comes from.