(Article) Format Problems and Solutions by Shaheen Soorani

[wcm8]

I agree with banning SDT.

I've also been playing UWR Mentor Miracles lately, so I am *not* an unfairly biased 'outsider'.

Top drags games down, and even though I consider myself a quick/efficient player, optimal utilization of the card still adds far too much time to games, especially thanks to its broken interaction with shuffle effects, counterbalance and the miracle mechanic. Add to that players who are new to the deck or the format or are just naturally slow/ponderous, and you've got a recipe for major problems.

Also, UWR miracles isn't just a corner-case deck played in small numbers. This is a Tier 1 deck that is perhaps the most popular/common deck at the moment, and it's been dominating tournaments for a considerable length of time. I think it's time to retire the deck -- it is arguably as oppressive as Survival was in it's heyday.

Banning Top would destroy the Miracles deck as it currently exists, but Control as a legacy archetype would continue to exist. In fact, there'd be *more* viable options to consider playing -- decks could once again utilize Standstill, Pernicious Deed, Ancestral Vision... White would not be the default secondary control color, as Black, Red, and even Green would offer compelling options to dip into those colors.

Also, please don't argue that 'without Counter Top, combo would run amok and dominate the format!' This simply isn't true. Tempo decks would continue to crush these matchups, whether it be via Stifle and/or Hymn to Tourach. Control could still fight them even without counterbalance; Flusterstorm and Snapcaster Mage are still cards. Sure, Elves would be better in this environment; it just means you'd have to sideboard more than just 2 copies of Rough//Tumble.

Sure, a few non-blue decks would suffer (e.g. Painter Stone), but any deck that could reasonably splash for Green could use Sylvan Library instead -- a much less time consuming replacement.

The other side effect of banning SDT beyond more viable control deck archetypes would be more viable Aggro decks. Terminus and CB lock put a huge damper on decks like zoo, goblins, and maverick. As if they didn't already have a dismal combo matchup, these decks suddenly became complete dogs to control decks running Terminus. Control decks would still be capable of fighting these decks; it'd just be on a more fair axis: actually paying 3-4 mana at sorcery speed for their Wrath effect is much more fair to Aggro than being able to threaten a Wrath for a single White mana at Instant speed.

And THEN, midrange decks that aren't running Abrupt Decay for CB could come back. I can sort of imagine that old Zombardment deck coming back against a format without access to CB, Terminus, and also without Rest in Peace being as ubiquitous. Other decks like Nic Fit would be legit options due to Tempo decks becoming more popular.

And finally... If a player REALLY still wanted to play Counterbalance and Miracles, she still could concoct a reasonably powerful deck with Scroll Rack replacing Top as the abusive enabler. I think most people would agree that Scroll Rack is a much more fair replacement: it costs more, is slower, isn't as easily abusable, doesn't 'dodge' removal, etc. It'd be far less frustrating to play against, and perhaps less likely to force games to go to time.

So yeah. There are a myriad of reasons to justify banning SDT, and I say all of this as a current pilot of Miracles. It's been a stain on legacy for years now (has anyone ever commented on how SDT is close to sounding like STD?), and I'd love to see it go. If for no other reason than for time concerns, the exact reason used to justify its banning in the days of Extended.

[Finn]

My apologies for fanning flames...

Miracles would not be a deck without Brainstorm. The right card would be banned. Rounds would not routinely go past time anymore. Problem solved.

[Ellomdian]

It does nothing.

I wish we could upvote posts...

This isn't about slow play, activating top each turn isn't slow play. Failing to resolve the activation reasonably is. Dying to increments of 1 damage via punishing fire is not slow play.

Time to trot out the documents again...

All players have the responsibility to play quickly enough so that their opponents are not at a significant disadvantage because of the time limit.

This statement is both beautiful in it's simplicity, and incredibly misunderstood.

If you can't activate and resolve Top fast enough to not cause a 'significant disadvantage' to your opponent, you are committing slow play. If you are doing so intentionally, you are Stalling, and Cheating.

Want to know what good, clean, efficient, fast play looks like? Watch Feline sometime - I've shown videos of her Branstorms to other judges to show what actually knowing what you are doing / being physically capable of doing it looks like.

Miracles players have a bad rap (rightfully so) because like every bad, slow, don't know what they are doing control player since The Deck, if you don't know what you are doing before you do it, you are going to be glacially slow.

As a Judge, Slow Play is like Pornography - I'll know it when I see it. We don't need clocks, and we for sure as hell don't need OP stepping in and banning another card to try to avoid correcting bad player behavior.

RIP Shahrazad.

[MGB]

My apologies for fanning flames...

Miracles would not be a deck without Brainstorm. The right card would be banned. Rounds would not routinely go past time anymore. Problem solved.

If you ban Brainstorm, there is a distinct possibility that Miracles continues to dominate as the only deck in the format that truly maximizes card selection by using Top in addition to Ponder and 1 Brainstorm. The other blue decks like Delver would not play Top, or at least not as effectively, because they do not maximize its power with 4 Counterbalance and 4 Terminus. Without 4 copies of Brainstorm, every other blue deck in the format would be weakened in their ability to skimp on lands and keep light hands, and Miracles might just be even more dominant than now.

The problem with banning Brainstorm is that it's the equivalent of detonating a thermonuclear bomb in a crowded city. Sure, it will take out that terrorist enclave in the trade district, but it will also turn the entire city into a smoldering heap. Banning SDT is like using a strike force of SEAL operatives to assassinate those terrorists instead. It will only really hurt one deck and one deck only, and we don't need to upset the entire apple cart to make a positive change in the format.

[MGB]

I wish we could upvote posts...



Time to trot out the documents again...



This statement is both beautiful in it's simplicity, and incredibly misunderstood.

If you can't activate and resolve Top fast enough to not cause a 'significant disadvantage' to your opponent, you are committing slow play. If you are doing so intentionally, you are Stalling, and Cheating.

Want to know what good, clean, efficient, fast play looks like? Watch Feline sometime - I've shown videos of her Branstorms to other judges to show what actually knowing what you are doing / being physically capable of doing it looks like.

Miracles players have a bad rap (rightfully so) because like every bad, slow, don't know what they are doing control player since The Deck, if you don't know what you are doing before you do it, you are going to be glacially slow.

As a Judge, Slow Play is like Pornography - I'll know it when I see it. We don't need clocks, and we for sure as hell don't need OP stepping in and banning another card to try to avoid correcting bad player behavior.

RIP Shahrazad.

It's just not realistic to expect everyone who plays with Top to play efficiently and quickly. Not only is it unrealistic to do so, but it puts a tremendous strain on judging resources to tell people to "call Miracles players on slow play if you suspect it". How many Miracles pilots are in your average Legacy tournament? Too many to take this approach.

Banning Top is a neat, clean, and simple solution to the problem instead. You simply have to weight the positives with the negatives. What is Top actively *GIVING* to the format? How much are we actually *LOSING* if we ban Top? In the end, we are basically just making the Tier 1 control deck weaker and diminishing a few 2-ofs/3-ofs in random Tier 2 archetypes (the few that occasionally play Tops like Painter, Cloudpost, BGx Rock). That is not a very great price to pay for all the important *GAINS* we get from getting rid of Top.

[Barook]

Well, Top was banned in those formats and not legacy because those formats are PTQ/Pro-tour formats. Meaning with a lot more players/events, especially when you factor in newer folks, top activations will eat up a significant amount of the clock. As long as Legacy remains in the hands of enthusiasts and not in the grinders hands, there was deemed little reason to change.

While I don't agree that the original SDT ban was acceptable (slow play people gonna slow play w/e decision you hand them, punish them not the card), that was the reason outlined if I recall correctly. Along those lines, SDT has to go if Legacy becomes a PTQ/pro-tour format or the philosophy leading to the decision has to be revisited.

Letting it ruin other formats' tournaments just because it isn't a PT format would be pretty bad.

Here's the reasoning behind the SDT ban. Basically, time, combined with power level, was the kicker:

For many readers, the biggest surprise to come out of the recent announcement was the decision to ban Sensei’s Divining Top in Extended. Making the decision to remove a card from an environment completely is never something taken lightly, and this time was no exception. Sensei's Divining Top caught the eye of Organized Play as being a potential problem during the Qualifier season for Pro Tour–Hollywood, but ultimately the decision was to monitor Top’s performance through the season and reconvene on the matter later in the year.
Sensei's Divining Top

Ultimately Top 8s throughout the season were littered with the one-cost artifact either in conjunction with Counterbalance to lock opponents out of games, Trinket Mage to be found reliably, or (and usually in addition to) Onslaught’s sac-lands to allow players to shuffle away cards they didn’t wish to draw while peeking at a fresh set of three cards. Such a pervasive performance during a single season created a different problem as well: it made tournaments take too much time.

The constant activating of Divining Top bogs games down, which ultimately leads to an increase in the number of matches that go to time and beyond, which in turn leads to tournaments running much longer than they have historically. Furthermore, the Top encourages players to maximize the number of shuffle effects they play in a deck and the constant shuffling, cutting, presenting to an opponent to repeat the process, and then continuation of a turn exacerbated the situation. In the past the DCI has banned such cards on those grounds alone (Shahrazad is a good example of this, with Land Tax and Thawing Glaciers also having been banned for similar reasons) but in conjunction with the Top’s popularity during the last Extended PTQ season, the decision was to ban the card from the format it was harming.

[Richard Cheese]

Terrible article is terrible. Legacy is too slow, ban things! Modern is too fast, unban things! Burn is not allowed to be a real deck!

Ok Goldilocks.

[Lord Seth]

There is this persistent myth that banning Top would be a huge loss for so many non-blue strategies. Where is this coming from? Top is the centerpiece of one and only one deck in Legacy: Miracles. It occasionally will see play as a 1-of or 2-of in random BGx decks, Storm decks, Cloudpost decks, but never as the centerpiece of those decks or even an essential component in their strategies. There is basically no deck that is truly hurt by an SDT ban other than Miracles.

Cloudpst decks generally play the full 4 copies of Top, not the 1-2 of as you claim.

[Meekrab]

Modern is too fast, unban things!

I actually agree with him there, if I can play an 8/6 hasty vigilant trampling Titan on Turn 2 and tutor up even more lands by attacking, or drop a 15/15 Trampler with haste that leaves behind 3 5/5 tokens on Turn 3, or swing with a googleplex Cleric Twins on T4, what's the big deal about BBE into (maybe) Ancestral Visions? Sword of the Meek is banned (lol)? Cmon. The power level of combo decks is way out of proportion to anything else in the format. Even Siege Rhino isn't good and that's a better BBE that always hits Lightning Helix.

[lordofthepit]

I'm sure his suggestions have nothing to do with the fact that Punishing Fire and Sensei's Divining Top almost single-handedly destroy the one Legacy deck he has played exclusively since 2012.

While Shaheen is a very fast pilot with Stoneblade, his deck of choice is much more prone to going to time than Lands is, and is probably comparable to Miracles in that regard. It's got the grindy elements of both decks without the ability to present a fast clock that Lands and Miracles do.

[Tammit67]

From dictionary.com:

anecdote

noun, plural anecdotes or for 2, anecdota [an-ik-doh-tuh] (Show IPA)
1.
a short account of a particular incident or event, especially of an interesting or amusing nature.
2.
a short, obscure historical or biographical account.


You are giving a short account of a particular event (Washington DC SCG Open) with the imputation that your account of the event will bolster the counter-argument that implies that, in fact, Miracles and Lands may not be the problem after all, because, well: <anecdotal evidence of one event>.

Giving the average turn around time of a round is not anecdotal evidence. Saying "The rounds took too long, I was there!" is anecdotal evidence: One has indisputable observations, the other have opinions. You are correct that all I have is 1 event's worth of data and that in itself is reason to take t with a grain of salt.

Both of these cards promote longer rounds and slower play. Activating top each turn inevitably increases the amount of time expended in any given game of Magic, whether or not the player is intentionally "slow playing". The issue is tournament logistics as a whole, and not identifying a particular game action by the exact definition preferred the judging community.

Intentionally slow playing is called cheating- stalling and got Saito DQ'd those years ago. Slow play by its nature is unintentionally failing to advance the game state. I agree that while the decisions with top can lead to slow play from inexperienced pilots, that's a problem inherent with the players themselves, not the card.

I really don't understand why punishing fire is on anyone's radar. If I want to win a game of magic through my 1 of [cards]suntail hawk[cards], that's my prerogative to do so. I've accepted the risk of being unable to finish games because my win condition is slow. Taking additional turns to finish out a game with a wincon has minimal impact on tournament round length. It is the extremely long turns after time that has been called that really extend the clock.

[Ellomdian]

It's just not realistic to expect everyone who plays with Top to play efficiently and quickly.

Why is it unrealistic to expect people in higher-level organized play to be able to follow the rules?

The issue is that people have spent years justifying the behavior in their own minds. I have spent years giving out escalated game losses.

I could go into how players misinterpret complexity of the gamestate, or how the take too long performing mechanical actions like looking at cards and shuffling, or how much time is wasted staring at a board that hasn't changed with a look of desperate confusion that leaks out of their soul through their eyes, but it's a lot simpler to just say "I need you to make a play, now."

[Lord Seth]

I actually agree with him there, if I can play an 8/6 hasty vigilant trampling Titan on Turn 2 and tutor up even more lands by attacking, or drop a 15/15 Trampler with haste that leaves behind 3 5/5 tokens on Turn 3, or swing with a googleplex Cleric Twins on T4, what's the big deal about BBE into (maybe) Ancestral Visions?

While Bloodbraid Elf's banning was it taking the fall for the actual problem card (Deathrite Shaman) and Ancestral Vision's rationale for banning was poor ("it sees a lot of play in Legacy!" Yeah, because MENTAL MISSTEP WAS LEGAL), I do question the unbanning of Bloodbraid Elf considering Jund is one of the best decks right now. Ancestral Vision may go into Twin, which seems potentially dangerous considering it's one of the top decks, but the bigger concern right now is Grixis Control, a huge deck at the moment, which Ancestral Vision seems like it'd fit very well into. Basically, they're unbans that would slot straight into what are some of the top decks in the format right now, so they seem dubious for unbanning.

Sword of the Meek is banned (lol)? Cmon.

Sword of the Meek being banned, however, is a bit silly. It's generally considered a fairly safe unban by the playerbase, but Wizards of the Coast has made it abundantly clear they will only unban cards in Modern before a Pro Tour.

[MGB]

Giving the average turn around time of a round is not anecdotal evidence. Saying "The rounds took too long, I was there!" is anecdotal evidence: One has indisputable observations, the other have opinions. You are correct that all I have is 1 event's worth of data and that in itself is reason to take t with a grain of salt.

You can't expect to just throw these observations into this thread and claim innocence regarding your actual motive for proffering such data. Unless you make a habit of randomly providing data in threads that just happens to coincide with an issue at hand, with no intention of bolstering a given point or counterpoint in that thread, then we have to assume your intention was, in fact, to use the data from one event to provide the insubstantial body of a counterpoint to the argument in the article.

Intentionally slow playing is called cheating- stalling and got Saito DQ'd those years ago. Slow play by its nature is unintentionally failing to advance the game state. I agree that while the decisions with top can lead to slow play from inexperienced pilots, that's a problem inherent with the players themselves, not the card.

The problem with the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument is that, yes, while technically true, the fact of the matter is that there is a significant portion of people in the general populace who cannot be trusted to make the correct decisions consistently. Unless you are wholly trusting of everyone, then you have to acknowledge that some kind of oversight or control is usually necessary when people are given the power to affect their community.

In Magic terms, giving everyone the power to play Sensei's Divining Top and negatively affect the length and time of their Legacy tournament is an error, because the majority of people playing SDT cannot make correct decisions as quickly as necessary to expediently finish their match. The threshold for this skill level is simply too high to clear for most people. It is unrealistic and foolhardy to expect the majority of Miracles pilots to be experienced and skilled enough to play as efficiently as is necessary for this not to be a problem. Thus, we have to use regulatory powers to curtial the effects of the actual card in question.

And again, we have to come back to the weighing of the positives and negatives:

What does the presence of SDT offer the format and its players? (Miracles is a great deck. A few tier 2 archetypes can play a 2-of/3-of.)

What does the banning of SDT give in terms of an enhanced experience? (Much more expedient play in tournaments, more diverse control strategies, more diverse aggro, etc)

If you weigh the positives of SDT and the negatives of SDT, it's clear that banning SDT offers more for Legacy tournaments than keeping SDT does.

[Admiral_Arzar]

I'm sure his suggestions have nothing to do with the fact that Punishing Fire and Sensei's Divining Top almost single-handedly destroy the one Legacy deck he has played exclusively since 2012.

While Shaheen is a very fast pilot with Stoneblade, his deck of choice is much more prone to going to time than Lands is, and is probably comparable to Miracles in that regard. It's got the grindy elements of both decks without the ability to present a fast clock that Lands and Miracles do.

LOL I didn't know he played Stoneblade. It all makes sense now. He has TNN now - that guy is hard for Lands to deal with, pre-TNN Blade was a bye.

Why is it unrealistic to expect people in higher-level organized play to be able to follow the rules?

The issue is that people have spent years justifying the behavior in their own minds. I have spent years giving out escalated game losses.

I could go into how players misinterpret complexity of the gamestate, or how the take too long performing mechanical actions like looking at cards and shuffling, or how much time is wasted staring at a board that hasn't changed with a look of desperate confusion that leaks out of their soul through their eyes, but it's a lot simpler to just say "I need you to make a play, now."

I've never had issues playing Top, Brainstorm, or any of the other cards people constantly cite for "slow play." Heck I combo'd off with 4 Horseman in a reasonable amount of time before the rules change nuked that deck. Perhaps, if people are unable to play these cards in a reasonable amount of time, they should (a) practice outside a tournament setting or (b) play another deck. I also find that enforcement for slow play is very lax, but that is probably more the fault of players who don't call a judge than the judges themselves.

[lordofthepit]

LOL I didn't know he played Stoneblade. It all makes sense now. He has TNN now - that guy is hard for Lands to deal with, pre-TNN Blade was a bye.

He doesn't play TNN. He's still jamming Lingering Souls like it's 2012. If he were playing TNN, I doubt he'd be complaining about Punishing Fire.

[Admiral_Arzar]

He doesn't play TNN. He's still jamming Lingering Souls like it's 2012. If he were playing TNN, I doubt he'd be complaining about Punishing Fire.

That would explain his problem then I guess.

[Doishy]

Personally I think both suggestions for the hammer are a bit extreme. As people have pointed put Top is played in a fair few fringe decks (Including my personal choice of DDFT) and does represent one of the few excellent non blue card selection suites. I do think miracles is over abundant as an archetype and would advocate a banning of something from it but no top. Possibly either counterbalance or terminus (I would prefer the former but either would do).

As for the time problem, also as has been pointed out, the right players play fast and well. Legacy is a fast format in one respect but a very well considered one in another and I feel like taking out this time for consideration would be a negative to it.

Merely my musings.

[iatee]

As for the time problem, also as has been pointed out, the right players play fast and well.

very strong players go to time with miracles *all the time*, to the extent that it affects basically every large legacy tournament result.

both top and brainstorm should be banned, it doesn't need to be an either or. I don't think top is broken as a card in legacy, but it's broken as a tournament card.

[Tammit67]

You can't expect to just throw these observations into this thread and claim innocence regarding your actual motive for proffering such data. Unless you make a habit of randomly providing data in threads that just happens to coincide with an issue at hand, with no intention of bolstering a given point or counterpoint in that thread, then we have to assume your intention was, in fact, to use the data from one event to provide the insubstantial body of a counterpoint to the argument in the article.

My innocence? My motive was to counteract the author's point that "legacy events have huge logistical concerns that warrant bannings because of the cards available to the format" by providing the context average turnaround time of the event he claims had really shitty turnaround time (check the Thomas Whitman comment and response chain). Whether you think the SCG DC observation is insubstantial is your interpretation, for me it is an example of how events are run in Legacy.

The problem with the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument is that, yes, while technically true, the fact of the matter is that there is a significant portion of people in the general populace who cannot be trusted to make the correct decisions consistently. Unless you are wholly trusting of everyone, then you have to acknowledge that some kind of oversight or control is usually necessary when people are given the power to affect their community.

In Magic terms, giving everyone the power to play Sensei's Divining Top and negatively affect the length and time of their Legacy tournament is an error, because the majority of people playing SDT cannot make correct decisions as quickly as necessary to expediently finish their match. The threshold for this skill level is simply too high to clear for most people. It is unrealistic and foolhardy to expect the majority of Miracles pilots to be experienced and skilled enough to play as efficiently as is necessary for this not to be a problem. Thus, we have to use regulatory powers to curtial the effects of the actual card in question.

We do have oversight for those unable to handle the responsibilities of playing at a reasonable pace: the entire judge community and tournament structure. If someone is taking too long, they get warnings and/or they get draws and drop from the event for being unable to cash and switch decks. I'm willing to keep my faith in the judges on staff to progress the event and for the players to assist with that.

You know what cards take up more tournament time than top? Fetchlands. But we aren't looking to ban them right?

And again, we have to come back to the weighing of the positives and negatives:

What does the presence of SDT offer the format and its players? (Miracles is a great deck. A few tier 2 archetypes can play a 2-of/3-of.)

What does the banning of SDT give in terms of an enhanced experience? (Much more expedient play in tournaments, more diverse control strategies, more diverse aggro, etc)

If you weigh the positives of SDT and the negatives of SDT, it's clear that banning SDT offers more for Legacy tournaments than keeping SDT does.

But it is nothing unique to top that banning it would change the format, hell banning stoneforge would change how decks interact with each other and what would be considered viable. "Hey if we ban show and tell, other combo decks get to play the game and decks bad against omnishow get to see the light of day". Well no kidding, but show and tell isn't crushing tournaments. Top isn't doing that either, it is simply a tier 1 deck that the author has decided to hate on in his opinion piece because it wins very slowly.

I hold no ill will towards you or the author, I just don't agree with his points. I haven't attended a legacy event where I thought time was an issue outside of GP NJ last year with its 4500 people. I'd rather keep the ban list as small as possible rather than ban a fantastic card that is not putting up egregiously dominant results.