I also wonder how one would like to do a Monte Carlo simulation of any deck, let alone decks that compete with one another. And I say this b/c I have written some rudementary simulation. First off, you have to write an interpretation engine that can figure out which card does what. After that you have to model behavior for the _entire_ game, and to top things off you'll have to write algorythms for how to actually play the game (which you may have to for a number of play styles). At this point, you have a piece of software that can goldfish a deck (which is where I'm at a.t.m.) but in no way a means to simulate 2000 man+ tournaments with competitive play styles and sideboarding algorythms.
Also, don't underestimate the sheer amount of computing power needed to run all those simulations. As we speak, my own program takes ca. 45-60 seconds to play the first 5 turns of the game 50k times using an Elves!-deck (shuffling the deck after each itteration, obviously). And I'm not yet using Nettle Sentinel/Glimpse of Nature/Natural Order/Wirewood Symbiote/Quirion Ranger-shenanigans yet (I still have to model that behavior and figure out an algorythm that can somewhat decently decide when it does or does not want to use certain abilities and stuff).
Another thing you'd have to consider is how big a % of the field would be playing "your" deck and the field's consistency as a whole, but that's a different story entirely.
And how would one determine a reliable win-% for a hypothetical deck..? By doing it the way you describe, test results (the win-%'s) will be heavily influenced by the skill level of the player piloting the deck.
I strongly advice you to read every post regarding the topic of monte carlo simulation in this thread. We already figured that skill differences are a problem here. What you can do (2 things):Originally Posted by Echelon
1. Draw a randomized sample of maybe 30 ppl from throughout the MTG (maybe just Legacy) population. Let them perform a series of games OTP, OTD, then the same after sideboarding. They play against every matchup in the DTB. After each completed trial the distribution of decks between those players will occur randomly. Sounds really complicated and far from reality.
2. Choose 2 skilled players, on which most likely everyone could agree, that they are renowned and good with Legacy (for example: BBD and CVM from Starcitygames). One gets the SotF deck, and the other takes one of the DTB. Then they perform aseries of games: 15 OTP, 15 OTD and the same after sideboard. Then both players change decks and do the same again. This whole process will be repeated for each DTB (or if you want for each archetype that made day2 in GPNJ for example). Then you draw win percentages from those games for each matchup and proceed to simulate a lot of tournaments on the basis of the distribution of tested archetypes among GPNJ. Voila: You get an idea about how dominant in terms of tournament wins the SotF-deck could be.
Of course those options are far from perfect, but they are a start and provide more informativeness than some random discussion. In the end there are a lot of unclear variables. Like: What is the best deck for SotF in the first place? If you cannot reliably proof that your decklist would be top notch under todays standards, your whole data would not be taken seriously. Another question: How do we choose against what matchups we test to create win percentages? Are they close to reality in terms of real tournament distrubution? How many people would pick up the deck (with SotF) when it would be unbanned?
If you want to go the qualitative route, you could also make a focus group with a lot of renowned players and draw conclusions from that.
The problem with your study is that you are trying to prove/disprove a point which is completely nonsensical. I don't need to test if the updated Vengevine lists are better than the original, unless I am so much worse than the average tournament player that the whole testing makes no sense. If I'm that bad the win percentages I get out of testing have no value. If I found a way to get decent testing results, ie with a group of good players, I can use that group to build an updated version of the deck, which has a high enough probability to be better (in the current meta), because building a better list actually isn't a very hard task with a much larger card pool and knowledge of the meta the deck is built for.
With that in mind, the only valuable result you could get from testing would be that even the old, bad version was better than current decks. The whole "they only banned Survival because that one deck was dominating" argument is at least questionable, given that most of the time cards are banned because of power level (which leads to dominance of decks containing them). There are some exceptions, but they are mostly modern.
If anyone is interested i will start making econometric / sabermetric models for mtg next year ( when i have more time). For this i need dedicated play testers so if any legacy teams want to work with me to provide data, pm me please.
If you go about your business that way, at the moment LED Dredge would be on top of the format right now when running mock-up tournaments without any SB's (which is essentially what you're suggesting to do).
The tests you propose wouldn't even be able to correctly predict how todays most prominent deck (UR Delver) would fare in the current meta. Using your methods you'd end up with completely different results, meaning there is no credibility to your other testresults.
I'm not childish enough to troll. If you see my earnest confusion in your goal/methods as trolling, I apologize.
If you want to build a case to unban a card, wouldn't it be prudent to test the best possible case for the card and show that it is not overwhelming in the current meta? You do realize that the original Vengevival list is contained in the space of potential updated lists right?
You mentioned earlier that by updating the list, wizards gets to say "Your list isn't actually optimal so your results are invalid". Can they not do the same thing to your not updated version? Even if the old list proves acceptable, the point is moot for the purposes of showing the card is reasonable simply because you are working with different card pool constraints than actually exist. If my proposed method isn't viable because whatever list I generate isn't optimal, certainly your method is similarly inadequate because it does nothing to consider the expansion of the game since Dec 20th, 2010.
I'm not sure entirely what leads you to believe that. However relevant it is, I have a B.S. in Mathematics From Lehigh University and have passed my P Actuarial Exam (and being lazy on the rest). My current work is risk analysis for pipeline integrity for a small software company, where I am the probability guy.It's obvious to me that you guys do not have a background in analysis
But that's not the goal, the real goal is demonstrating Survival is/isn't fit for legacy currently. When you set out to petition to unban the card, all you've done is introduce an extraneous step right? I don't believe it important to test the version of the deck as it was banned and rather place much higher importance on the card in shells that today could support it.
Matt Bevenour in real life
I really liked Caleb's last list: http://www.channelfireball.com/video...nd-mind-twist/
His Bant Survival should absolutely be the starting point for any discussion of that deck.
I've tested around with that build, but there are some problems i see with it.
Thalia as a silver bullet is useless. Getting a single hatebear on T3-T4 has never stopped combo decks.
Fauna shaman is really bad in this meta. With bolts around everywhere, Fauna rarely stick, and even if it does, it require 3 turns to set up a single vengevine, and 3 turns to set up a retainer combo (2 if you have iona/retainer in hand). Mother of runes is here to protect her, but i don't feel it at all, especially considering you aren't really running a lot of creatures, or they're called vengevine. KotR on the other hand is amazing because work as a beater, and can lock decks out of colored mana + get maze for creatures.
I want to try a deck with a E. Tutor toolbox, something like:
Survivals
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Enlightened Tutor
Creatures 20
3 Noble Hierarch
3 Deathrite Shaman
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Vengevine
1 Basking Rootwalla
1 Memnite
1 Loyal Retainers
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
Removal and CA
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Sylvan Library
1 Banishing Light
1 Commune with the Gods
Lands
4 Wasteland
4 Savannah
3 Windswept Heath
2 Forest
1 Plains
3 Flooded Strand
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
2 Horizon Canopy
EDIT: seems better than Caleb's list tbh from a quick testing, really consistent T2 Survival, plus E. Tutor can get u a creature to get going with survival in case u don't have one in hand (eidolon double as situational hate and creature to pitch for survival). Double toolbox in E. Tutor and Survival, get removal for whatever annoy you, plus Library for additional manipulation and card advantage. 6 1-mana elves feel good because they double for survival fodder/castable for vengevine, and Memnite + walla feel much better than double walla cause you can get an additional vengevine with a survival cycle.
Last edited by Gheizen64; 11-18-2014 at 04:26 PM.
There is far too much focus on survival to scratch the potential, if the whole concept is disabled with a single pithing needle or Phyrexian Revoker. I don't see a reason to not include GSZ as redundant effect for tutoring and for mana acceleration via Dryad Arbor. I see problems if you have your whole offense based on the graveyard in form of KotR, Vengevine and Retainer.
The deck also scoops hard to combo and I think a modern approach to GW(x) survival should root on Dark Maverick with it's two angles of combo hate via Discard and hatebears.
I see much potential in T1 DRS/GSZ, T2 Thoughtseize + SotF, T3 ....
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Are we just going to come up with a "what if survival was legal" brew right now? As resident bad deck builder of the format and article discussion section, let me try.
Taking the shell from Gheizen64
4 Survival
3 VV
2 Walla
1 Retainer
1 Iona
1 Elesh Norn
Adding the recent best B/G prints since DRS is a must have.
4 DRS
4 Abrupt Decay
Adding GSZ toolbox, because it is the best thing to run in green that is not elves
4 GSZ
1 Scavenging ooze
3 Tarmogoyf
Adding the Treasure Cruise shell because it's the best.
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Treasure Cruise
Then 20 Lands
And I think that is a rough starting list - obviously you can start adding in FOW/Daze into that, messing with GSZ targets, or with the Survival package.
This type of discussion was exactly what I was afraid of, and what I proposed an alternative to. If this thread continues to be like this, how is it different from the B&R Speculation Thread? You are basically confirming why I stressed the point to start with the decklists of late 2010 because there is no discussion that those decks were bad. If they were bad, Survival would have never been banned in the first place.
More importantly, why is this thread still alive? Virtually all of the discussion has either already been covered in the BnR thread, or is so hypothetical that we might as well start a Rumors thread. I'm tempted to start a "Ban Brainstorm because of X" thread just to see how long it survives.
Check out my Legacy UBTezz Primer. Chalice of the Void: Keeping Magic Fair.
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Playing since '96. Brief forced break '02-04. Former/Idle Judge since '05. Told Smmenen to play faster at Vintage Worlds.
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Most of the 'Ban brainstorm!' arguments are based on the logic that 'more different cards should get played in Legacy', as though the success or health of the format can be measured by the portion of cards that are available and see play. This is an idiotic metric.
How many decks you see playing Needle T1? Not to say you can easily fetch Explosives with E. Tutor and remove any amount of needle they have. You can also still play survival, and remove the needle afterward. I'm not seeing needle as a big deal. As for combo, being a dog to it is sorta implied when you play WG, and the survival shell is 13-14 cards already, in colors that aren't blue. A singleton SotL is probably a big deal though, since you can Tutor for it.
Another problem is that if u want to test the best possible list vs the current top decks, a more streamlined list that get T2 survival as often as possible is probably the best because there aren't many enchantment removals around aside from wear/tear and needles. A list with more disruption would probably do best in an hypotetical Survival unbanned meta, but not as a playtest vs current decks.
EDIT: also, some testing using GSZ + Survival seems too much toolbox and not enough actual cards. And considering GSZ can't catch Survival, i'd probably rather have E. Tutor there, with SotL and Eidolons of rethoric as potential bullets vs combo. That, or go UG with Intuitions, BS, Wonder, and i'd play frantic there too if it was unbanned.
Do you think approaching this like a research paper will or could sway WOTC?
Do you think that WOTC has ever unbanned or banned anything in the 20 year history of the game using this sort of tactic of rigour and exhaustive research? Is that usually how banning announcements go down? Sorry we banned Card X in Format Y, we know it upsets some of you, but seriously check out this spreadsheet, we did the math, case closed.
When Trinisphere was restricted in T1 it was cause it was perceived as "unfun" by a lot of the player base. There wasn't anything more concrete than that, it wasn't unbalancing the percentages or decks represented in tournaments that much, it was restricted solely on being classified by the nebulous tag of "Unfun".
Likewise when they've unbanned cards, they do it off of what they think and feel, they don't know, they don't test. They don't do it out of any hard conclusions drawn, it's out of feel, intuition, experience and what they think will happen.
Like you stated SoTF probably remains banned not because it would be too good right now necessarily but probably because the potential of something coming along and pushing it over the top again. Like with a lot of engine cards it poses a question to WOTC every time they make a new creature, will this be too good with card x? It can really clamp down their design freedom. Unlike non engine cards where their power is way easier to witness and assess, the engine cards have the biggest potential of any type of card to get put back on the banned list at any time in the future.
WOTC views these things as accidents waiting to happen. While most people would rather see the banned list be a constant work in progress, with things taken on and off more frequently to test the waters and push boundaries, WOTC obviously doesn't see it that way, and would probably think it a bad PR move to un ban something only to put it back on a year or two later. I highly doubt any amount of "proof" will sway them from this position. Unbanning SoTF to try to unseat blue dominance seems like a pretty big gamble considering it was the blue builds of it the first time that got it banned, regardless if those same builds are in any way viable.
That doesn't mean going through the process can't be fun or valuable to yourself but I highly doubt it will be useful for getting a card like this unbanned. Even if you could present them with a thesis and dissertation of irrefutable proof that SoTF is safe to unban I would be surprised if it swayed them in any way.
Something like Caleb's Video Series or the Banned Deck Tournament articles in the past are probably way more influential on their decision making regardless of how flawed they may be.
The banned list isn't a science or a research problem it's based on feelings and intuition way more than anything if history is any indicator. Sometimes they look at percentages of a field and cite dominance, but often it's just "we don't like the way the format looks" or "the play experiences are unpleasant for some" or even just tournament attendance is down so therefore ban hammer.
Like have fun with it and do what you want but I think going this deep into it is sort of tilting at windmills. Sorry if this is overly pessimistic, no offence intended. Maybe this post is better off in the B&R as it is more about the philosophy of how they handle the banned list.
This is an interesting and potentially spot-on point. The problem of unbanning and re-banning is compounded in Survival's case because it's on the Reserved List, so a price spike caused by unbanning, then a secondary spike caused by success of a broken list would all be undone if the card were banned again. Survival already commands a surprisingly high price (~$35 tcgplayer median) for a card that isn't widely played in the only format in which it's legal, and it's not out of the question that it overshoots Show and Tell (~$65 tcgplayer median) if it gets unbanned, especially if the deck performs well. I can imagine a lot of unhappy players if people dropped ~$200+ on Survivals only to see them re-banned three months later.
There's a big difference between an engine card like survival, and cards like SnT or Tinker or Reanimate. First, it doesn't cheat mana, with the exception of Vengevine and Madness cards. Second, its power don't get better for each good creature that get printed, but for each new creature that do something specific with the discard/graveyard interaction. Third, Survival want your deck to be filled with creatures, ideally at least 15 of them for survival to be a reliable engine (like force, but with creatures).
Those are crucial points.
Because in general, new good creature and spells that are in general better in non-survival decks will vastly outnumber the new creatures that fit in the very narrow subset of "abusable with survival". This mean that on average, survival don't get better, it get worse with time. This was exemplified with Survival history before the printing of Vengevine. When 1.5 was younger, TnT decks, and tradewind survival decks were actual decks, but with time, efficient threats, cheap countermagic, better disruption made so that those strats were no longer as good as before. Getting an answer for G, and hardcasting it, wasn't as good when the opponent deck was either absurdly redundant so that you couldn't get a good answer with SotF, or too fast for SotF to matter.
As such survival got positioned worse with time, at least until Vengevine got printed, at which point a deck that cheated 3 4/3 haste on turn 3.5 on average was too good in the legacy format of that time.
Since Vengevine was printed, other new creatures that got printed abusable with Survival? Legends, if you consider the retainer combo (which is still slow by legacy standards and also Griselbrand isn't good in Survival because you have a deck full of creatures and not of spells you can chain), then what? Reclamation sage is good i guess and SotL is a good hatebear as well. Panglacial Wurm? I honestly can't name a good interaction that wasn't already there or superior to Ooze/Devourer or Retainer /Legend.
On the other hand, many creatures that are really good against and outside Survival got printed:
True-name nemesis, an absurdly strong wall against VV, pratically unbreakable with any equip. Not as good in survival decks because of the mana intensive requirements, and it isn't worth paying 1GG and discard a card to tutor for it.
Containment Priest, a 1W 2/2 flash, that while good vs a lot of the meta, simply exile 3 creatures on cast vs Survival. A good silver bullet for survival decks, but shut off the VV engine, making it really situational.
Delver of Secrets, aka the strongest cheap beater ever printed. On offense, it ignore your vengevines, posing an actual clock when coupled with burn, and on defense it trade with a Vengevine. In Survival decks this is useless because you want to run as many creatures, where delver want a lot of spells, and want to be casted T1, not tutored for.
Young Pyromancer, an almost infinite supplier of token blockers vs non-wonder vengevines variants. Again, this card is bad in survival because it sinergize with spells, not other creatures.
Deathrite Shaman, the strongest mana elf ever printed, and widely played, with the ability to remove your vengevines in response to madness triggers. This is actually good in survival decks, but much moreso against it.
Batterskull with Stoneforge Mystic, allowed for midrangey/control decks like Patriot, to lay down extremely fast 4/4 vigilances lifelink to effectively block Vengevines, especially coupled with the bounce ability. This is also actually good in survival decks, but more against it.
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben , basically made D&T a competitive deck, and combined with any equipment from SFM it can block Vengevines all day long. Again, a card that is good in Survival because it encourage you to play creature, but not as good as in other decks because it slow down your survival if you play it before SotF, or come down usually too late if you tutor for it. This is probably the most debatable creature of this list however.
Ignoring creatures, some really good SB cards that kill survival were printed , like RiP.
The best card drawing spells printed in years, TC and DTT, are nonbos with survival both because they exile cards you usually need, and because they sinergize with decks full of cheap spells, not decks full of creatures.
In contrast, cards like Tinker and SnT surely get better with time because of the accelleration part. That means that the subset of really good and mana intensive creatures/artifacts that get printed over time are usually bigger than those of cards that are good against it, like Containment Priest.
And in fact, Griselbrand, Emrakul, and Inktide Leviathan are all pretty recent printings, and i wouldn't ever bet on those card getting worse over time like i would on survival.
Survival is a card that thrive on very specific conditions: low combo presence to give it enough time to assemble its own combo, and low power-spells in general. The more high-power spells a format has, the less survival is interesting because you want to play as many spells as possible. Creatures get better with time sure, but even creatures, as we saw, have to be in a specific-subset to be relevant in SotF decks, whereas the newest creatures that have seen play in this format have been all of the kind that are actively bad in SotF and good against SotF (Delver, TNN, Containment Priest, YP), or good in survival but better in other decks (DRS, SFM+Batterskull, you could make a case for Thalia too).
With TC and DTT printed, there has never been a time where SotF power level relative to the rest of the format card pool has been lower since it was banned.
Last edited by Gheizen64; 11-18-2014 at 06:58 PM.
You keep implying that the old Vengevine list has a realistical chance to be good, which is what I don't get. I don't have to test four year old decklists in a format which just gets bigger (and more powerful thanks to powercreep), especially if it's a toolbox deck which needs to be built against an existing meta. I think the null hypothesis "the four year old survival decks would dominate legacy" can be treated as disproven, at least if you have a feel how a deck plays out after seeing it on paper.
My point with player skill is that test results are dependant on pilot skill because some decks are more complex to play than others. Maybe you find that the toolbox deck is bad against burn with you and your opponent being equally bad at magic, while the matchups evens out the better both of you get (this is pretty much how the miracle vs. burn matchup plays out). If I am not able to improve a four year old decklist built to beat a different meta while having access to that decklist, chances are my test results have no value because they are not representative for tournament magic.
PS: Pilot skill is and always was a much more important part in winning than deck choice whenever a format wasn't degenerate.
Kinda like the BG version with Quirion Ranger and Fauna Shaman that caleb started to play before it got banned. With both Venge Combo and Ooze combo.
Wizards recently gave out free Survival promos on MODO during the community cup.
The upcoming MOCS promo is going to be Vengevine.
Could be a sign of an unban, but it sure is a sign that Mike Turian is a dick when it comes to choosing MOCS promos.
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