Sorta reminds me of SotF: wasn't dominate right away, but eventually a variation (that ooze combo with some obscure artifact) pushed the deck over.Quote:
Originally Posted by catmint
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Sorta reminds me of SotF: wasn't dominate right away, but eventually a variation (that ooze combo with some obscure artifact) pushed the deck over.Quote:
Originally Posted by catmint
So what are decks that care or don't care defined as? Combo decks? Decks with evasive creatures like Delver decks? Is it the speed? The 8 decks in the top 8 this weekend, are they all the same? You have 3 variants of Delver, 3 combo decks, and 2 very different styles of control. So are all Delver variants grouped together? You say RUG does care, but UWR and BUG don't, does that mean RUG is different from the other two? Are the other two now grouped together as "decks with TNN or don't care about TNN?" Does having 2 TNN make a deck TNN-centric (though I doubt you can say either of those decks are TNN decks vs. TNN is a great supporter).
RUG and Jund have lost shares while two TNN focused decks (Blade Control and Deathblade each having rather different gameplans) came from oblivion to be contenders. So was it better to have RUG and Jund taking up those spaces or for two more very different strategies to be there? Are TNN decks just not that interactive in your mind? I find Blade Control to be extremely interactive at all stages of the game, so is that good or bad compared to Miracles on the interactivity level? Why are Blade strategies bad for the meta but Jund, RUG, and Maverick good for it?
I'm genuinely curious as to how other people define health.
RUG Tempo only has Delver that dodges TNN (Gofy and Goose get chump-blocked infinitely).Quote:
Originally Posted by HSCK
Because RUG and Jund are nothing alike in their gameplans. Jund is also non-blue.Quote:
RUG and Jund have lost shares while two TNN focused decks (Blade Control and Deathblade each having rather different gameplans) came from oblivion to be contenders. So was it better to have RUG and Jund taking up those spaces or for two more very different strategies to be there? Are TNN decks just not that interactive in your mind? I find Blade Control to be extremely interactive at all stages of the game, so is that good or bad compared to Miracles on the interactivity level? Why are Blade strategies bad for the meta but Jund, RUG, and Maverick good for it?
Blade Control and Deathblade share a lot of cards and look very similar on a glance compared to Jund and RUG (which only share Lightning Bolt and Gofy IIRC)
Larger variety of decks with less cards being shared between those decks IMO. RUG/Jund/Maverick are all very different compared to Patriot Blade/ UW Blade/Deathblade.Quote:
I'm genuinely curious as to how other people define health.
Health is defined by the sucess of you pet deck. lol
If you look at Jan-Oct 2013, even using the unadjusted data from thecouncil, you'll see a much more diverse meta, very little card overlap among the decks, better color representation for the fairer decks, etc. If I look at the unadjusted data from Nov 2013-current, the same cannot be said.Quote:
Originally Posted by HSCK
Also, RUG and Jund are completely different across all spectrums of deck evaluation, Blade Control and Deathblade are not. I'm not quite sure why you believe Blade Control and Deathblade are "two more very different strategies".
EDIT: Drago has the right idea.
You did need to have a plan for dealing with it. It's just that you could, you know, interact with the opponent's Stoneforge shenanigans in a wide variety of ways. As an example, Elves, a deck that is basically boned by an active Jitte, could still be relatively comfortable with its block-and-bounce shenanigans to mitigate Jitte's impact. You could actually kill the things carrying the Jitte in truly desperate cases (you'd usually want to kill the Jitte, of course), and so forth. Some decks could just draw enough stuff to compensate for the CA SFM produced, and so on. TNN just wipes all that away.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arsenal
I'd want to point out here that the amount of viable decks says nothing about the quality of the games. I don't mind if the format became more blue - that doesn't really concern me. Blue mirrors can easily be really enjoyable games to play and to watch, like the RUG vs. Shardless match yesterday. But more and more games just look like absurd farces of two players playing completely past each other with TNN driving out interactive fair decks and the metagame shifts propping up Show and Tell (+Leyline of "Let's turn mulligans against a degenerate combo deck into lottery for no mana investment - now conveniently 4cc and Decay-proof") instead of more nuanced decks like Storm or even SnT decks without Leylines, as much of a joke those are.Quote:
Originally Posted by HSCK
Yeah, Blade Control is really a pet deck. Good one! Har-har-har!Quote:
Originally Posted by miguelmatix
EDIT: Yes HSCK, Blade Control games can be highly interactive... when TNN isn't a factor. The games I don't draw TNN are like completely different games of Magic from when I jam TNN turn 3, jam TNN turn 4, then proceed to play non-Magic.
Even Goyf wasn't this bad since you could STP it or Bolt it with combat tricks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arsenal
Someone dropping a TNN devolves into a game "dig for narrow answer or die". The concept is similar to SNT except it's slower.
And doesn't require building your deck around it at all. Turn off SnT's mean tricks like D&T can, and they're helpless. They also often just brick by themselves (not that it's any solace from the sheer dullness of the archetype, just means it won't get banned. Wow, how positive). TNN decks? Nah. You answer TNN, the answer card is likely bad against the rest of the solid fair goodstuff deck the fish was shoved into.Quote:
Originally Posted by DragoFireheart
Thanks for answering this part (I realize it wasn't directed at my question). But I'm still interested in what you think about higher-order TNN effects like decks being driven out of the meta not by TNN, but by weak anti-TNN matchups being good/bad/neutral. The particular case I have in mind is Enchantress.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arsenal
The rise of 3 and 4 color TNN-bearing decks (Blade variants, mostly) that are slower than RUG and still rely on the attack step to win should strongly favor Enchantress, and the deck is capable of putting up reasonable results (see results at Orlando and Columbus in the neighborhood of 6-3) despite the deck not being widely played (and I suspect a lot of the C-bus washouts were people with very little Enchantress experience playing the deck because it had been featured on SCG and they had most of the cards). But its atrocious combo matchups, especially against Omnitell, which has become more common, keep it from being good. If SnT were banned and TNN left untouched, I think that an Enchantress build would start putting up better results than they do now. This may also be the case with Maverick, but I don't have enough experience with the deck to say that with any certainty.
I'm not advocating that SnT or TNN be banned because I'm sure that Show isn't broken enough and am unconvinced by the arguments in favor of banning TNN. I just want to know your feelings on this. Because if you're going to blame TNN for what is ultimately the fault of Show and Tell if you aren't trying to deconvolute the direct and indirect effects of its presence. Though I suspect you don't care.
Exactly. Well said.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zombie
btm10 -
I'm fairly certain I've never blamed Show and Tell for anything, ever. If you think I have, I apologize for my poor wording, but that certainly wasn't my assertion.
Maverick, like it's cousin Death and Taxes, has a pretty good Sneak & Show matchup thanks to running a fair amount of maindeck cards that just so happen to destroy Sneak & Show, but struggles mightily with TNN decks as all of it's fair cards don't matter once TNN hits play. Unless Maverick is a good amount ahead on board, it just loses to TNN with no good maindeck answer to it.
I'm not understanding what your question is. I'm not blaming anything on Show and Tell. I think TNN is having an adverse impact on Legacy. As to what TNN is doing to the mid-lower tiers... I don't know? I only have been analyzing data from the Top 10-15 finishing decks each month, I'm not too concerned about the shift between #49 Deadguy Ale and #32 Dragon Stompy.
Or #69 Burn deck or #72 Modern deck port.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arsenal
Arsenal -
I'm sorry that I wasn't clearer, but I was not trying to make that point, and definitely wasn't trying to suggest that you were arguing for Show and Tell to be banned. I was/am trying to ask whether you care about the indirect vs.direct effects of TNN on which decks are viable.
As I understand your argument, it has two key parts:
1. TNN makes the decks it is in so much more powerful than any alternatives in the same niche that the alternatives (e.g. RUG/Canadian) are strictly worse than the versions that either run TNN (e.g. UWR Delver) or run dedicated anti-TNN hate (e.g., Golgari Charm in Team America/BUG Delver). As such, in the 'equilibrium' TNN metagame, the first type of deck is not tier 1 while both of the second types at least CAN be tier 1.
2. The alternative to the play or beat strategy is to simply ignore TNN as a threat, which usually entails shutting down the combat step (Lands/Depths) or outright racing the TNN kill (Storm, Show and Tell). In an 'equilibrium' metagame, either of these deck types CAN be tier 1.
Above, I am defining an equilibrium metagame as one where no further adaptation to the dominant factor (TNN, in your case) is possible. Your secondary suggestion, which is admittedly subjective is that having TNN (or perhaps any clearly identifiable single card aside from the acknowledged Legacy staples like Force, Brainstorm, etc.) be a clearly identifiable dominant factor constitutes a distortion that ought to be addressed with banning. I hope that I am not misrepresenting your position here.
The question I'm asking is what if the problems you attribute to TNN are due to bad matchups with the anti-TNN or ignore TNN decks rather than because of the TNN decks. In my example I was citing Enchantress as a deck with a workable TNN deck matchup (it hoses combat in a similar way to Lands/Depths), but also has too weak of a combo matchup for it to serve as a meta foil for TNN decks. In your view, then, the inability of the rest of the meta to adapt to TNN to what you consider an adequate extent is hamstrung by other responses to TNN, prolonging the disequilibrium and necessitating a ban.
While I used Enchantress as the example above, it is almost certainly true of Pox as well. If TNN were as dominant as you are claiming, wouldn't you expect a critical mass of TNN to be reached such that previously tier 2 decks become viable through the above channels? If that doesn't happen isn't TNN then either not so format warping as to warrant a ban or merely the accomplice in the decline in format diversity that results from a combination of factors not limited to things like people clinging to pet decks, inadequate graveyard hate, Show and Tell, the fact that few people have the stamina to play Miracles for 5+ rounds, and the large barrier to entry into owning multiple Legacy archetypes?
Your sentences and phrasing is strange, I'm still not understanding you. Are you saying that since tier 2 anti-TNN decks like Pox aren't a meta presence, then TNN must not be so bad?
A correction here: dedicated hate appears to be pretty much just worse than running TNN or a No-Care deck. Can be seen from the demise of Jund and fall of Shardless, for example. BUG Delver and D&T are No-Care decks - they're built to play past TNN with their fliers and direct damage from DRS.Quote:
Originally Posted by btm10
This whole thing is absurdly hard to parse, and really tries to force objective criteria on a thing that is inherently a subjective thing largely gauged by gut feeling, from what I can understand.Quote:
Originally Posted by btm10
On the first paragraph, consider that before TNN, there wasn't really a "beat this card or ignore it if you want to succeed" type of dynamic anywhere. The format was more defined by strategic approaches than any individual cards. It was far more fruitful to think "I want to play grindy midrange", and from there you had many choices - Shardless, Jund, Deathblade. Fringe players like Maverick and Goblins play a lot like that, as do Elves when they're in a fair mood. Same with tempo and combo archetypes. You see what the meta is like and build to prey on a high-level strategic tendency.
The current meta feels a lot different because TNN is so absurdly good. It's low-investment, slots into existing decks easily and trivially takes over games when it lands, contorting them to be about the abominable fish and nothing else. It by itself drives out a lot of decks from the format, and then has two nasty side effects from the proliferation of Show and Tell that is both good vs. TNN and somewhat preyed upon by all the Hymn decks TNN drove out of the format. The extra SB space TNN allows the Stoneforge decks helped drive Storm out.
We may still have top 8 lists with a lot of different names, but the format dynamic is completely different, it's way more constrained, and the farce-like games involving TNN and Show and Tell become more and more common. Many of the decks driven out were nonblue.
This change in the nature of the format is what people object to, and to the dullness of the games involving the damnable fish. (Whether SnT is thrown in depends on who you ask - IMNSHO they are both part and parcel of the cancer eating away at the format)
Zombie is speaking my language. Thank you for answering btm10's questions (although I still don't quite understand what his questions were? Something about bad tier 2 decks not rising up as evidence that TNN isn't that bad for the meta?)
I nominate Zombie to be the forum translator for cryptic and obscure posts.
This debate about whose data is better than whose is annoying.
So, you see a top 16 with 13 unique decks (the one with 3 was ANT), 4 total copies of TNN and still claim that TNN is warping the format?Quote:
Originally Posted by Arsenal
The data doesn't matter if you can't objectively interpret it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Megadeus