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Thread: [Article]Eternal Europe: Innovation Spotlight III

  1. #21
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    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Innovation Spotlight III

    Quote Originally Posted by amalek0 View Post
    Why do you think I click to SCG every day looking to see if one of your articles is up? It's almost like a discussion with someone NOT over the internet. Then you get people like Lemnear who, while I respect the hell out of them as players and deckbuilders, come across as asshats most of the time on the forums.
    I apologize. No, seriously. It 's just in my nature to get douchy if I spend 200 words to discuss all facetts of a mentioned issue and the response is a one-liner, not giving a fuck and repeating the same bold, indifferentiated statements again which is a repeating pattern in all B&R discussions and the reason the same topics and arguments pop up every month. After more than 3 years on this board, I'm no more willing to put serious time into dishonest discussions like in all the B&R threads like you can see on the "Ban Fetchlands to hurt all cantrips" topic, the "on blue" thread or "banning Brainstorm is GOOD for combo" nonsense. I focus my time rather on the deck-development to solve problems and users really caring for progress rather than just raging for rages reason. If any dear user is interrested in a honest discussion and arguments, you can still bet that that I leave the asshat at home and do my best to help out. This is also within my nature. :)
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    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Innovation Spotlight III

    I don't think it's fair to accuse people of not wanting to innovate. Innovation, as you define it, seems to mean "brew narrow hate decks for the blue decks." But the answers are always worse than the questions. The UWR shell is so consistent and strong at this point that you can basically take 45 cards and jam in whatever you want for the last 15 (see the deck Rich Shay posted on reddit here: http://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/com..._i_just_40d_a/) and really, are you ever worse than 40% against the field?

    I think the price of cards is a huge consideration. Strong hate decks like D&T, Painter, MUD are still subject to the whims of variance at a much higher level than the blue shell. And they're not cheap (MUD is probably the cheapest, but worst one of those decks). Think about the UR or even the URW decks: Fetches have had a big reprint, Batterskull was a GP promo, SFM was in an event deck, heck even Jitte was in an intro pack. You can take the budget you'd have to spend on Port + Wasteland + Vial and really just plug it into Forces and Volcs and have a pretty solid list.

    Bahra's winning Richmond deck is the same price as a stock UR delver list and is only about $500 less than the Jeskai Stoneblade lists. (and much of that cost can be made up by eschewing cards like Clique and Flusterstorm in favor of other anti-combo tools in-color like Canonist or Spell Pierce)

    I feel when we see these decklists that have done well as one-offs, it's like commercials for the scratch-off lottery. Sure, you could be the rogue deck that runs hot and places in a sea of blue. Or you could be me and lose three out of four die rolls at Eternal Weekend while winning almost every game in which I'm on the play.

    I could sell my entire deck and buy a proven GP winner off the shelf. I don't because I like non-blue brewing. But I know that even if I play 4 GSZ and 3 Sylvan Library and 3 Stoneforge and a Knight of the Reliquary that I am at a pure disadvantage against even fair blue decks, let alone combo decks with good draws. But for someone for whom winning is more important, there's no real incentive to do that. You don't save enough money by brewing or playing anti-meta decks relative to the actual gain in winning percentage against the meta.

    On another note, check out this recent IQ top 8 in PA. Six non-blue decks, at least one of which was manned by a person who had won the last IQ at the store with a blue deck and another was manned by a player who has access to blue lands but has made a conscious choice to not play a Brainstorm strategy with mixed results.

    The thing is, it shouldn't be up to good players with good cards to take it on themselves to increase deck choice diversity at the expense of their chances for success in the tournament. (Could we call that a "gentleman's agreement?") Everyone knows that if you are serious about winning, you play Brainstorm, because in a game where the order of the cards in your deck is randomized, you do whatever you can to change that. And if you're really serious about winning, you don't play BUG Nic Fit or Food Chain just because they have Brainstorm, you play one of the clearly established best Brainstorm decks.

    The diversity of competitive legacy is a mirage created by people who are willing to sacrifice their own chances at victory to create a more enjoyable play experience for themselves. This is unique in competition. No NFL team is signing a comedian to play wide receiver because they like his jokes. But you can bet they would sign 8-foot cyborgs until the rules explicitly prevent it.

    TL;DR: it's fair to discuss whether it's bad at it's core that the blue shell dominates legacy, or discuss the best card to remove to weaken it. But it's not right to act like it isn't the best core in the format. Because it is, or it wouldn't dominate. Simple as that.

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    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Innovation Spotlight III

    Quote Originally Posted by maharis View Post
    I think the price of cards is a huge consideration. Strong hate decks like D&T, Painter, MUD are still subject to the whims of variance at a much higher level than the blue shell. And they're not cheap (MUD is probably the cheapest, but worst one of those decks). Think about the UR or even the URW decks: Fetches have had a big reprint, Batterskull was a GP promo, SFM was in an event deck, heck even Jitte was in an intro pack. You can take the budget you'd have to spend on Port + Wasteland + Vial and really just plug it into Forces and Volcs and have a pretty solid list.
    I don't think we should EVER argue with monetary arguments. Buying into Legacy is absurd for a hobby. It was kinda unreasonable to buy german FBB U.Seas for 75 Deutsche Mark (former german currency) in the late 90's for a piece of cardboard and with the look at the current prices of Karakas, Tarmogoyf, Cradles and more we can't just blame blue duals for being responsible for the step entry barrier. Hell, you can buy a lot of video games for the price of the average UR Delver list and get a second/third hand car on top of that.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Echelon View Post
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    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Innovation Spotlight III

    Quote Originally Posted by maharis View Post
    The thing is, it shouldn't be up to good players with good cards to take it on themselves to increase deck choice diversity at the expense of their chances for success in the tournament. (Could we call that a "gentleman's agreement?") Everyone knows that if you are serious about winning, you play Brainstorm, because in a game where the order of the cards in your deck is randomized, you do whatever you can to change that. And if you're really serious about winning, you don't play BUG Nic Fit or Food Chain just because they have Brainstorm, you play one of the clearly established best Brainstorm decks.

    The diversity of competitive legacy is a mirage created by people who are willing to sacrifice their own chances at victory to create a more enjoyable play experience for themselves. This is unique in competition. No NFL team is signing a comedian to play wide receiver because they like his jokes. But you can bet they would sign 8-foot cyborgs until the rules explicitly prevent it.
    This is among the most insightful comments about Legacy I have seen in a long time, because it describes me to a T (and some other good players I know well). I have deck ADD and don't enjoy playing the blue shell, so I play other things in order to have an enjoyable play experience. If I must play blue I usually play jank or outdated combo decks like Food Chain, Aluren, or High Tide. However, I'm aware that I would probably win a lot more if I just picked up *insert Delver or Stoneblade list here* and played it long enough to learn the ins and outs of the deck. I find constant blue mirrors boring though, and I don't really enjoy playing the decks in the first place (especially the generic goodstuff a la Deathblade). So what to do? Play inferior decks that sometimes win because it's more fun.
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    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Innovation Spotlight III

    Quote Originally Posted by Lemnear View Post
    I don't think we should EVER argue with monetary arguments. Buying into Legacy is absurd for a hobby. It was kinda unreasonable to buy german FBB U.Seas for 75 Deutsche Mark (former german currency) in the late 90's for a piece of cardboard and with the look at the current prices of Karakas, Tarmogoyf, Cradles and more we can't just blame blue duals for being responsible for the step entry barrier. Hell, you can buy a lot of video games for the price of the average UR Delver list and get a second/third hand car on top of that.
    This is so ignorant, both of my point and of Legacy in general. Of course it's absurd to buy into Legacy for a hobby from a pure utilitarian perspective. It's absurd to talk about it on the Internet and honestly, to play it as well.

    The player base of Legacy, however, is people with a certain level of disposable income and time. They are making the choice to play this game. Some have had cards for a while, but others are buying in because they can and it's fun to them. You can be assured that if people decided not to buy into it because they could just get a car for the same price, it wouldn't be played at a high level any more than Vintage is. The money spent on Legacy singles is the incentive for stores to run the events. By the way, you look at the choice Starcity has made and it's clear that they aren't making enough money on Legacy opens to rationalize running them more regularly than Standard, otherwise they would do that. That's including their stock and prices of Legacy staples and their projection of future revenue. They are expecting more people to choose the beater car or the metal shop in their garage or the mountain bike over Legacy.

    Either way, that isn't the point I'm talking about. The point is that if you are choosing to buy into the format now, for whatever reason, and you want to play competitively, you have a choice. One is to buy into the high-priced cards and shells that are proven to be successful over time independent of set releases and meta shifts. Another is to buy into the high-priced cards and shells that have a slight advantage in certain metagames at a point in time. Given that this potential person is already making the irrational choice to purchase up to $2,000 worth of flimsy cardboard, why would they ever pick the latter?

    My proof that this is happening are the price trends on blue duals. Yes, they are falling now (as are almost all eternal card prices, other than Vintage pillars and rare Legends cards, I believe) but they increased at a rate much higher than their non-blue counterparts. That data indicates that demand was that much higher for blue decks at the beginning of the year. So when Carsten says people aren't innovating, what he's seeing is a player base that has grown in such a way that it's tilted toward one particular shell. They aren't innovating because they don't have the cards, because it's pointless to buy the other cards.

  6. #26

    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Innovation Spotlight III

    Quote Originally Posted by maharis View Post
    I don't think it's fair to accuse people of not wanting to innovate. Innovation, as you define it, seems to mean "brew narrow hate decks for the blue decks." But the answers are always worse than the questions. The UWR shell is so consistent and strong at this point that you can basically take 45 cards and jam in whatever you want for the last 15.

    The thing is, it shouldn't be up to good players with good cards to take it on themselves to increase deck choice diversity at the expense of their chances for success in the tournament. (Could we call that a "gentleman's agreement?") Everyone knows that if you are serious about winning, you play Brainstorm, because in a game where the order of the cards in your deck is randomized, you do whatever you can to change that. And if you're really serious about winning, you don't play BUG Nic Fit or Food Chain just because they have Brainstorm, you play one of the clearly established best Brainstorm decks.

    The diversity of competitive legacy is a mirage created by people who are willing to sacrifice their own chances at victory to create a more enjoyable play experience for themselves. This is unique in competition. No NFL team is signing a comedian to play wide receiver because they like his jokes. But you can bet they would sign 8-foot cyborgs until the rules explicitly prevent it.

    TL;DR: it's fair to discuss whether it's bad at it's core that the blue shell dominates legacy, or discuss the best card to remove to weaken it. But it's not right to act like it isn't the best core in the format. Because it is, or it wouldn't dominate. Simple as that.
    Very eloquently put and I think spot on.

  7. #27
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    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Innovation Spotlight III

    Add to that the mention of anecdotal evidence of non-blue deck top 8's. N=1 is not a sufficient sample size to counter argue against blue dominance.

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    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Innovation Spotlight III

    The sentiment is nice, showcasing some "innovative" decks that break from the pack, but it's not a strong argument against those who claim the Legacy metagame is warped around certain cards/shells, and worse off for it. And I don't believe innovation is as easy or possible as the article insinuates; as big as the Legacy cardpool is, there really aren't a whole lot of unplumbed depths that maverick deckbuilders could tap into.

    Most potential decks simply can't compete on a raw power level. Most of the ones that can compete happen to be, unsurprisingly, combo decks. The (big A) Archetype of Combo has always relied on non-interactivity, through speed and zones/playstyles that the opponent isn't prepared to do battle upon or with. This gives them a raw power that a rogue deck in other archetypes (Aggro, Tempo, Control, Prison, etc.) can't count on. It's why in any format where combo is prevalent, some pile o' crap will luck their way into decent finishes on the strength of good hands (for the pilot; bad ones for the opponent) and good matchups. I bet every combo player on this forum can recount a time when they took down or top-8'd some tourney with an abysmal pile. Heck, I could recount the time I took a godawful Restore Balance deck to second place in an Old Extended tournament. That doesn't mean that deck was good or had any sort of longevity, though.

    But making a non-combo deck that breaks the mold? That's damn hard.

    There really aren't many powerful engines or synergies that have gone unnoticed, unexplored, or unused. I don't think Tortured Existence and Krovikan Horror are going to be the next Delver and Brainstorm, as cool as they are. Similarly, the DrJones special of Kavu Predator, False Cure, and cards like Invigorate or Reverent Silence is basically a worse version of U/G/x Infect. Which, coincidentally runs the Blue shell to smooth out all the problems that "The Cure" has, while being faster and better equipped to fight other combo with their maindeck Force of Will as opposed to some discard spells in "The Cure". Unless you were someone with a burning hatred of Force (a la Source luminary DrJones), there would be few reasons to run B/G Makebigd00d over U/G Infect.

    I doubt there are many cards/interactions that can break into the absurdly high power level of contemporary Legacy. This isn't the good old days where the most dangerous creature that could be vomited out as part of a two-card combo was just a 13/13 trampler (not flying Yawgwin or the idiocy that is Emrakul), where the tempo decks used Nimble Mongoose (or even Quiron Dryad waaaaaay back) to beat face, where if combo fizzled it didn't leave 10+ power on the board, where wraths weren't instant speed for W, and where Aggro actually existed as an Archetype. Wizards mistakes from Zendikar onwards have been pretty disastrous for the format by skyrocketing the power level of the top archetypes, making the gap between higher tier decks (T1/T1.5/T2) and the lower tiers really wide. 10-Land Stompy revival might have flown in that era, but now my Winter Orbs

    This is why most "new" brews, most "innovations" are going to be either one-time combos or extremely metagamed hate decks. Full sets of Chalice and Choke in the mainboard isn't the start of some vibrant, new deck that will be discussed for years to come on The Source, but a reaction to a field that's mostly Blue tempo and combo. Brilliant as it is, from a competitive standpoint (and it really is some ace meta work), it doesn't speak well on the health of the format and to fun that can be had in Legacy deckbuilding. But hey, at least it's convinced me that maindeck Chokes in Enchantress is probably the right call.

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    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Innovation Spotlight III

    Quote Originally Posted by Jamaican Zombie Legend View Post
    But hey, at least it's convinced me that maindeck Chokes in Enchantress is probably the right call.
    Those in the know have been doing that for YEARS.
    Quote Originally Posted by maharis View Post
    The diversity of competitive legacy is a mirage created by people who are willing to sacrifice their own chances at victory to create a more enjoyable play experience for themselves. This is unique in competition.

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    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Innovation Spotlight III

    Quote Originally Posted by maharis View Post
    This is so ignorant, both of my point and of Legacy in general. Of course it's absurd to buy into Legacy for a hobby from a pure utilitarian perspective. It's absurd to talk about it on the Internet and honestly, to play it as well.

    The player base of Legacy, however, is people with a certain level of disposable income and time. They are making the choice to play this game. Some have had cards for a while, but others are buying in because they can and it's fun to them. You can be assured that if people decided not to buy into it because they could just get a car for the same price, it wouldn't be played at a high level any more than Vintage is. The money spent on Legacy singles is the incentive for stores to run the events. By the way, you look at the choice Starcity has made and it's clear that they aren't making enough money on Legacy opens to rationalize running them more regularly than Standard, otherwise they would do that. That's including their stock and prices of Legacy staples and their projection of future revenue. They are expecting more people to choose the beater car or the metal shop in their garage or the mountain bike over Legacy.

    Either way, that isn't the point I'm talking about. The point is that if you are choosing to buy into the format now, for whatever reason, and you want to play competitively, you have a choice. One is to buy into the high-priced cards and shells that are proven to be successful over time independent of set releases and meta shifts. Another is to buy into the high-priced cards and shells that have a slight advantage in certain metagames at a point in time. Given that this potential person is already making the irrational choice to purchase up to $2,000 worth of flimsy cardboard, why would they ever pick the latter?

    My proof that this is happening are the price trends on blue duals. Yes, they are falling now (as are almost all eternal card prices, other than Vintage pillars and rare Legends cards, I believe) but they increased at a rate much higher than their non-blue counterparts. That data indicates that demand was that much higher for blue decks at the beginning of the year. So when Carsten says people aren't innovating, what he's seeing is a player base that has grown in such a way that it's tilted toward one particular shell. They aren't innovating because they don't have the cards, because it's pointless to buy the other cards.
    Very eloquently put and I think spot on.


    I apologize. No, seriously. It 's just in my nature to get douchy if I spend 200 words to discuss all facetts of a mentioned issue and the response is a one-liner, not giving a fuck and repeating the same bold, indifferentiated statements again which is a repeating pattern in all B&R discussions and the reason the same topics and arguments pop up every month. After more than 3 years on this board, I'm no more willing to put serious time into dishonest discussions like in all the B&R threads like you can see on the "Ban Fetchlands to hurt all cantrips" topic, the "on blue" thread or "banning Brainstorm is GOOD for combo" nonsense. I focus my time rather on the deck-development to solve problems and users really caring for progress rather than just raging for rages reason. If any dear user is interrested in a honest discussion and arguments, you can still bet that that I leave the asshat at home and do my best to help out. This is also within my nature. :)
    Your problem is that you'Re not reading the 200 words that other people write and you discredit them, delegiitimaze their point of view and mock them. your posts are a pain to read and anything reasonable that's in them is buried under your pompous IBA-like behaviour towards anyone daring to oppose you. That's why a lot of people (including me) don't give a phuck in trying to discuss with you.

  11. #31
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    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Innovation Spotlight III

    Quote Originally Posted by Bed Decks Palyer View Post
    Your problem is that you'Re not reading the 200 words that other people write and you discredit them, delegiitimaze their point of view and mock them. your posts are a pain to read and anything reasonable that's in them is buried under your pompous IBA-like behaviour towards anyone daring to oppose you. That's why a lot of people (including me) don't give a phuck in trying to discuss with you.
    Here is the point. We are not discussing the serious matter of a banning on a rational base, but because of POVs and feelings how the metagame should look like for people.

    There are claims that the metagame would be more diverse, which isn't pretty likely because of the cream-of-the-crop-principle in tournament Magic, the available and obvious replacements for Brainstorm for the blue shell to remain the best tool to reduce variance for the Delver/SFM strategies and the significant weakening of various archtypes which already struggle. This point leaves so many question marks, that I can't let it count as "pro" for banning the blue instant.

    Another issue comes with the data we have. Since 2011 the penetration of brainstorm rised from ~53% to ~70% in 2014. Mind, that Jace, Mental Misstep, SFM, Preordain, Gitaxian Probe, Delver, SCM, TNN, Griselbrand, Emrakul, the complete Miracles mechanic, DTT and TC saw print within that timeframe and are responsible for Zoo, Goblins and Maverick to be pushed out and KotR, a former staple in more than 20% of decks (according to MTGtop8) dropped to insignificant numbers. The point which is relevant for discussing "diversity" is that even if those cards pushed the penetration of Brainstorm and often share the BS/Ponder-core which drives so many people mad in this forum, they fuel differenct strategies, which (for me) IS the definition of diversity and more relevant than a certain image of color-balance, which other people use for their definition of "diversity". That however does not mean i'm fine with all these printings, just saying. Brainstorm is 50%+ in Legacy for years and attendence of tournaments was growing. Vintage had it's "golden age" of attendence with unrestricted Brainstorm/Ponder/Gush/Merchant Scroll and 90% of decks running Moxen and 60%+ the named core of cards. These examples show that its blatantly false that the dominance of a certain support-card (mind: not talking about threats which would streamline the metagame) harms format popularity.

    I'm convinced that if anything really annoys the average tournament-player, it's not the two-sided brainstorm & cantrip durdling, but playing against Delver/SFM/TNN round after round after round as the various flavors of that subtype make about 40% of the WHOLE WORLDWIDE METAGAME to the point where the field is maindecking Pyroblasts to handle that oppressive linear threats.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Echelon View Post
    Lemnear sounds harsh at times, but he means well. Or to destroy, but that's when he starts rapping.

    Architect by day, rapstar by night. He's pretty much the German Hannah Montana. Sometimes he even comes in like a wrecking ball.

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    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Innovation Spotlight III

    Right. Your opinion of the problems with the meta are "creatures are good." Hence listing SFM, Griselbrand, and Emrakul (and I can bet that if you made this post in two months, Young Pyro would've been there), none of which are blue or require blue to play optimally absent absurdly overpowered ancient cards like Brainstorm and Show & Tell.

    You didn't mention Past in Flames, which gave storm players virtual access to not just Black Lotus and Demonic Tutor, but Yawgmoth's Will as well...

    The thing is, as I've mentioned multiple times, the blue dominance may feel like different strategies, but at their core they are just using the same cantrip engine to fuel different endgames. That engine is so good and difficult to disrupt that it pushes out previously viable engine cards like Life from the Loam, Dark Confidant and Knight of the Reliquary. Glimpse of Nature is an exception but it doesn't open up more than one archetype (unless Cheeri0s is doing better than I thought)...

    And since only one engine is competitive, the number of playable cards drops, until you have an effective pool not dissimilar in size to Standard. That makes it easier to find a best deck. Today, it's creature-based decks that are supreme, generally playing Delver, SFM, and Young Pyro or some combination thereof. If we ban creatures back to the stone age, then it will probably be your beloved combo and control decks. Unless we ban the Miracle mechanic and Gitaxian Probe. But that's just undoing years of card design, and who's to say where that should stop? Maybe Odyssey was the last great set.

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    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Innovation Spotlight III

    Quote Originally Posted by maharis View Post
    Right. Your opinion of the problems with the meta are "creatures are good." Hence listing SFM, Griselbrand, and Emrakul (and I can bet that if you made this post in two months, Young Pyro would've been there), none of which are blue or require blue to play optimally absent absurdly overpowered ancient cards like Brainstorm and Show & Tell.

    You didn't mention Past in Flames, which gave storm players virtual access to not just Black Lotus and Demonic Tutor, but Yawgmoth's Will as well...

    The thing is, as I've mentioned multiple times, the blue dominance may feel like different strategies, but at their core they are just using the same cantrip engine to fuel different endgames. That engine is so good and difficult to disrupt that it pushes out previously viable engine cards like Life from the Loam, Dark Confidant and Knight of the Reliquary. Glimpse of Nature is an exception but it doesn't open up more than one archetype (unless Cheeri0s is doing better than I thought)...

    And since only one engine is competitive, the number of playable cards drops, until you have an effective pool not dissimilar in size to Standard. That makes it easier to find a best deck. Today, it's creature-based decks that are supreme, generally playing Delver, SFM, and Young Pyro or some combination thereof. If we ban creatures back to the stone age, then it will probably be your beloved combo and control decks. Unless we ban the Miracle mechanic and Gitaxian Probe. But that's just undoing years of card design, and who's to say where that should stop? Maybe Odyssey was the last great set.

    There's no way you can group Miracles in Storm into the same playing strategy. There are probably less playable cards, but I don't think there's ever been a time where there are more different things happening than now. You can't even really group all the Delver decks together anymore, Miracles stands quite a ways apart from Stoneblade, Storm and Shardless are worlds apart too. It's not just different end games, it's different in every part of the game except they want to sculpt their draws.

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    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Innovation Spotlight III

    Quote Originally Posted by HSCK View Post
    There's no way you can group Miracles in Storm into the same playing strategy. There are probably less playable cards, but I don't think there's ever been a time where there are more different things happening than now. You can't even really group all the Delver decks together anymore, Miracles stands quite a ways apart from Stoneblade, Storm and Shardless are worlds apart too. It's not just different end games, it's different in every part of the game except they want to sculpt their draws.
    Depends your angle of perception. Miracles and ANT look rather similar to DnT. They represent the two ends of a spectrum of decks that DnT seeks to muddle in much the same way. That is because DnT is built specifically to inhibit The One Strategy that some folks in here think does not exist.

    DnT is great against blue and various degrees of lackluster against everything else because they do not follow The One Strategy. If there was not The One Strategy, how is it ever winning?
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    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Innovation Spotlight III

    Quote Originally Posted by HSCK View Post
    There's no way you can group Miracles in Storm into the same playing strategy. There are probably less playable cards, but I don't think there's ever been a time where there are more different things happening than now. You can't even really group all the Delver decks together anymore, Miracles stands quite a ways apart from Stoneblade, Storm and Shardless are worlds apart too. It's not just different end games, it's different in every part of the game except they want to sculpt their draws.
    I agree, but let me explain why I'm making this point. Rather than fully rehashing the argument I'll link to my other posts.

    The basis of whether or not one thinks Brainstorm's dominance is healthy for the format is whether that person believes that the diversity in strategies (in that there are combo, aggro and control archetypes) makes up for the uniformity in cards played. For a longer explanation, please see this post on two high-placing, well-regarded decks from GPNJ:

    http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post852181

    TL;DR: A URW and Grixis deck, despite playing a wholly different color, and different wincons/strategy, shared 45 of the exact same cards, and had a number of functionally similar cards making up the other 15, to the point where there were only a handful of cards that were truly different strategy-wise between them. Are the decks truly "different?"

    When I say that the decks are all just blue cantrips + win conditions, I'm of course oversimplifying. But that's what some people say about "decks that turn creatures sideways" (which of course has been the main win condition since Magic's inception). What's questioned is the motivation of the person who wants the change. The common accusation is that they want their "pet deck" to be successful. However, many commonly cited non-blue "pet decks" are in fact plenty viable in the format if you just look at their win conditions. It's just that for those win conditions to be effective, they must be combined with the blue shell to keep up with other popular decks. Here's the post on that:

    http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post853022

    So that leads to another fork in the road. Is the problem defeatism? If you don't like blue, why not fight it? I talk about some of the reasons why that's not practical here:

    http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post853518

    TL;DR: The expected percentage gain in win probability does not outweigh the time and monetary investment required to build a blue-meta-fighting deck, nor is it practical for the competitive player who wants to play the best deck against the field. (By the way, the main argument against banning brainstorm is that it will remove the Storm deck from the format and with it a unique win condition that isn't ever going to happen in magic again. That to me sounds like defeatism. It also seemingly implies that any storm deck that doesn't resolve a brainstorm can't win, which isn't true.)

    In fact, the only reason you would do so is because you want to, which is not a competitive reason. This gets into the question of what is the point of playing? If you want to win, you know what decks give you the best chance of winning. Playing anything else means you are not serious about winning. See here:

    http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...542#post853542

    So the question is what kind of format do we want? Do we want one where there is such a clearly defined best shell that is for the most competitive players, and the other entrants choosing something else are doing so simply out of love of a particular archetype? Or do we want a format that will challenge us to respect a wide range of playable cards and engines, each with their own sort of weaknesses? I think it's healthier to have the latter, because if prices and playstyles keep people out of the format, it will die because there will no longer be a player base to support high-level tournaments.

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    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Innovation Spotlight III

    Quote Originally Posted by maharis View Post
    Right. Your opinion of the problems with the meta are "creatures are good." Hence listing SFM, Griselbrand, and Emrakul (and I can bet that if you made this post in two months, Young Pyro would've been there), none of which are blue or require blue to play optimally absent absurdly overpowered ancient cards like Brainstorm and Show & Tell.

    You didn't mention Past in Flames, which gave storm players virtual access to not just Black Lotus and Demonic Tutor, but Yawgmoth's Will as well...

    The thing is, as I've mentioned multiple times, the blue dominance may feel like different strategies, but at their core they are just using the same cantrip engine to fuel different endgames. That engine is so good and difficult to disrupt that it pushes out previously viable engine cards like Life from the Loam, Dark Confidant and Knight of the Reliquary. Glimpse of Nature is an exception but it doesn't open up more than one archetype (unless Cheeri0s is doing better than I thought)...

    And since only one engine is competitive, the number of playable cards drops, until you have an effective pool not dissimilar in size to Standard. That makes it easier to find a best deck. Today, it's creature-based decks that are supreme, generally playing Delver, SFM, and Young Pyro or some combination thereof. If we ban creatures back to the stone age, then it will probably be your beloved combo and control decks. Unless we ban the Miracle mechanic and Gitaxian Probe. But that's just undoing years of card design, and who's to say where that should stop? Maybe Odyssey was the last great set.
    Have you been watching top 8's recently? Lands has been KICKING ASS and that is THE BEST LOAM SHELL in legacy right now. Sure, it hasn't been *winning* events. But consider the top 8 penetration on RG and RUG lands over the events since Khans became legal, and then consider HOW FEW LANDS PLAYERS there are compared to all the delver, miracles, and even storm pilots in the metagame. There are so few of us lands players most of us know each other, at least via the forums if not in person. I've run into lands players at events, and been like, who are you on the source/MTG salvation, and had name recognition via our online tags. Find another deck has that % of players in field punching through to top 8. I doubt any other archetype comes close. You should all buy a tabernacle and start playing real magic.

    Also, Lejay, I took your most recent list for a spin, played like 2 dozen games, and kept feeling like I wanted one more green source in there. Thoughts?

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    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Innovation Spotlight III

    Quote Originally Posted by Mon,Goblin Chief View Post
    @DLifshitz: The thing is, Legacy decks are really hard to actually get to work. Just look at how long it took to get Storm, Death and Taxes, Elves and a number of other decks from the idea stage to the machines they are today. Given how many people legitimately prefer blue decks (plus the number of people who have bought into the "you must play blue" hype), the number of players working on any one non-blue strategy is comparatively minuscule when most of the hive mind is just working on making the blue decks better and better.

    @Gheizen64: This is exactly the mindset that leads to the format feeling stale in the long run. You've decided there's nothing better than the blue cantrip shell, nothing to help non-blue decks to successfully fight variance and as a result you've decided not only that you should stop trying but also that everybody else who actually does is wasting their time - and you even try to convince people that they simply should stop trying and clamor for bans instead.
    You're very right! Look for example on Storm. For some reason people were missing the obvious for years, until one day one guy took all those long forgotten old frame beauties like Infernal Tutor, Ad Nauseam and Past in Flames, and build the deck of them. It takes nothing but brewing, new prints have hardly any impact.

    I expect similar process in other archetypes, too, esp. now when the remaining non-blue colours got huge boost in the recent sets with:
    - white getting a true-killah in True-Name Nemesis
    - green being powered up with Treasure Cruise
    - black having another amazing nigh-tutor in Dig Through Time
    - and red going literally berserk with Delver of Secrets and Snapcaster Mage

    It's a thrilling time to play NOT blue, and as the ever declining numbers of cantrips all over the worldwide metagame tell us, there's really no need to be sceptic about the future of your average kavu.dec and its brethren.

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    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Innovation Spotlight III

    Quote Originally Posted by Bed Decks Palyer View Post
    You're very right! Look for example on Storm. For some reason people were missing the obvious for years, until one day one guy took all those long forgotten old frame beauties like Infernal Tutor, Ad Nauseam and Past in Flames, and build the deck of them. It takes nothing but brewing, new prints have hardly any impact.

    I expect similar process in other archetypes, too, esp. now when the remaining non-blue colours got huge boost in the recent sets with:
    - white getting a true-killah in True-Name Nemesis
    - green being powered up with Treasure Cruise
    - black having another amazing nigh-tutor in Dig Through Time
    - and red going literally berserk with Delver of Secrets and Snapcaster Mage

    It's a thrilling time to play NOT blue, and as the ever declining numbers of cantrips all over the worldwide metagame tell us, there's really no need to be sceptic about the future of your average kavu.dec and its brethren.
    Your attempt at sarcasm, and ignorance of the format in general, displays your complete misunderstanding of Carsten's article's intentions. Your statement above only further assists at proving his point.
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    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Innovation Spotlight III

    Quote Originally Posted by Jander78 View Post
    Your attempt at sarcasm, and ignorance of the format in general, displays your complete misunderstanding of Carsten's article's intentions. Your statement above only further assists at proving his point.
    Perhaps Carsten should have done a better job conveying his intentions then.

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    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Innovation Spotlight III

    Quote Originally Posted by Jander78 View Post
    Your attempt at sarcasm, and ignorance of the format in general, displays your complete misunderstanding of Carsten's article's intentions. Your statement above only further assists at proving his point.
    Then maybe you can inform me where I am wrong.
    Storm, Miracles, Delver, all those decks are possible only thanks to the printings. Look, it's called "Delver" for reasons.
    Saying that we're obliged to brew in non-blue is silly, when there are far less non-blue powerful printings than those bombs that WotC vomit for blue.
    Last edited by Jander78; 12-06-2014 at 11:41 PM. Reason: Removed unnecessary flames.

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