What GenCon tells me about The Source, and where it's failing...

[SuckerPunch]

Elves, Boros, Belcher, Fae Still!! most peoples reaction to this is the predictable WTF!?

I play elves, and like other elf players, I'm not happy with that particular elf list. It could have been a much tighter more efficient build and that it won regardless shows how strong the core deck is.

But Elves as a whole is a lot better than you guys give it credit for and really is a tier 1.5/2 competitive deck at that. Elves as a deck deserves to have gotten more respect and more development and tweaking by fellow sourcers.

It has poor matchups against Deed, Disk and Wrath which are not played outside landstill (and it can completely ignore them by Wirewood Herald + Caller of the Claw as well), but even without Herald and Claw honestly chugs thru just fine through the more popular sweeperesque cards that do see play these days: Engineered Explosives, Chalice etc though I'm sure you won't accept that statement.

Actually what this tournament proved is there are a whole lot of strong decks and strategies that we sourcers absolutely refuse to give the credit and development they deserve.

And the people that do play these decks are afraid to even mention them on here because of how hostile and ruthless we are to any deck that doesn't play blue and FoW. And when they do, the thread goes completely ignored, the strategy completely foreign to any of the people attacking it (though our lack of understanding of the deck seems to embolden them about just how bad it is), and not considered by anyone at the site as a viable strategy, until it fades away into oblivion in about four days.

Yes, most of the time we are right. There are a lot of crap strategies and decklists that get posted here. But that seems to be the standard response of people to any strategy that they're unfamilar with and foreign to, and that leads to a lot of good tier 1.5/2 strategies that get attacked needlessly and killed off prematurely.

One exception to this that I see here is Pox. That's one solid nontraditional and nonblue deck that did get the attention and development it deserves. But I note based on the very first responses posted to both threads the deck has that that deck was also met with a great deal of hostitily and many people unfamiliar with the deck's strategy tried to kill it off early on by attacking it endlessly as well. I'm very surprised that it managed to survive inspite of that. And I credit the thread starter for putting in so much time and development into the deck and into thus winning atleast a few of us over.

I'm guilty of doing that to early ideas as well.

But we really have to stop that unless you keep wanting to miss out on developing other viable strategies and get surprised at tourneys by how wrong you are about which decks are viable and which aren't.

Legacy has enough good cards legal that you can throw in the most efficent spells for most any strategy/effect into a build and more often than not end up with a strong deck.

It's an incredibly diverse format. But it could be far more diverse than it already is if we would tolerate and even partake in discussion and development of more decks that don't play blue as well.

[FoolofaTook]

Yes, the Source is a little bit ingrown in terms of ideas and the way in which people interact on the site. It's still a very good place to come and look at deck lists and listen to people argue about what works and what doesn't, especially if you know who is doing the talking.

The adepts vs everybody else is probably an error that feeds into the Source being somewhat less diverse than the Legacy meta as a whole, however with a few notable exceptions the adepts aren't the people shooting down ideas quickly or defending the status quo at all costs. Mostly it is non-adepts doing that.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Of the Metagame forum, half the decks do not play FoW, even if we count each Thresh variant seperately.

Of the Established forum, on the first page, about a quarter of the decks play FoW.

I really don't think any established Source users go around attacking people for playing wacky deck choices. And I don't see how we're supposed to be held accountable for whatever unfair criticism may come from random users.

[Mirrislegend]

the adepts aren't the people shooting down ideas quickly or defending the status quo at all costs. Mostly it is non-adepts doing that.

QFT. When I see a new, radical idea that has potential (as far as I can tell) I really just wait for the adepts to sound off in that thread. Maybe if we can make the hard-headed, fast-posting idea-nazis realize that they're not adepts and that shouldn't try to come off as experienced as adepts, we can give new ideas a little more room to develop and grow.

[Sanguine Voyeur]

Must the finest sword not be hammered into shape?
Must it not face the burning heat of the forge?
The sword must be scorched and struck until sharp and ready for battle.

We are the hammer. We are the kiln.

[SuckerPunch]

Must the finest sword not be hammered into shape?
Must it not face the burning heat of the forge?
The sword must be scorched and struck until sharp and ready for battle.

We are the hammer. We are the kiln.

Yes, but before you can start hammering away it, it has to be molded into some form of a sharp weapony object, it has get oxygen, and the metal has to get denser and stronger and more solidified.

If you start beating on a lump of metal before it gets any oxygen, before it's dense, it will just crumble to pieces.


however with a few notable exceptions the adepts aren't the people shooting down ideas quickly or defending the status quo at all costs. Mostly it is non-adepts doing that.

Yes you are right. With a few exceptions, it is usually the nonadepts that shoot down deck ideas and threads before they can get any oxygen.

I don't think that I implied it was the adepts doing it. If I did, I didn't mean to. My point was that sourcers in general, non-adepts and on a couple of rare occasions, adepts, shoot down ideas quickly even if they are completely unfamiliar with them.

[Finn]

Just don't beat your sword too hard or too often.

[Sanguine Voyeur]

Yes, but before you can start hammering away it, it has to be molded into some form of a sharp weapony object, it has get oxygen, and the metal has to get denser and stronger and more solidified.

If you start beating on a lump of metal before it gets any oxygen, before it's dense, it will just crumble to pieces.You're reading too much into my metaphor. Or not enough. Either way, you're not reading the right amount of depth.

You must be hard on something if you want it to develop. That's how forging works, that's how training works, that's how evolution works, and that's how deck refinement works.

EDIT:
Just don't beat your sword too hard or too often. And yea, penispenispenis.

[FoolofaTook]

I don't think that I implied it was the adepts doing it. If I did, I didn't mean to. My point was that sourcers in general, non-adepts and on a couple of rare occasions, adepts, shoot down ideas quickly even if they are completely unfamiliar with them.

I only post deck lists here that I think are really edgy, mainly because I want to see how people react to them and measure that against the testing I'm doing. Posting normalized lists with standard distributions of resources generally is a really quick way to be told to go play "x" instead because if has a better chance to be competitive.

[Peter_Rotten]

You have made many assumptions which you cannot support with evidence. I'm respectfully taking your points with a grain of salt.


Actually what this tournament proved is there are a whole lot of strong decks and strategies that we sourcers absolutely refuse to give the credit and development they deserve.

This statement is a LARGE jump in logic. What do we know about this tournament other than the T8 and some anecdotal evidence? Imagine an extreme and ridiculous example to illustrate a point I'm about to make: 150 of the decks out of the 160 were built only of basic lands. All 60 cards of those decks were basics. Elves winning that make-believe tourney doesn't tell us much.

Let's look at a more reasonable situation:

We have a large tournament - 160 players. We do not know the meta. We do not know how many players are "educated" about the format. We do not know the quality of the players. We do not know how effectively people meta-gamed. We do not know what the Elves player played against in the Swiss rounds. There are too many unknowns to have this tourney "prove" anything.

Next, what have old Old GenCons proven? We had many of the same discussions about Roland Chang (or is it Chan?) T8ing with UGMadness and how MTS neglected it. However, the deck pretty much did nothing before and after it won a GenCon. Why?

In the end, there are too many random factors in GenCon, and I'm wary of overvaluing its T8.


And the people that do play these decks are afraid to even mention them on here because of how hostile and ruthless we are to any deck that doesn't play blue and FoW.

Which people are these? Who are they? What are their names? Can you prove this? What people are you speaking for?

See Spat's post about decks running FoW.


But we really have to stop that unless you keep wanting to miss out on developing other viable strategies and get surprised at tourneys by how wrong you are about which decks are viable and which aren't.

I have to disagree. Bad and weak ideas should be pointed out as such. I hope we are not doing it rudely, but weak decks must be declared weak. I think it is a disservice to coddle new users with weak decks. Once again, I'm not advocating being rude; I'm suggesting that pointing out that PDeed, EE, Wrath, Pyroclasm, and EPlague are often played and are going to be real problems to making a competitive Elf deck.


Legacy has enough good cards legal that you can throw in the most efficent spells for most any strategy/effect into a build and more often than not end up with a strong deck

It's an incredibly diverse format. But it could be far more diverse than it already is if we would tolerate and even partake in discussion and development of more decks that don't play blue as well.

Legacy is random enough that when the stars align correctly, random.dec can win a small, medium, or large event. It happens - it has happened and will happen again. Next year, in your post we may be replacing every instance of the word Elves with Fluctutor (or, God forbid, Nourishing Lich!). Unfortunately for the Elves fans, Elves T8ing 1 tourney a year doesn't prove much about the deck.

/tangent 1 - And here is a really good question: How diverse should Legacy be? That question probably deserves its own thread.

/tangent 2 - I think for Elves to truly be competitive, WotC needs to print and Elvish Lackey and an Elvish Warchief. Cheats and Haste will break the true little green men.

[technogeek5000]

/tangent 2 - I think for Elves to truly be competitive, WotC needs to print and Elvish Lackey and an Elvish Warchief. Cheats and Haste will break the true little green men.

Elves does have a lackey. Its called Priest of titania. I agree with the haste part tho.

[FoolofaTook]

Elves does have a lackey. Its called Priest of titania. I agree with the haste part tho.

Maybe just adding Survival of the Fittest, Anger, Squee and Genesis to Elves?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

If an idea cannot withstand criticism, it wasn't any good to begin with. If someone's too weak or timid to stand up for their ideas or defend them, then they're probably not worth much either, and I do not lament their loss. Not that threads on the Source don't, at times, becomes excessively pedantic and argumentative, but this is a far better situation than if everyone withheld their doubts and politely applauded each effort, and the Source became a heap of broken images with nothing to differentiate the miasma of weak ideas from the good.

We're touching heavily on the subject of the other thread I began, but consider the simple facts.

There exists forums that are moderated to be "friendlier" than the Source. People could go to any of those forums to post their decks without worrying about critique, where they could rely on the fact that someone would come along and grunt, "Nice deck".

But, generally speaking, they don't. The Source gets far more posts than every other English-speaking Legacy site combined. Far more new people come here to post their deck ideas, despite this much vaunted reputation for elitism and flaming we supposedly have.

Why is that?

Perhaps it's because acceptance here means something. And for all the supposed flaming, criticism here actually means something too, and usually provides actual tools for the willing to improve. Could it be that people would rather post their deck ideas in an environment where they're likely to receive actual feedback, even if the odds tend against it being very positive?

Those other, friendlier sites are for casual players. The Source is for people that want to prove and improve themselves.


Edit: Also, Wirewood Symbiote + Caller of the Claw = Awesome. Not such a fan of the maindeck Herald, though.

Also, the Food Chain Combo should totally be the sideboard.

But yeah. You tell me when the last time anyone talked about Tiger Sligh was.

[SuckerPunch]

Elves does have a lackey. Its called Priest of titania.

Yes, and it has Concordant Crossroads for Haste.

Haste is a lot more broken in elves than in goblins. Being able to tap them for mana the turn you play them (esp Priest or Roefflos) or attack with them speeds up the deck a lot and breaks the deck wide open.

Throw in Sylvan Messengers and Wilt Leaf Leiges and you have a deck that can easily achieve turn three/four wins consistently.

Atleast this build of Elves seems more than able to do that...

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9502

[Lego]

So hold on, let me get this straight... What you're complaining about is the following phenomenon:

1) Someone comes along and posts a Tier 2 deck

2) Lots of people say that it's not a very good deck

3) The poster disagrees

4) People continue to say it's a bad deck

5) The poster gives up the deck, or fades into quiet obscurity

6) It never posts any results so no one cares.

Is that about right? Personally, I see nothing wrong with that. Elves is a Tier 2 deck. In the right meta, with a good pilot and lots of luck in pairings, it can win a tournament. But it's not a metagame deck, it's a deck for a bad metagame. Sure, it can win, but when people say, "This deck sucks," try to read that as, "This deck is a poor choice for a tournament." Because in whichever tournament Elves happened to win, there are half a dozen decks that could have won with those same pairings, possibly even a bit easier.

[Pulp_Fiction]

I see what suckerpunch is hitting at. There are a lot of people on these forums who like to post their thoughts without ever having any form of experience with a deck. The posts are based off of something they think will work in theory and has worked in similar decks in that past so they figure it should help this deck now. What suckerpunch said earlier about "choosing the most effecient spells into the format and jamming them into a deck is not right" is totally true, you have to choose the right cards for the deck and those may not be the most effecient spells ever printed.

However, a great deal of people do not even bother to build up and test a lot of the new and developmental decks they comment on and usually the decks fade into oblivion because no one has actually taken the time to playtest them against anything. That is 1/3 of the problem. The next 1/3 of the problem is the thread starters will not defend their decklists and view the constructive criticism as an attack on their deck building skills. EXPLAIN YOUR CARD CHOICES AND BE OPEN TO NEW IDEAS AND BE ABLE TO DEFEND YOURS. The final 1/3 of the problem is that most people commenting on the decks never give reasons for why the decks warrant the inclusion of certain cards they think should be in the deck. Comments like "this deck needs more Tarmogoyf" does nothing to help a thread and idiots posting things like that should be ignored. But posts saying something like "why are you running Chain Lightning over Lightning Bolt. Bolt does the same thing as Chain Lightning except it can't be redirected and is an instant" are more thought out responses because there really might be a reason they run Chain Lightning over Bolt; like they don't run any sorceries and want to grow Goyf more, or they run Mogg Maniac and want to burn him late game and keep redirecting it towards the opponent. Don't just automatically assume the most effecient cards are the best cards to play in a certain deck.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

It is, as always, irrational to expect people to playtest a random unproven deck. Playtesting takes time, and why should someone devote that time to a stranger's deck if that stranger can't even explain the presence of unusual and questionable choices?

[Master Shake]

It seems to me that there is a lot of misconceptions about what kind of tournament Legacy Championships is.

About half the field is casual players, so lets imagine that this is just an 80 person tournament. The first few rounds involve a lot of Threshold and Landstill losing to Suicide Black, Burn and sub-par goblins decks, it happens, these decks can win any match given the proper cirucmstances.

The prize support is a a top-loaded joke, 5-8th get a box of Eventide, 3rd and 4th got an uncut sheet of AQ uncommons (I believe there is a Shop on the sheet) 2nd place gets one of each dual first place gets a set of each dual. Note that the prize for 3rd and 4th is worth quite a bit more than the 2nd place prize.

Things like this happen at Gencon, because the only people who play in the event are people who are going to Gencon anyway, and going to Gencon exclusively for Magic is a waste of time. You're looking at 20 for entry to the tournament plus 45 to get in for the day (or 80 for the weekend) plus gas - most of you live on the East Coast so thats what, an eight hour drive to Indianaplois, or longer, and then if you're lucky enough to couchsurf (http://www.couchsurfing.com) or know someone in the area, then you don't need to pay for a room.

There are very few comeptitive players at Gencon because its a very expensive and distant tournament. Calling it it the Legacy Championship is a joke because there is never an accurate metagame reprensentation and most of the good players lose to unmetagameable junk.

But, if you want to prevent Elves from t8ing next year, perhaps you should make the trek to Indy.

[undone]

Next time Im taking stupid combo. Either belcher or TES, most of the top players there lost in 1 round. Combo did insanely well because of how bad the players (with the exception of I believe about 3 players in the T8) decks were in the top 8.

Belcher can get lucky and did thats a non issue.

Landstill was the best deck in the T8 save debatebly the UR painters (which I did lose to with tempo... he just got lucky with combo)

Elves is not top tier in the meta game because guess what, it loses to honest control as well as just punting the combo MU.

Counter slivers is ok in a specific metagame.

Boros... WTF?

From my experiance There are a very small number of force of wills in the format, (at gencon) which makes random combo win games it shouldnt be able to. Most players there seemed to be there for another event and just drop jumped into the champs.

[FoolofaTook]

About half the field is casual players, so lets imagine that this is just an 80 person tournament. The first few rounds involve a lot of Threshold and Landstill losing to Suicide Black, Burn and sub-par goblins decks, it happens, these decks can win any match given the proper cirucmstances.

What you've just suggested here is that casual players playing directed second and third tier decks routinely clear the field of seasoned players playing the theoretical first tier decks.

I don't see how you can make that general statement without also concluding that the seasoned players playing first tier decks have actually engineered a meta in which they are only best if they are playing each other.

And I know that's a way simplistic way of looking at it, but realistically if Threshold and Landstill can be routinely cleared out by mono-color directed decks then maybe the real answer is that we're as a group not playing enough of that. If true that would be a development that likely only occurs in ingrown degenerate environments lacking in baseline innovation.

I don't think that you meant what you said though. I think what you meant was that there were very few Threshold and Landstill decks present and the few that were there could not fight their way through multiple rounds of mono-colored directed decks.

[dahcmai]

It happens. I posted a decklist here once and it got bashed for being janky and such (it's an original idea), but I still hold one of the top spots for my state in Eternal playing that deck almost exclusively right ahead of Chapin. Just goes to show they can't cover every base.

For the most part this place is a nice forum where to get ideas, but you can bet your ass I don't shop only here for ideas and take all criticism with a grain of salt.

When it comes down to it, it's how you are doing with your own decks.

[Master Shake]

What you've just suggested here is that casual players playing directed second and third tier decks routinely clear the field of seasoned players playing the theoretical first tier decks.

I don't see how you can make that general statement without also concluding that the seasoned players playing first tier decks have actually engineered a meta in which they are only best if they are playing each other.

And I know that's a way simplistic way of looking at it, but realistically if Threshold and Landstill can be routinely cleared out by mono-color directed decks then maybe the real answer is that we're as a group not playing enough of that. If true that would be a development that likely only occurs in ingrown degenerate environments lacking in baseline innovation.

I don't think that you meant what you said though. I think what you meant was that there were very few Threshold and Landstill decks present and the few that were there could not fight their way through multiple rounds of mono-colored directed decks.

Sadly I meant that this entire tournament, like any other Gencon event, is a fluke. About 20 Threshold lists went 0-2 1-2 or 3-2 very early on. I personally watched 5 Threshold decks lose to Pox in the first three rounds.

I'm also saying that the number of competitive players from outside the region was very low. Good players playing good did very bad, bad players piloting bad and mediocre did very well. Personally, I lost to Jaya Ballad from a sligh deck's board while playing Angel Stax.

There were only a small handful of people that came out to Indianapolis just to play Legacy, and most of them scrubbed out, you may not like to hear it, but its what happened.

Sometimes bad things happen to good players.

[FoolofaTook]

If there was that much Threshold present and none of it top 8'd I don't see how we can consider Threshold to be a tier 1 deck. As soon as it's subjected to heavy "tier 2" competition it rolls over and dies?

[Watcher487]

If there was that much Threshold present and none of it top 8'd I don't see how we can consider Threshold to be a tier 1 deck. As soon as it's subjected to heavy "tier 2" competition it rolls over and dies?

Before anyone else gets confused here. There was very little Threshold present. There was a TON of Thrash variants (Canadian Thresh). The huge difference is the fact that with Tier 2 and lower lists your not running a ton of non-basics, fetches and goyfs. So Thrash gets handed losses easily to decks like Elves and Pox.

[FoolofaTook]

Before anyone else gets confused here. There was very little Threshold present. There was a TON of Thrash variants (Canadian Thresh). The huge difference is the fact that with Tier 2 and lower lists your not running a ton of non-basics, fetches and goyfs. So Thrash gets handed losses easily to decks like Elves and Pox.

That's what I figured. So Thrash got trashed by forests and swamps.

[Watcher487]

That's what I figured. So Thrash got trashed by forests and swamps.

Well the list would go on with what I saw beating it. Let's just say I saw someone playing Survival beat the ever loving crap out of a card for card version from the last Cuse tourney. Ohhh and he wasn't playing Goyfs in the Survival deck either.

[Whit3 Ghost]

Well the list would go on with what I saw beating it. Let's just say I saw someone playing Survival beat the ever loving crap out of a card for card version from the last Cuse tourney. Ohhh and he wasn't playing Goyfs in the Survival deck either.
That's sort of surprising actually considering I haven't had mouch trouble with randomness while playing Thrash. I can see how Elves might be a problem, if the Thrash player gets caught off guard, but I'd have to chalk its poor performance up to people playing the deck with little experience.

[Pltnmngl]

Metagames change and evolve, but not necessarily for the "better." There's a time and a place for a deck in any metagame. I firmly believe that anything is possible with the proper precautions. "Every dog has their day."

If you stand firmly behind a deck, it can succeed with the proper adjustments and timing. No matter what anyone says.

With that being said, I'll see you guys at GenCon next year.

[FoolofaTook]

That's sort of surprising actually considering I haven't had mouch trouble with randomness while playing Thrash. I can see how Elves might be a problem, if the Thrash player gets caught off guard, but I'd have to chalk its poor performance up to people playing the deck with little experience.

What exactly would you Stifle or Waste in Elves in the first few turns to create the disruption that is a hallmark of Canadian Thrash? Similar question for Pox or Sui Black. Goblins has a lot of stuff to Stifle for a little bit of tempo if you have the mana open to do it and still respond to their early rush.

I could be off on this but I don't think Canadian Thrash much likes aggressive mono-colored decks, preferring to dissect multi-colored decks with weaknesses in the mana base.

[thefreakaccident]

I gave up posting new things here as of recently, simply because nobody believes my arguments, or simply do not want to hear them.

There is just no way to actually prove themselves to people they do not know or have contact with... this is why it is people in the more populated legacy regions that do well with odd decks and do get applauded.

I could say I have won my last 6 local events, each of them being 20-25 people, and how can I prove or disprove this?


Simply put, new ideas do not last long unless people get to see it for themselves in the real world, because words that people type, no matter how eloquent/true are still just words without physical evidence.


New ideas are hard to get out there on the internet, end of story.


I do have a hard time actually arguing my points besides just stating the obvious (I won my local, playing these decks... your stupid...).

[SuckerPunch]

I gave up posting new things here as of recently, simply because nobody believes my arguments, or simply do not want to hear them.


New ideas are hard to get out there on the internet, end of story

This is what concerns me.

When more and more people stop posting there decks and ideas here, this forum will lose it's utility.

It will no longer serve to be the place to go to catch up on new tech, new ideas, new lists to try.

What I note, is that I've been coming on here for many years. I originally came here because there were all these cool new decks and tech like Fairie Stompy that were being discussed here. That's why most people come here, to see other peoples lists, and new tech and ideas.

I just don't want my reason for checking this site to go away. I don't want to see people stop posting their decks and deck ideas here.

[Whit3 Ghost]

What exactly would you Stifle or Waste in Elves in the first few turns to create the disruption that is a hallmark of Canadian Thrash? Similar question for Pox or Sui Black. Goblins has a lot of stuff to Stifle for a little bit of tempo if you have the mana open to do it and still respond to their early rush.

I could be off on this but I don't think Canadian Thrash much likes aggressive mono-colored decks, preferring to dissect multi-colored decks with weaknesses in the mana base.
Stifles are dead usually in those matchups, no argument. However, you'd think that 8 incredibly efficient creautres and 8 to 10 burn spells would be good against both Pox and that random Survival list. I can imagine Elves being a difficult matchup though.

[SuckerPunch]

Pox plays 14-16 cards maindeck that kills those 8 creatures dead. And it has little difficulty cutting Thresh off from Red and the other splash colors completely.

Thresh is a very positive matchup for Pox. So I wouldn't be surprised by that result.

[thefreakaccident]

HOW IN THE FUCK


Do you honestly believe that threshold beats pox.


I don't even play/like pox and I know for a fact that it is a nigh un-winnable MU... like both massive amounts of creature removal AND ld, seriously now.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

This is what concerns me.

When more and more people stop posting there decks and ideas here, this forum will lose it's utility.

It will no longer serve to be the place to go to catch up on new tech, new ideas, new lists to try.

What I note, is that I've been coming on here for many years. I originally came here because there were all these cool new decks and tech like Fairie Stompy that were being discussed here. That's why most people come here, to see other peoples lists, and new tech and ideas.

I just don't want my reason for checking this site to go away. I don't want to see people stop posting their decks and deck ideas here.

It's been working for five years, and I don't think we've hit a year of negative growth in post count or member activity yet.

The problem is exaggerated. While geographic issues and the issue of English as a first language or not plays some rule in winning over arguments about deck and card choice validity, generally I find that the vast majority of those complaining about their arguments being ignored simply post bad arguments (although that doesn't always mean that they're wrong, often just that they can't effective communicate why they're right).

[emidln]

What exactly would you Stifle or Waste in Elves in the first few turns to create the disruption that is a hallmark of Canadian Thrash?

Anything that I don't otherwise have an answer for. At first glance, the following cards are affected by stifle:

4 Sylvan Messenger
4 Wolfskull SHaman
4 Imperious Perfect
3 Wirewood Herald
4 Wren's Run Vanquisher
3 Quirion Ranger
1 Caller of the Claw
4 Nettle Sentinel
1 Chameleon Colossus
2 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Windswept Heath
4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Umezawa's Jitte

I have this feeling that if Stifle is dead for you, you're not well versed enough in Activated and Triggered abilities.

[Watcher487]

Anything that I don't otherwise have an answer for. At first glance, the following cards are affected by stifle:

4 Sylvan Messenger
4 Wolfskull SHaman
4 Imperious Perfect
3 Wirewood Herald
4 Wren's Run Vanquisher
3 Quirion Ranger
1 Caller of the Claw
4 Nettle Sentinel
1 Chameleon Colossus
2 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Windswept Heath
4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Umezawa's Jitte

I have this feeling that if Stifle is dead for you, you're not well versed enough in Activated and Triggered abilities.

While it's all good to remember that is true. The gentleman playing Elves that made the T8 only played Thrash once in the tourney not 3-6 times. Also I think the point I was originally trying to make here was that not everyone was goobafish playing Red Thrash or even you, emidln playing Fetchland Tendrils. The people playing in this tourney were playing decks they saw off the internet most likely off of Deckcheck.net and got a basic run down of what the deck did from someone who might have know what they are doing. Shoot, I had a judge called when I Stifled my Phyrexian Dreadnaught's come into play ability, and to make matters worse, the judge had to check with another judge about it.

Also thefreakaccident;
'Thresh is a very positive matchup for Pox. So I wouldn't be surprised by that result.'

That reads that Thresh has a bad match against Pox.

[Michael Keller]

Regarding the title of the thread:

Not everyone reads this site. The ones that do tend to make a big deal out of it more than the latter when something happens or someone wins with something considered sub-optimal or out of the norm.

The truth is it's food-for-thought reading material and nothing more. A good portion of the site is dedicated to material other than deck conception in general. You can't force someone to read the Source. By that reckoning, it cannot fail.

[frogboy]

Most people start getting better at Magic when they start really examining their previously axiomatic statements, become willing to admit that they were wrong/punted/whatever, and become willing to listen to the ideas of others.

At dinner on Saturday, Maverick started talking about UG Madness. We lol'd, because obviously Thresh is better, right? I made some smartass comment about a money match and the subject got changed, but I started thinking about it and realized that a) Wonder is awesome and b) Wild Mongrel is also awesome and c) if we cut Nimble Mongoose we can play Jitte and d) exciting implications. I'm not convinced there's a sick deck out there, but I think there's a fairly defensible train of logic that justifies doing some messing around with it. That kind of thinking is valuable even if it goes nowhere.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

HOW IN THE FUCK


Do you honestly believe that threshold beats pox.


I don't even play/like pox and I know for a fact that it is a nigh un-winnable MU... like both massive amounts of creature removal AND ld, seriously now.

I think this sort of unnecessarily hostile attitude is damaging the site.

[Peter_Rotten]

The truth is it's food-for-thought reading material and nothing more. A good portion of the site is dedicated to material other than deck conception in general. You can't force someone to read the Source. By that reckoning, it cannot fail.

I have a bit of the same line of thinking, particularly when people blindly accept the DTBF as gospel. I prefer when people look at it thinking something like this: Here is some information; I must now decide what to do with it. OR Look at that deck - it's been winning a lot recently. I wonder if it can be successful in my meta even with so many locals running main-deck Grip.

[Brehn]

And the people that do play these decks are afraid to even mention them on here because of how hostile and ruthless we are to any deck that doesn't play blue and FoW.

Really?

There are several Elves threads. I don't see too much of destructive hostility in these threads.

The Source is failing - yes. The Source is failing to cover all of the diversity of the format. I believe that it is 1) a matter of interest and 2) a matter of complexity.

A matter of interest: are people here really interested in discussing every single possible deck? There are plenty of successful decks out there that didn't see the slightest discussion here. Example: iPop Negation (http://www.deckcheck.net/list.php?creator=Jordi+Amat). Had good results and wasn't discussed here. Other example: this "Tog"-deck (http://www.deckcheck.net/list.php?creator=Pierre%20Sommen). The pilot seems to Top 2 every big tournament he plays in, still it's not discussed here. Why? I don't think that the reason is that every Sourcer would say "These decks just suck". Rather: nobody has been interested enough yet to start a thread.
(Note: the same thing was true for Cephalid Breakfast (!) during the time it Top8'ed everything. Until Peter_Rotten started a thread. See here (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6563).)

A matter of complexity: there are about 193 different ways to build Elves, 134 different ways to build Faeries, 2345698 different ways to build Fish, etc. It's nigh impossible to have a constructive discussion about 193 different decks in a single thread. The old Landstill thread had the same dilemma and even right now "UGr Threshold" is Moon Thresh, Canadian Thresh and Swan Thresh. You might be able to categorize some of the approaches - in Landstill's case in UWx and Ubg/Ubgw - but in the case of Faeries, Elves or Fish the number of necessary threads would probably still be greater than 5 per archetype. Not dividing the threads leads to a mess in one thread, dividing the threads a) is difficult, b) leads to some of those threads being abandoned due to a lack of interest.


@GenCon: I don't get why people are taking Tempo Thresh into an underdeveloped meta. Apparently poor metagaming got punished. Ok.

[Nightmare]

Wait.

There are forums about Magic on this site?

You learn something new every day...

[kicks_422]

Oh, cool! Where's the coin tricks at?

[Nightmare]

Oh, cool! Where's the coin tricks at?

See, there was this funny thing I said, and then you killed it.

[Finn]

So hold on, let me get this straight... What you're complaining about is the following phenomenon:

1) Someone comes along and posts a Tier 2 deck

2) Lots of people say that it's not a very good deck

3) The poster disagrees

4) People continue to say it's a bad deck

5) The poster gives up the deck, or fades into quiet obscurity

6) It never posts any results so no one cares.

Is that about right? Personally, I see nothing wrong with that. Elves is a Tier 2 deck. In the right meta, with a good pilot and lots of luck in pairings, it can win a tournament. But it's not a metagame deck, it's a deck for a bad metagame. Sure, it can win, but when people say, "This deck sucks," try to read that as, "This deck is a poor choice for a tournament." Because in whichever tournament Elves happened to win, there are half a dozen decks that could have won with those same pairings, possibly even a bit easier.
So you have given an example of when the system does work to prove that it always works? Is that about right? Clearly Suckerpunch is not talking about the crap. He is talking about the stuff that the is good, but not getting attention outside of the few people testing it. I have had quite a few of my own decks go to and remain in this state for a long time. (AggroLoam (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1126&highlight=Land+ho!), for example, has been around since the Ravnica spolier showed lovely Life from the Loam.) Frankly, that situation is not all that bad. A person looking for information about Elves.dec can get it just fine and even participate without fear of reprisal unless he deserves it. The system breaks down when an actual new and good idea pops up in N+D. If, after a few days, it fails to get the attention of a person who is willing to think about the deck and capable of helping the poster, we just lost it. And we have no way to know how often this happens.

You make a good point, Suckerpunch, but it is human nature for players to grow a thicker skin to new ideas once they have seen so many bad ones come and go. It may be more useful to question the identification and function of adepts. How long can a person really keep a fresh eye on the format? How many don't even post in N+D anymore?

[frogboy]

A significant problem with strat forums is the signal to noise ratio.

Another problem is egotistical people who can't accept that a) they could be wrong or b) someone else might be right. This is ironic, because nearly always, those people are pretty terrible at Magic and life.

[Anusien]

There are good ideas that seem crappy, and there are crappy ideas. It's hard to tell the two apart without somebody doing substantial work. Often the poster doesn't do the work (or doesn't convey effectively that they did the work) and people discount the deck. The problem is magnified by poor English skills.

Seriously, being a good poster is a huge step towards getting good discussion going.

The other thing is that 5 pages of discussion is about as good as an hour of playtesting.

[Raider Bob]

I was at GenCon and I went 6-2 on the day, There were a lot of people playing established decks and there were a lot of people playing Random decks. In a 160 person tournament you need a little luck to get to a 6-1-1 or a 6-0-2 or a 7-1 or an 8-0 record. That being saidthe decks that won Worlds went 0-2 drop in the tournament the next day. The elf deck ran into me playing 4 Engineererd Plauges in the Trials the day before. So to look at this tourny or to look at any one tournament and say the sky is falling or OMFG WTF is not realistic. If Elves or Boros top 8ed in the next 4 or 5 tournies everyone would be jumping on the Elf band wagon and trying to make it better.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

It is indeed quite hard to envision how one could equalize the playing field between good strategists who can convey their ideas well and good strategists who sound like gibbering monkeys in a discussion forum.

Nearly all the ideas I can imagine involve my wanting to tear out my eyes.

I think we just have to accept that in a discussion forum good ideas are bound to suffer a little if they're defended only by the incomprehensible.

The problem of communication is a fundamental one in reality at large, unfortunately. Information gets lost.

[bigbear102]

I think these forums are great because they allow the newer players access to a bunch of ideas they never would have come up with on their own, or at least not for a long time. The good ideas that show up here sometimes are nurtured and turn out to be decent decks, obviously there are good ideas that are going to fall through the cracks.

This is why the DTB system is so good for the site. It allows decks to stand and fall on their own.

If a deck is in the DTB, it is going to be discussed at least a little, and a lot of people in private are going to test it, either to find out whether they want to play it, or figure out how to beat it. By doing this, the decks that perform well get discussed, whether the mods like them or not. If Elves does top 8 more in the recent future, it'll be in the DTB. If not, it'll be a flash in the pan, as it has been from time to time.

This forum is awesome because of the free flow of ideas and criticisms that come along with those ideas.

[SuckerPunch]

I just want to say Thanks guys.

The discussion in this thread far surpassed anything I was expecting. Tons of people made great points and I think we all have a better understanding of where the source succeeds, and where it still has problems.

I'm wondering if there is any way to address these problems, without hurting the forum in general.

[Happy Gilmore]

However, a great deal of people do not even bother to build up and test a lot of the new and developmental decks they comment on and usually the decks fade into oblivion because no one has actually taken the time to playtest them against anything.

I can tell you that the few devoted players in this format test ideas constantly. And you will find that many of them are not adepts. Some of the most inventive ideas and the most thorough testing has come from these individuals. As a hobby I build and test a new deck almost every day, and go back to old ideas from time to time. Some ideas have merit but others can be seen for what they are, the wrong stuff. Fun decks are great, but The Source has always been a place where we build a format with the best stuff possible.

[ThatGuyThere]

Must the finest sword not be hammered into shape?
Must it not face the burning heat of the forge?
The sword must be scorched and struck until sharp and ready for battle.

We are the hammer. We are the kiln.

This.

I very rarely post on here because I get the general impression you have to have something to say. That makes a big difference.

If I came across a unique / interesting / unusual combo or deck, I wouldn't hesitate to post it. But I wouldn't expect it to be worshipped as the Second Coming until it posted results.

Example - in the Elephant Stompy / Green Chalice Aggro, I posted my results with Avenging Druid, got a solid round of "meah"s, and a couple people ringing in with "it has potential" / "if it lands it'd be nice". I'm still getting great results out of him - he and Spawnwrithe, working together, make the deck "sing", as far as I'm concerned. But I'm not expecting people to listen to me - because I don't have solid results to back that up (yet).

(I'd have played him, but the local tournament scene is the Mojave Desert of eternal. Someday. Someday.)

The Source *is* the crucible. And part of that function is to burn away the "extra bits" until the core Good Stuff that makes a given deck or combo "work" is revealed.

If you want a friendly reception and some playtesting, check with your buddies / team-mates. When you've got something worth showing, post it at The Source.

So, yeah. When someone posts and says, "Is this list any good?", The Source answers "No" way more often than "Yes". But it should. The question here isn't "is this any good" but "can this go from good to great".

My $0.02. And I expect change, damnit.

Edit - Very good question, SuckerPunch. No matter what the answer is, in the end, it's important The Source know the answer. ...even if it's just "because everyone at The Source is intensely antisocial".