But the only way to test that hypothesis, frogboy, is to treat the tradition as if it weren't so and to see if there is a reason. It's a recurring theme in history that things become tradition without any good reason other than people choose to repeat the mistakes of their parents.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
So because to properly prove his case (with actual testing, results, and statistics) is too difficult, the DCI should unban a card because Machinus says so? Good luck with that.Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin
There are two problems with Machinus' article:
1. Very few people care about politically motived appeals to the DCI in article form. They want to read about things which have some relevance to their experience with the game, in other words, metagame analysis, fundamental game theory, and deck technology.
2. If you're going to ignore your audience's preferences as far as subject matter is concerned, you should at least do it in a way that might actually achieve your personal agenda. The DCI is simply never going to make policy decisions based on one person's theoretical assumptions, however accurate they are likely to be.
I'm really sorry that providing actual evidence that Land Tax (or any other card on the banned list) doesn't belong there is really really hard, but at some point you're going to have to accept the reality that it's going to be necessary for any change to occur. And that personal theory based entirely upon assumption isn't actually very fun to read about.
That characterization of the debate is not accurate.
I didn't put them in my article because there are an infinite number of lists to test, besides the whole point that it's impossible to demonstrate that a card is fair even with an arbitrary amount of lists because of existential arguments.
It's a bit better than having waving, at its worst. I dissected every possible opening for any respectably competitive Land Tax deck. There is no way to opt out of those scenarios.
Everyone who thinks Land Tax is broken (including the DCI) will imagine the cards they are afraid of in the scenarios I posted, and then see how those cards fail. Then when those cards are debunked, they will pick new ones and think about them in the same way. Eventually one of two things will happen:
1) Someone will break Land Tax
2) Everyone will realize that they have tested so many cards that there is nothing left that could fix the problems inherent in the deck and agree that it needs to come off of the list.
Technically this is true, but that has no bearing on it's truthfulness. All Land Tax openings must fall into the ones I described, and I even tried them directly against three popular and competitive decks. So it's just as real as anything written about Legacy.
Had I sat down at a tournament and played all of those games, the descripion would have been exactly the same, but technically I could say it was not theoretical at all.
It's quite arbitrary to detract from the article because you think it took place in my head. There are clearly real scenarios being described that would match up perfectly with reality were Land Tax legal.
Unless, of course, you think I have made a mistake in my analysis. I haven't heard any discussion of the actual technical content of the article so I don't think this is the case.
Could you please explain how it's possible?
I don't think it's possible to do so definitively. Obviously that would be absurd. But I think a good start would be to construct two to three lists which exploit the ostensible advantage created by Land Tax, test them against a few of the well established decks, and write about your experiences.
And primarily, I suggest this because it would actually be interesting to read about. I care very little for articles which are written for the DCI's benefit as opposed to my own as a player. I can perfom this kind of mental masturbation on my own. I don't need someone else to do so and write an article about it.
I simply feel that a person evincing some creativity and actively trying to abuse a card would be much much more compelling to read about than a person trying to show why a card can't be abused. Who cares?
This might be interesting, but I don't think it would be relevant to the question of whether or not Land Tax is broken (unless one of the lists is broken, of course). I can work on fair, interesting, or bad Flash decks all I want to, but it doesn't even suggest that Flash should be unbanned.
I'm not going to argue this point. Personally, I don't find Land Tax very interesting.And primarily, I suggest this because it would actually be interesting to read about. I care very little for articles which are written for the DCI's benefit as opposed to my own as a player. I can perfom this kind of mental masturbation on my own. I don't need someone else to do so and write an article about it.
I simply feel that a person evincing some creativity and actively trying to abuse a card would be much much more compelling to read about than a person trying to show why a card can't be abused. Who cares?
I think your complaint would have been almost the same. You would have said his lists were poor or that he wasn't trying hard enough. You can always claim this regardless of whatever list he presented. As far as I can tell, is that everyone who suspects that Land Tax is too powerful keeps pointing to some mythical deck that may or may not exist. You can say this for every card that is legal as well that doesn't make it anymore true than it is for Land Tax.
Compare Land Tax to the other cards on the B/R and you know its not hard to come up with a busted deck with most of those cards. Do we really need to work that hard to find out why 4 Yawgmoth's Will or 4 Yawgmoth's Bargain is too good? Do we really have to try so hard to figure out a deck that would be completely ridiculous with these cards? Doesn't make you wonder why we are straining to find such a deck with Land Tax in it ?
Land Tax was an amazing card with the control deck parfait, and it would still be amazing to this day, some cards are just better left where they are. Look up the old parfait list, that deck was amazing at using land tax, zuran orb and scroll rack to just abuse card advantage, it still would be to this day.
Best play in magic: Tundra, vial, - Force vial-Daze force...I win.
Where do I look them up? It would be helpful if you could post them. Would these lists be good in Legacy? There is nothing wrong with a good Land Tax deck only a broken one. I'm not sure you make much of an argument by saying it was pretty good a long time ago. Zuran Orb was restricted in Type 2 in 1995 that doesn't make it too good for Legacy in 2007.
Parfait would suck now, even wth Land Tax. Theres this archetype called Combo now, and it wins before your fragile disruptionless "card advantage" engine gets online. Like Anwar said, maybe it was good in 1995 but times have changed.
When you look at land tax you need to get to the fundamental reason as to why they banned it. If your opponent has more land than you, thisenchantment will be activated, and you will be able to find 3 basic lands and put those into your hand. Now I don't know about you, but this is one tax I don't plan on paying
.
they haunt minds...
I dont know where i could easily look these list up anymore, that was about five years ago that parfait was amazing. Land tax was banned because of how good it was in that deck, it abused humility with zuran orb and land tax, i just think legacy is a very healthy format right now and dont want to see another repeat of flash, where there was three decks, flash, decks that beat flash, and decks that beat decks that beat hulk flash.
Best play in magic: Tundra, vial, - Force vial-Daze force...I win.
Then you misunderstand my complaint. My complaint right now is that the article, while well written, is both functionally useless and not entertaining to read. If actual decklists had been used, the former might or might not be improved, but the latter most certainly would be.
There is ways to deal with combo, you have needle, rule of law, chalice ofr zero if need be, perhaps a black splash nowadays, parfait would make a comeback with land tax.
Best play in magic: Tundra, vial, - Force vial-Daze force...I win.
The fact that you say "it might or might not be improved" seems to imply that you doubt it would have been improved. If this is the right implication there isn't much he could have done to convince you outside of perhaps entertaining you during the process. It just seems better to admit you wouldn't have been convinced either way.
I was implying nothing. I used the words "might or might not" for a very specific reason: because that might or might not be the case. I don't know, because it didn't happen.
Listen carefully: I am not going to admit I wouldn't be convinced either way because I already am convinced. I was convinced before Chris ever wrote his article. My being convinced isn't even an issue here. I care about reading interesting articles which actually teach me something about the game or the format. This article did not accomplish this, and that is the basis of my criticism. I'm not really sure I can be much clearer.
I'm a little confused. What exactly are you convinced of? That Land Tax is too powerful or that it isn't? I just couldn't tell from your response.
Try ten years ago. And the only time that deck was even remotely playable was when it had real Moxen and the format was at least three turns slower than current Legacy.
If you think an old Parfait list would work, by all means break it out and we'll test it. I don't want to venture my own such list or pick my favorite amongst old lists, because as Anwar notes, certain people are just going to say, "Well if Jack Elgin's deck isn't awesome, it must suck snickersnickersarcasm", or, "Well obviously that list sucks. But can you imagine one that the pros might develop?"
This is what it keeps coming back to. People are going to wave their hands and reference magical secret decks built by leprechauns that make Land Tax good in Legacy, but unfortunately no human being has ever seen them. Chris' attempt to demonstrate that Land Tax, in any deck, is going to be weak on the first few turns was a very reasonable and noble attempt to meet people halfway that met with complete rejection based on the same reasoning of Leprechaun-built Land Tax decks.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
That it isn't. I've been for taking it off the banned list ever since it was put on. I don't need convincing on this matter. But for somebody who does need convincing, I don't think the circumstantial evidence presented in Chris' article is enough to make a compelling argument. And, as I said, it's simply not that interesting to read, because there aren't any new ideas in it. The suggestion that he ought to have tested two or three actual Land Tax lists and written about that would, in my opinion, improve both points.
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