Also the test against Merfolk is a fallacy because you played a small sample size and one where SFM was ALWAYS in hand for Abzan (which is not always the case). Additionally, you need to test more then just against Merfolk. I am still typing up my results from the weekend and will get it uploaded as soon as I can but I played a far larger sample size against a wider range of decks.
yeahm yeah, when we disagree with you verbally we are just spewing out baseless speculation, when some admittedely rushed testing confirms our suspicions, it's bad testing
if i test games in which SFM is never drawn or abzan is mana screwd or flooded and just has an SFM staring an army of fish on steroids, what would that prove? that SFM is fine? or rather the obvious, meaning that SFM has no impact if you never draw him and that it sucks to mulligan to 5?
enough testing was not even needed against something like SFM, it was just overkill and my results were so disheartening i feel it's an utter waste of time to test further
when you present us your results will you at least tell us how many times SFM had a chance to partake in the game? and how many times he was cast a turn before lethal when every5thing was already decided? and how many times a mana screwed deck played him and nothing else?
or will you have an Abzan getting pwned by infect and affinity's godhands with SFM in hand and call him fine? no threat can save you in such scenarios, only answers and SFM is the best threat, but not really an answer against flying 8/1 creatures on turn 3, it's a missplay to cast any threat in such cases, if it;s not removal you are doing it wrong or had a horrible hand against the specific decks
most people just assume that SFM should always be cast on t2, that's simply not the case, sometimes it's better to interact first and cast him later, much like we do with tarmogoyf
I agree with your later points but what I am saying is that you can't do testing SOLELY on games where SFM is in your opening hand because that is too subjective. You need to test out Abzans matchup as a whole and how it has changed by adding a new piece to it. Testing with SFM always in opening hand is like testing Bloom Titan with Summer Bloom always in opening hand or testing Twin with Splinter Twin always in opening hand. Ofcourse you are going to get warped results because it can consistently come down when you need it. You aren't testing out Merfolk with only Vial in opening hands either?! Consistency matters a great deal when it comes to decks and it is part of the testing. I played each game (50 games against each tier 1 deck) as if it were a real tournament match. I have detailed notes for number of games SFM came down, ones that she won due to lack of answers and an overall synopsis of SFM in each matchup.
Correcting the "playonly" games from before, here's 100 goldfished games with each deck on the draw. I think this is closer to what the deck's opponents claim when they say "consistently before turn four."
Amulet Bloom Kills on the Draw:
Turn 2: 16
Turn 3: 32
Turn 4: 33
Turn 5+: 19
Griselbrand Kills on the Draw:
Turn 1: 0
Turn 2: 17
Turn 3: 34
Turn 4: 29
Turn 5: 20
I'm more than a little biased in favor of both of these decks, so I'll just keep the rest of this objective by talking around it. I'm still working on refining the "goldfish tournament" scenario from before. I don't personally have enough coding experience to simulate all 15 rounds of a major tournament, but I should be able to ask around. I -- and I can't believe how tacky this sounds when I type it out -- know a guy who should be able to help with that.
In the meantime, are there any other "degenerate" decks people would like for me to goldfish? I'm certainly not wading into Stoneforge Mystic.flame (especially when Extratraz seems to be doing just that), so... other options?
A turner of phrases quite pleasin'
Had a penchant for trick'ry and teasin'.
The very last line
Might seem sans design
What I mean is without why or wherefore.
-Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter
Correcting the "playonly" games from before, here's 100 goldfished games with each deck on the draw. I think this is closer to what the deck's opponents claim when they say "consistently before turn four."
Amulet Bloom Kills on the Draw:
Turn 2: 16
Turn 3: 32
Turn 4: 33
Turn 5+: 19
Griselbrand Kills on the Draw:
Turn 1: 0
Turn 2: 17
Turn 3: 34
Turn 4: 29
Turn 5: 20
I'm more than a little biased in favor of both of these decks, so I'll just keep the rest of this objective by talking around it. I'm still working on refining the "goldfish tournament" scenario from before. I don't personally have enough coding experience to simulate all 15 rounds of a major tournament, but I should be able to ask around. I -- and I can't believe how tacky this sounds when I type it out -- know a guy who should be able to help with that.
In the meantime, are there any other "degenerate" decks people would like for me to goldfish? I'm certainly not wading into Stoneforge Mystic.flame (especially when Extratraz seems to be doing just that), so... other options?
-r
This is a great post, I read the last one too and meant to comment, but was too caught up in SFM shenanigans, sorry!
I'd imagine that the next deck that will be under the microscope if it gains any amount of traction is the Protean Hulk deck. It seems like it's more difficult to stop than Grishoalbrand and people seem to be reporting higher rates of turn 3 kills.
As far as what I think we should do about these three decks? Nothing. If they start to dominate the meta and are top 8ing every single tournament, then I think we should consider them, but until then I just don't think their low meta percentages justify any real action by WOTC.
Also the test against Merfolk is a fallacy because you played a small sample size and one where SFM was ALWAYS in hand for Abzan (which is not always the case). Additionally, you need to test more then just against Merfolk. I am still typing up my results from the weekend and will get it uploaded as soon as I can but I played a far larger sample size against a wider range of decks.
yeahm yeah, when we disagree with you verbally we are just spewing out baseless speculation, when some admittedely rushed testing confirms our suspicions, it's bad testing
if i test games in which SFM is never drawn or abzan is mana screwd or flooded and just has an SFM staring an army of fish on steroids, what would that prove? that SFM is fine? or rather the obvious, meaning that SFM has no impact if you never draw him and that it sucks to mulligan to 5?
enough testing was not even needed against something like SFM, it was just overkill and my results were so disheartening i feel it's an utter waste of time to test further
when you present us your results will you at least tell us how many times SFM had a chance to partake in the game? and how many times he was cast a turn before lethal when every5thing was already decided? and how many times a mana screwed deck played him and nothing else?
or will you have an Abzan getting pwned by infect and affinity's godhands with SFM in hand and call him fine? no threat can save you in such scenarios, only answers and SFM is the best threat, but not really an answer against flying 8/1 creatures on turn 3, it's a missplay to cast any threat in such cases, if it;s not removal you are doing it wrong or had a horrible hand against the specific decks
most people just assume that SFM should always be cast on t2, that's simply not the case, sometimes it's better to interact first and cast him later, much like we do with tarmogoyf
I agree with your later points but what I am saying is that you can't do testing SOLELY on games where SFM is in your opening hand because that is too subjective. You need to test out Abzans matchup as a whole and how it has changed by adding a new piece to it. Testing with SFM always in opening hand is like testing Bloom Titan with Summer Bloom always in opening hand or testing Twin with Splinter Twin always in opening hand. Ofcourse you are going to get warped results because it can consistently come down when you need it. You aren't testing out Merfolk with only Vial in opening hands either?! Consistency matters a great deal when it comes to decks and it is part of the testing. I played each game (50 games against each tier 1 deck) as if it were a real tournament match. I have detailed notes for number of games SFM came down, ones that she won due to lack of answers and an overall synopsis of SFM in each matchup.
Ok so let's test without Abzan in our hand. That will be so productive!
God, you are SO blind to SFM unban to say such arguments.
Wotc must be watching and laughing their *** off now!
Just accept the fact that the Merfolk deck will have a 10-90 matchup against SFM turn 2!
This is so ridiculous. You have to test the deck as a whole. You can't only count games where a specific card is in hand because that skews the results of the matchup.
Also, things like this "God, you are SO blind to SFM unban to say such arguments. Wotc must be watching and laughing their *** off now!" add absolutely nothing to the conversation in any way. This page has been largely positive in tone even though people disagree with each other, so let's keep it that way.
Ok so let's test without Abzan in our hand. That will be so productive!
God, you are SO blind to SFM unban to say such arguments.
Wotc must be watching and laughing their *** off now!
Just accept the fact that the Merfolk deck will have a 10-90 matchup against SFM turn 2!
This is so ridiculous. You have to test the deck as a whole. You can't only count games where a specific card is in hand because that skews the results of the matchup.
Also, things like this "God, you are SO blind to SFM unban to say such arguments. Wotc must be watching and laughing their *** off now!" add absolutely nothing to the conversation in any way. This page has been largely positive in tone even though people disagree with each other, so let's keep it that way.
Exactly my points. This is more then just "what about Merfolk's matchup" which I am guessing is your pet deck. This is about the deck as a whole and how it matched up against other tier 1 decks (before they get modified slighlty to accomidate for SFM.. which would happen. You'd see more vapor snags and artifact destruction brought into the main. My hyperbole of "Oh Merfolk can't do anything against T2 SFM!!!" what about T2 Primetime? I can't imagine it's win rate is any better. The point is, you need to test out the deck as a whole and while I agree that overall, merfolk doesn't have a great matchup against the Abzan Blade deck I tested (again numbers written down at home and as such don't have them on me). I do feel that it has an overall good matchup against it anyway because of it's abundance of removal for lords and vials, it has discard to force Merfolk into top deck mode and sweepers out of the board didn't help. (not to mention you kill a couple lords and your Goyfs can take care of business from there).
i agree that testing like this is not 100% objective but i had limited time, therefore what would i do? test and put SFM 4th card from the library?
No. What you are supposed to do is shuffle the deck and play with it. Its pretty simple.
If you fix your small 8 game sample to:
1. Have SFM in opening hand.
2. Have a sculpted "good" hand (which presumably contains hand disruption for turn 1 among other goodies).
3. Sculpt the opponent's hand, which means how the turns develop was predetermined. Like turn 1 discard, turn 2 SFM, turn 3 BS in 2 out of 3 games vs merfolk (66% consistency rate as opposed to 0% from Caleb's and niallplaysmagic's 16 real games)
4. Play against yourself which means you might play to obtain a desired outcome (ej. discarding the opponent's SFM turn 1 instead of their removal/counter spell which would guarantee your SFM surviving on turn 2 vs Jeskai)
5. Not account for sideboarding. Which gives the opponent (you) no chance to bring in their SFM hate for games 2 and 3.
Then yes, your results will undoubtedly conclude that SFM is busted. Derp!
Your effort is appreciated, but your testing is comparable to "he who shall not be named" who sculpted his hands and went on a turn 1 win streak with Bloom Titan at a tournament and got himself banned.
The question that needs to be answered is "Is SFM busted in modern?"
The question your testing answered is "Is SFM busted if I sculpt my hand and also play against myself using another deck with a sculpted hand?"
You set the perfect scenario for it to over perform. If you don't have time to test real games then just don't test at all because the games where you never draw SFM or have to mulligan are actually VERY important to judge how busted SFM is in the format.
Exatraz played 50 matches against every tier 1 deck and he apparently did not find it busted at all. I am looking forward to that testing report, which I don't believe will solve anything, but will shed a little more light on the issue.[/quote]
yeahm yeah, when we disagree with you verbally we are just spewing out baseless speculation, when some admittedely rushed testing confirms our suspicions, it's bad testing
if i test games in which SFM is never drawn or abzan is mana screwd or flooded and just has an SFM staring an army of fish on steroids, what would that prove? that SFM is fine? or rather the obvious, meaning that SFM has no impact if you never draw him and that it sucks to mulligan to 5?
enough testing was not even needed against something like SFM, it was just overkill and my results were so disheartening i feel it's an utter waste of time to test further
when you present us your results will you at least tell us how many times SFM had a chance to partake in the game? and how many times he was cast a turn before lethal when every5thing was already decided? and how many times a mana screwed deck played him and nothing else?
or will you have an Abzan getting pwned by infect and affinity's godhands with SFM in hand and call him fine? no threat can save you in such scenarios, only answers and SFM is the best threat, but not really an answer against flying 8/1 creatures on turn 3, it's a missplay to cast any threat in such cases, if it;s not removal you are doing it wrong or had a horrible hand against the specific decks
most people just assume that SFM should always be cast on t2, that's simply not the case, sometimes it's better to interact first and cast him later, much like we do with tarmogoyf
I agree with your later points but what I am saying is that you can't do testing SOLELY on games where SFM is in your opening hand because that is too subjective. You need to test out Abzans matchup as a whole and how it has changed by adding a new piece to it. Testing with SFM always in opening hand is like testing Bloom Titan with Summer Bloom always in opening hand or testing Twin with Splinter Twin always in opening hand. Ofcourse you are going to get warped results because it can consistently come down when you need it. You aren't testing out Merfolk with only Vial in opening hands either?! Consistency matters a great deal when it comes to decks and it is part of the testing. I played each game (50 games against each tier 1 deck) as if it were a real tournament match. I have detailed notes for number of games SFM came down, ones that she won due to lack of answers and an overall synopsis of SFM in each matchup.
Ok so let's test without Abzan in our hand. That will be so productive!
God, you are SO blind to SFM unban to say such arguments.
Wotc must be watching and laughing their *** off now!
Just accept the fact that the Merfolk deck will have a 10-90 matchup against SFM turn 2!
This is so ridiculous. You have to test the deck as a whole. You can't only count games where a specific card is in hand because that skews the results of the matchup.
Also, things like this "God, you are SO blind to SFM unban to say such arguments. Wotc must be watching and laughing their *** off now!" add absolutely nothing to the conversation in any way. This page has been largely positive in tone even though people disagree with each other, so let's keep it that way.
sorry but i cannot agree here
generally i feel people are exaggerating about the importance of MU's while often it's individual cards that make or break victories, apart from cases when one deck has an overwhelming advantage over the other due to the fact that it counters it in a rocks/paper/scizor fashion (like Tron counters BG), for instance as Merfolk i have a really bad MU vs Affinity, but if i always draw my Hurcyl's Recall that hardly matters, the reason affinity is a bad MU is because it's faster, Recall fixes this with a massive tempo swing, therefore how bad of a MU affinity is largely depends on how many Recalls i am packing and how many Vapor Snags/ Dismembers i have
for instance testing SFM Abzan vs affinity is extremely hard to yield any meaningful result because the importance of certain individual cards like stony silence is so great sometimes nothing else matters
if we are trying to figure whether affinity has a bad or good MU vs Abzan that's cool, but if we are trying to figure how broken is SFM not really, against affinity Stony Silence will always be the most broken card of all time, but SFM provides a new angle, which is to cast your disruption/removal early game and proceed to land a batterskull to take over the game, btw BS does something awsome in this MU: it blocks and kill Etched Champion which is by far the deadliest card in affinity's disposal vs grindy decks
so same goes with Merfolks, you want me to provide you with a list of let's say 100 games, in which Abzan won 60, merfolk won 40 while in the 25 of the 40 games merfolk won SFM was never cast? what does that prove? that the MU is 60-40 and therefore it's not that dramatic?
also you realise that we can do that with literally ANY card of the banlist and use it as an arguement to unban it? every single card in the BL sometimes will not be seen, every single card off the BL sometimes will never be seen, so? does that makes cards less broken?
a deck is not broken when it's unbeatable, that's the point people quit the game on mass, a deck is broken when it's chances of winning any event are higher than those of other decks, therfore making it the obvious choice, much like Jund was in DRS+BBE era, ofc others will hate the crap of it, but from my experience better to play the deck to beat than it's counters, which will fail miserably against rogue and low tier decks
none is saying that if SFM were to be unbanned Abzan would be 60% of the meta, but it could easily climb up to 20% and we would see 2-4 of it in every top 8 + a couple of other SFM decks, Tron would try to counter them etc
imo it would be a repeat of the DRS + BBE era in a different fashion, less fun too, becasue at least Jund gave you the illusion that you are close to victory with it's dwirdling life total, while that damn lifelink thing will keep it's controller healthy at all times
All I'm saying, is that from a statistical analysis point of view, you can't just disregard the inconvenient data where you didn't find a card. You can qualify the data and say that "In games where I drew 'x', 'y' happened 'z' amount of times," but if you exclude any irrelevant data it skews it in favor of what you're looking to say. For instance, if we're discussing how good Stony Silence is vs. Affinity, and we only count games where it was in our opening hand or in our first draw step, then you'll have results that are heavily skewed towards how good that card is when you draw it, but we don't play a game without variance like this. MANY games of modern will be played where you don't draw the card or cards that you need and this has to be accounted for. This isn't a magic issue, it's a stats issue.
yeahm yeah, when we disagree with you verbally we are just spewing out baseless speculation, when some admittedely rushed testing confirms our suspicions, it's bad testing
if i test games in which SFM is never drawn or abzan is mana screwd or flooded and just has an SFM staring an army of fish on steroids, what would that prove? that SFM is fine? or rather the obvious, meaning that SFM has no impact if you never draw him and that it sucks to mulligan to 5?
enough testing was not even needed against something like SFM, it was just overkill and my results were so disheartening i feel it's an utter waste of time to test further
when you present us your results will you at least tell us how many times SFM had a chance to partake in the game? and how many times he was cast a turn before lethal when every5thing was already decided? and how many times a mana screwed deck played him and nothing else?
or will you have an Abzan getting pwned by infect and affinity's godhands with SFM in hand and call him fine? no threat can save you in such scenarios, only answers and SFM is the best threat, but not really an answer against flying 8/1 creatures on turn 3, it's a missplay to cast any threat in such cases, if it;s not removal you are doing it wrong or had a horrible hand against the specific decks
most people just assume that SFM should always be cast on t2, that's simply not the case, sometimes it's better to interact first and cast him later, much like we do with tarmogoyf
I agree with your later points but what I am saying is that you can't do testing SOLELY on games where SFM is in your opening hand because that is too subjective. You need to test out Abzans matchup as a whole and how it has changed by adding a new piece to it. Testing with SFM always in opening hand is like testing Bloom Titan with Summer Bloom always in opening hand or testing Twin with Splinter Twin always in opening hand. Ofcourse you are going to get warped results because it can consistently come down when you need it. You aren't testing out Merfolk with only Vial in opening hands either?! Consistency matters a great deal when it comes to decks and it is part of the testing. I played each game (50 games against each tier 1 deck) as if it were a real tournament match. I have detailed notes for number of games SFM came down, ones that she won due to lack of answers and an overall synopsis of SFM in each matchup.
Ok so let's test without Abzan in our hand. That will be so productive!
God, you are SO blind to SFM unban to say such arguments.
Wotc must be watching and laughing their *** off now!
Just accept the fact that the Merfolk deck will have a 10-90 matchup against SFM turn 2!
This is so ridiculous. You have to test the deck as a whole. You can't only count games where a specific card is in hand because that skews the results of the matchup.
Also, things like this "God, you are SO blind to SFM unban to say such arguments. Wotc must be watching and laughing their *** off now!" add absolutely nothing to the conversation in any way. This page has been largely positive in tone even though people disagree with each other, so let's keep it that way.
sorry but i cannot agree here
generally i feel people are exaggerating about the importance of MU's while often it's individual cards that make or break victories, apart from cases when one deck has an overwhelming advantage over the other due to the fact that it counters it in a rocks/paper/scizor fashion (like Tron counters BG), for instance as Merfolk i have a really bad MU vs Affinity, but if i always draw my Hurcyl's Recall that hardly matters, the reason affinity is a bad MU is because it's faster, Recall fixes this with a massive tempo swing, therefore how bad of a MU affinity is largely depends on how many Recalls i am packing and how many Vapor Snags/ Dismembers i have
for instance testing SFM Abzan vs affinity is extremely hard to yield any meaningful result because the importance of certain individual cards like stony silence is so great sometimes nothing else matters
if we are trying to figure whether affinity has a bad or good MU vs Abzan that's cool, but if we are trying to figure how broken is SFM not really, against affinity Stony Silence will always be the most broken card of all time, but SFM provides a new angle, which is to cast your disruption/removal early game and proceed to land a batterskull to take over the game, btw BS does something awsome in this MU: it blocks and kill Etched Champion which is by far the deadliest card in affinity's disposal vs grindy decks
so same goes with Merfolks, you want me to provide you with a list of let's say 100 games, in which Abzan won 60, merfolk won 40 while in the 25 of the 40 games merfolk won SFM was never cast? what does that prove? that the MU is 60-40 and therefore it's not that dramatic?
also you realise that we can do that with literally ANY card of the banlist and use it as an arguement to unban it? every single card in the BL sometimes will not be seen, every single card off the BL sometimes will never be seen, so? does that makes cards less broken?
a deck is not broken when it's unbeatable, that's the point people quit the game on mass, a deck is broken when it's chances of winning any event are higher than those of other decks, therfore making it the obvious choice, much like Jund was in DRS+BBE era, ofc others will hate the crap of it, but from my experience better to play the deck to beat than it's counters, which will fail miserably against rogue and low tier decks
none is saying that if SFM were to be unbanned Abzan would be 60% of the meta, but it could easily climb up to 20% and we would see 2-4 of it in every top 8 + a couple of other SFM decks, Tron would try to counter them etc
imo it would be a repeat of the DRS + BBE era in a different fashion, less fun too, becasue at least Jund gave you the illusion that you are close to victory with it's dwirdling life total, while that damn lifelink thing will keep it's controller healthy at all times
It can't block Etched Champion... Germ Token is black.
If his kind of testinf were in any way meaningful we would have to ban Puresteel Paladin, as it can win 100% of the time on turn 1 if it is allowed to sculpt its hand. lol,
i agree that testing like this is not 100% objective but i had limited time, therefore what would i do? test and put SFM 4th card from the library?
No. What you are supposed to do is shuffle the deck and play with it. Its pretty simple.
If you fix your small 8 game sample to:
1. Have SFM in opening hand.
2. Have a sculpted "good" hand (which presumably contains hand disruption for turn 1 among other goodies).
3. Sculpt the opponent's hand, which means how the turns develop was predetermined. Like turn 1 discard, turn 2 SFM, turn 3 BS in 2 out of 3 games vs merfolk (66% consistency rate as opposed to 0% from Caleb's and niallplaysmagic's 16 real games)
4. Play against yourself which means you might play to obtain a desired outcome (ej. discarding the opponent's SFM turn 1 instead of their removal/counter spell which would guarantee your SFM surviving on turn 2 vs Jeskai)
5. Not account for sideboarding. Which gives the opponent (you) no chance to bring in their SFM hate for games 2 and 3.
Then yes, your results will undoubtedly conclude that SFM is busted. Derp!
Your effort is appreciated, but your testing is comparable to "he who shall not be named" who sculpted his hands and went on a turn 1 win streak with Bloom Titan at a tournament and got himself banned.
The question that needs to be answered is "Is SFM busted in modern?"
The question your testing answered is "Is SFM busted if I sculpt my hand and also play against myself using another deck with a sculpted hand?"
You set the perfect scenario for it to over perform. If you don't have time to test real games then just don't test at all because the games where you never draw SFM or have to mulligan are actually VERY important to judge how busted SFM is in the format.
Exatraz played 50 matches against every tier 1 deck and he apparently did not find it busted at all. I am looking forward to that testing report, which I don't believe will solve anything, but will shed a little more light on the issue.
no i did not do this, i did not set the hands to be good, like always having a t1 disruption
i just gave a free mulligan everytime someone had a bad hand
so all hands were at least average 7 card hands
and i already mentioned BG is a deck that it's bad hands are not that bad and it preys upon opponents who mulligan (as do all attrition strategies) so this favors it's opponents
honestly this is all pointless, not matter what someone says someone will say something else because we all have formed our opinions and we all believe that those taht disagree with us, just don't know what they are talking about
still some opinions are right and some wrong, some opinions will come true others will not
SFM will never be unbanned unless they decide to reduce the BL to something like 5 cards, it's that simple
Then let's go back to discussing the great post that Radio414 made. The anti SFM crowd is the one that brought it back up. If you look toward the top of the page we were all winding it down before people got all snappy again.
If his kind of testinf were in any way meaningful we would have to ban Puresteel Paladin, as it can win 100% of the time on turn 1 if it is allowed to sculpt its hand. lol,
ok, present us with some testing where Abzan mulligans to oblivion or never draws SFM to call SFM fair
what you are doing here is to use bad luck and variance which has nothing to do with how broken your individual cards are (unless they are called Brainstorm at least) to prove that something broken is not broken
btw congratulations you are close to beating this thread, as you are working hard to reduce it to 0 sanity
YOU are the broken record here man. You. It's literally the entire thread vs. you and Gkourou. Also, the rest of us have largely dropped the SFM talk, but you won't let it be. Your method of testing makes absolutely no sense in any kind of meaningful way. It's impossible to argue about this because you're eschewing logic completely here. One of the fundamental rules or argumentation is that you must establish the terms of conversation, something that we have been completely unable to do with you. I'm pretty sure that everyone's minds are pretty solidly made up on SFM at this point (and those of us who were strongest in favor have largely backed off and admitted it probably wouldn't be great for the meta), so I'm not sure what else you're looking for at this point.
Ktk - how has testing gone with AV in Twin? Anything interesting?
SFM improves a tier one deck's win percent. It's only a debate of by how much. As soon as you start talking about answers you are taking the stance that "well the format can adjust to bear it". That's enough for it to stay on the list IMO. When sfm is no longer good enough to qualify as an upgrade to junk midrange, THEN it can come off and not a day before.
If his kind of testinf were in any way meaningful we would have to ban Puresteel Paladin, as it can win 100% of the time on turn 1 if it is allowed to sculpt its hand. lol,
ok, present us with some testing where Abzan mulligans to oblivion or never draws SFM to call SFM fair
what you are doing here is to use bad luck and variance which has nothing to do with how broken your individual cards are (unless they are called Brainstorm at least) to prove that something broken is not broken
btw congratulations you are close to beating this thread, as you are working hard to reduce it to 0 sanity
lol... I'm not the one trying to shove wild speculations unto others. I am the one trying to keep the discussion focused on FACTS. Meaning I am the one trying to keep a sane discussion around facts as opposed to an insane endless war of speculations.
I think you are the one who is not reading my posts because if you were, you wouldn't be asking me for test games of any kind. I am the one argumenting that no amount of testing will be enough to justify an unban of SFM or any of the other pre-banned cards. I am also the only one who isn't trying to argue about how fair or unfair SFM is because I don't have the numbers to do so. My whole argument is that I don't know if the card is fair or not, because it was pre-banned. I don't care if half of you think the card is broken and the other half doesn't. I don't care if the card makes X deck stronger or weaker. I don't have pet decks to slot these cards into. All I want is for these cards to get a fair shot at being legal in modern and my whole case rests on the FACT that 3 other pre-banned cards, originally thought of as broken for modern, have been unbanned and proved to be less than half as broken as WotC thought they were when they decided to pre-ban them. Its that simple, really.
It is actually extremely ironic that all of you pretty much agree with this:
Quote from bill_zagoudis »
honestly this is all pointless, not matter what someone says someone will say something else because we all have formed our opinions and we all believe that those taht disagree with us, just don't know what they are talking about
...and yet you all continue with this absurd speculative war. This is why I walk out on these conversations when people want to shove their speculations on me to try and prove a point. I don't play that game, lets stick to the numbers... oh wait, we have no numbers, SFM has never been legal in modern, we have no numbers to discuss about. Thats my point, that first we need the numbers and for that we need the cards to be legal first.
If his kind of testinf were in any way meaningful we would have to ban Puresteel Paladin, as it can win 100% of the time on turn 1 if it is allowed to sculpt its hand. lol,
ok, present us with some testing where Abzan mulligans to oblivion or never draws SFM to call SFM fair
what you are doing here is to use bad luck and variance which has nothing to do with how broken your individual cards are (unless they are called Brainstorm at least) to prove that something broken is not broken
btw congratulations you are close to beating this thread, as you are working hard to reduce it to 0 sanity
lol... I'm not the one trying to shove wild speculations unto others. I am the one trying to keep the discussion focused on FACTS. Meaning I am the one trying to keep a sane discussion around facts as opposed to an insane endless war of speculations.
I think you are the one who is not reading my posts because if you were, you wouldn't be asking me for test games of any kind. I am the one argumenting that no amount of testing will be enough to justify an unban of SFM or any of the other pre-banned cards. I am also the only one who isn't trying to argue about how fair or unfair SFM is because I don't have the numbers to do so. My whole argument is that I don't know if the card is fair or not, because it was pre-banned. I don't care if half of you think the card is broken and the other half doesn't. I don't care if the card makes X deck stronger or weaker. I don't have pet decks to slot these cards into. All I want is for these cards to get a fair shot at being legal in modern and my whole case rests on the FACT that 3 other pre-banned cards, originally thought of as broken for modern, have been unbanned and proved to be less than half as broken as WotC thought they were when they decided to pre-ban them. Its that simple, really.
It is actually extremely ironic that all of you pretty much agree with this:
Quote from bill_zagoudis »
honestly this is all pointless, not matter what someone says someone will say something else because we all have formed our opinions and we all believe that those taht disagree with us, just don't know what they are talking about
...and yet you all continue with this absurd speculative war. This is why I walk out on these conversations when people want to shove their speculations on me to try and prove a point. I don't play that game, lets stick to the numbers... oh wait, we have no numbers, SFM has never been legal in modern, we have no numbers to discuss about. Thats my point, that first we need the numbers and for that we need the cards to be legal first.
there are no facts nor there will ever be
you form arguements someone calls them theories
you do some testing, someone disagrees with the method, calls it invalid
there are only 2 things: people who get how this game is played, yes because most of the time card evaluation is as easy as to be done within 10 minutes and people who waste time
what i do know is that if you give me this broken crap i will beat in a spectacular fashion, if i draw it in a half-decent hand at least and you don't have it too. that's all the arguement i need. you go to your numbers, the favorite place of intelligent yet inefficient people.
And this is my que to walk out of here again... Way to keep it sane and civil man, good job.
EDIT: BTW, I play Lantern Control, I don't give a crap about SFM or Batterskull, you will not be beating me in a spectacular fashion. After I play my bridge, "You shall not pass".
So, with that done can we go back to talking about AV, SotM, or something else? Please? Let the testers do their work and when more roll in results some it we can revisit SFM. Is this too much to ask?
Edit-
Thanks to Radio414 we actually have so numbers on Bloom and Grishoalbrand, but I have a question about the tests; Where these Goldfish numbers or matches against any particular deck? If they are goldfish numbers then I'm not too worried, as there are several decks that can boast such numbers, but if they are numbers against a particular deck then the numbers are very worrying.
Correcting the "playonly" games from before, here's 100 goldfished games with each deck on the draw. I think this is closer to what the deck's opponents claim when they say "consistently before turn four."
Amulet Bloom Kills on the Draw:
Turn 2: 16
Turn 3: 32
Turn 4: 33
Turn 5+: 19
That turn 2 kill seems implausibly high. There's three specific cards you need to pull that off (Amulet of Vigor, Summer Bloom, Hive Mind) and three less specific but still required cards (a Blue-producing bounceland, a non-bounceland, and a Pact). On the draw your odds of having a particular 4-of in hand is slightly less than 50%. So your odds of having three particular cards isn't more than 12.5%, and in fact is less because having a copy of one of those cards occupies a slot that isn't going to the other cards and thus decreases the odds. And Hive Mind is generally played as a 3-of, not a 4-of, decreasing them further. Now to be fair the cantrips do give you some increased reach, but that seems like it would be more than counterbalanced by the additional cards you need, such as the lands and Pact. Something just seems off with that number to me. Are there turn 2 victory scenarios I'm overlooking with the list you posted?
On a pedantic level, yes. There's the good ol' double Amulet draw: Amulet x2 + Summer Bloom + Primeval Titan + land that comes into play untapped + non-Boros Garrison bounce land which results in either 20 or 32 damage depending on how sadistic the pilot feels that game.
I have a feeling that's not what you meant, though.
I mentioned my criteria for a "kill" in the previously unnoticed "on the play" posts (linked again here and here for Bloom and Griselbrand respectively), but I should probably mention my rationale as well. Many opponents of Amulet Bloom cite two major problems with the deck: the uninteractive-ness of Hive Mind + Pact as a key offender in the deck, and the ability to chain Primeval Titans together easily, making even one 6/6 trampler into a nightmare to deal with. With this in mind, when I use "kill" in terms of Amulet Bloom, I refer to either playing Primeval Titan or Hive Mind + any Pact.
I included Through the Breach into Worldspine Wurm as a "kill" in Griselbrand/Tin Fins/Shoal Combo/JUST PICK ONE AND LEAVE ME IN PEACE for similar reasons. Does this inflate the numbers? Most definitely, but remember: the common goldfish cannot tell the difference between a 6/6 on turn 2 and being dead on their upkeep. Probably because no goldfish (yet) are able to play Magic, but that does not mean the analogy breaks down at all.
(No, I didn't compare Bloom opponents to goldfish. That would be incredibly rude)
Where [sic] these Goldfish numbers or matches against any particular deck?
Just goldfishing. I will mention that the general "feel" of the data feels consistent with my actual play, i.e., one turn two kill about every three matches (with either deck), but I/we'd have to do a more in-depth analysis to confirm this.
Perception, of course, is important (this is where my pro-combo-deck bias shows, for those chomping at the bit to criticize). I've linked to this reddit post before which details how often Tron gets a Turn 3 Karn on the play and on the draw, using Python as a medium. You'll notice that the top-rated comment humorously details his perception of RG Tron as a Jund player (for the reddit-shy: it boils down to "You meant to say, 'They always have it'"). I've had multiple opponents call me and/or my deck degenerate for drawing the nuts, which will in turn affect their perception of the deck. At the same time, I've called my deck a piece of garbage as I draw Summer Bloom after Summer Bloom after Summer Bloom when I could be drawing one of about thirteen outs, which in turn is used as a counterargument.
Is it "disturbing" (as welcome_addiction puts it) that Griselbrand/Russel Brand/Brand X/Chemical X/Screw you, this joke is still funny appears to "kill" about fifty percent of the time at or before turn 3 on the draw? Sure, that's what happens when a goldfish doesn't have any discard/counterspells/graveyard hate/ways to make their opponent dead/etcetera. Let's be honest (this may be super condescending, but I don't really know a better way to put it. Accept my apologies), if your hand can't interact by turn 3 on the play, you probably shouldn't have kept that hand.
A turner of phrases quite pleasin'
Had a penchant for trick'ry and teasin'.
The very last line
Might seem sans design
What I mean is without why or wherefore.
-Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter
On a pedantic level, yes. There's the good ol' double Amulet draw: Amulet x2 + Summer Bloom + Primeval Titan + land that comes into play untapped + non-Boros Garrison bounce land which results in either 20 or 32 damage depending on how sadistic the pilot feels that game.
I have a feeling that's not what you meant, though.
I mentioned my criteria for a "kill" in the previously unnoticed "on the play" posts (linked again here and here for Bloom and Griselbrand respectively), but I should probably mention my rationale as well. Many opponents of Amulet Bloom cite two major problems with the deck: the uninteractive-ness of Hive Mind + Pact as a key offender in the deck, and the ability to chain Primeval Titans together easily, making even one 6/6 trampler into a nightmare to deal with. With this in mind, when I use "kill" in terms of Amulet Bloom, I refer to either playing Primeval Titan or Hive Mind + any Pact.
I'm sorry, but that's completely incorrect to do. It is not a kill to simply cast a Primeval Titan because you haven't killed them yet. You've amassed a considerable advantage in doing so, but the game isn't over until it's actually over. You should only count the actual turn they lose on for these purposes.
Now, granted, Hive Mind is a little trickier as they technically lose "between" turns, so I see no problem in rounding down in that case to the turn you cast the Hive Mind with the Pact in hand. Still, if we're going to count simply casting a Primeval Titan as a win, then we need to completely reevaluate what is a win for every other deck. By this logic Thoughtseize into Tarmogoyf/Dark Confidant into Liliana is a win for Jund, but that seems disingenuous.
I included Through the Breach into Worldspine Wurm as a "kill" in Griselbrand/Tin Fins/Shoal Combo/JUST PICK ONE AND LEAVE ME IN PEACE for similar reasons. Does this inflate the numbers? Most definitely, but remember: the common goldfish cannot tell the difference between a 6/6 on turn 2 and being dead on their upkeep. Probably because no goldfish (yet) are able to play Magic, but that does not mean the analogy breaks down at all.
But that's irrelevant. A goldfish can't tell the difference between anything in Magic because it's a goldfish. There's a big difference between a 6/6 on turn 2 and actually winning the game. The former is a very powerful play, the latter is actually winning the game. I remember people spouting nonsense like "Tron breaks the turn 3 rule because it can cast a Karn on turn 3!" When goldfishing, the victory turn should be evaluate as the turn of actual victory, not the turn you just did something powerful but not gamewinning.
I actually agree with Seth here. It has to be THE TURN THEY ACTUALLY LOSE otherwise you get into absolute nonsense statistics. If you got by your definition, then man there are so many decks faster than bloom since many decks "advantage tipping points" occur sooner like in BGx shells (or even burn) as Seth mentioned.
The deck does have 4 Empty the Warrens, so there is some storm, but that wasn't the only plan for the deck. It wanted to play either a turn-one "get 8–12 goblins," or a turn-one Deus of Calamity. Back-up plans included Blood Moon, and the ever-so-inferior Demigod of Revenge.
In some sense, this deck isn't inherently unbalanced—after all, plenty of decks can deal with one of these turn-one threats after All-In-Red has, as named, gone all in; and thereby have an easy time winning the game. But it's not the sort of game play that we want to encourage in Modern. Turn one: make a huge play. If you can beat it, you win; if not, I win.
8 Goblins takes 3 turns to kill your opponent. So do Deus and Demigod (it has haste). Despite being an actual turn 4 kill deck (i.e. absolutely fine, if you think that only the actual kill turn counts), it's banned for being a virtual turn 1 kill deck.
The deck does have 4 Empty the Warrens, so there is some storm, but that wasn't the only plan for the deck. It wanted to play either a turn-one "get 8–12 goblins," or a turn-one Deus of Calamity. Back-up plans included Blood Moon, and the ever-so-inferior Demigod of Revenge.
In some sense, this deck isn't inherently unbalanced—after all, plenty of decks can deal with one of these turn-one threats after All-In-Red has, as named, gone all in; and thereby have an easy time winning the game. But it's not the sort of game play that we want to encourage in Modern. Turn one: make a huge play. If you can beat it, you win; if not, I win.
8 Goblins takes 3 turns to kill your opponent. So do Deus and Demigod (it has haste). Despite being an actual turn 4 kill deck (i.e. absolutely fine, if you think that only the actual kill turn counts), it's banned for being a virtual turn 1 kill deck.
This one seems a bit more complicated though, as it is multiple pieces that have been banned all in conjunction with one another. Seething Song, Rite of Flame and Chrome Mox are all pretttty busted , and the entire goal of the deck is to race out to an insurmountable advantage, the key word here being insurmountable - a turn 2 Primeval titan isn't insurmountable as much as it is just very difficult to deal with. While I see what you're saying, the level of brokenness out of that all in red build is off the charts (but I'll be damned if it doesn't look incredibly fun to play!) and makes the likes of Amulet look durdly and slow.
Why would the number of cards banned from the deck matter?
Logic time.
Premise: It's OK if a deck only actually wins on turn 4 or later.
AIR is a deck that only actually wins on turn 4. Sometimes turn 3, if you make 10 or 12 Goblins on turn 1 and your opponent has no blockers.
Thus it's OK for AIR to be in the format. Which, clearly, is not WotC's stance.
What is more insurmountable that 8 Goblins or a Deus of Calamity? Ans: a 6/6 trampler that tutors up more 6/6 tramplers. Pyroclasm the Goblins or Path the Deus and they're sunk. Path the Titan? lol, have another one.
Zerodown, you're probably my favorite Salvationer for that post.
I feel Hive Mind could take an ax and the format would only be better off. Not only would the turn 2 kills dry up, but Bloom would have to focus more on their new plan A. The deck would become more interesting and the format more balanced as a result.
I'm not against this - having a near uninteractable potential turn 2 kill isn't good in any respect.
When goldfishing, the victory turn should be evaluate as the turn of actual victory, not the turn you just did something powerful but not gamewinning.
You're right. Using the word "kill" is disingenuous, when instead I should have been using something closer to "does something unfair." I wasn't looking for actual kills, I was looking for the point when someone who already negative associations with the deck complains about how they've already lost. In retrospect, I didn't mention this enough (and the original post by ktkenshinx only uses the words "win rate," which I took to mean my definition rather than yours).
In defense of my data, this sort of goldfishing does in essence match similar tests done on other decks. The RG Tron Karn on turn 3 one that I keep linking to, for example. If you (or bill_zagoudis or Sheepz or anyone else) want more detailed results than that, e.g., actual kill turns and the like, we're going to have to delve into recordings of real matches. I play about 10-20 games of Modern a week, normally, so compound that with recorded matches (of known non-cheaters, preferably) and we can probably get closer to the type of numbers you're suggesting.
Again, I see the disconnect here. It's definitely my fault, and I apologize for it.
A turner of phrases quite pleasin'
Had a penchant for trick'ry and teasin'.
The very last line
Might seem sans design
What I mean is without why or wherefore.
-Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
I agree with your later points but what I am saying is that you can't do testing SOLELY on games where SFM is in your opening hand because that is too subjective. You need to test out Abzans matchup as a whole and how it has changed by adding a new piece to it. Testing with SFM always in opening hand is like testing Bloom Titan with Summer Bloom always in opening hand or testing Twin with Splinter Twin always in opening hand. Ofcourse you are going to get warped results because it can consistently come down when you need it. You aren't testing out Merfolk with only Vial in opening hands either?! Consistency matters a great deal when it comes to decks and it is part of the testing. I played each game (50 games against each tier 1 deck) as if it were a real tournament match. I have detailed notes for number of games SFM came down, ones that she won due to lack of answers and an overall synopsis of SFM in each matchup.
Well, one person then. That's validating.
Correcting the "play only" games from before, here's 100 goldfished games with each deck on the draw. I think this is closer to what the deck's opponents claim when they say "consistently before turn four."
Amulet Bloom Kills on the Draw:
Turn 2: 16
Turn 3: 32
Turn 4: 33
Turn 5+: 19
Griselbrand Kills on the Draw:
Turn 1: 0
Turn 2: 17
Turn 3: 34
Turn 4: 29
Turn 5: 20
Lists used (really should have provided these earlier, eh?):
Amulet Bloom
Griselbrand
I'm more than a little biased in favor of both of these decks, so I'll just keep the rest of this objective by talking around it. I'm still working on refining the "goldfish tournament" scenario from before. I don't personally have enough coding experience to simulate all 15 rounds of a major tournament, but I should be able to ask around. I -- and I can't believe how tacky this sounds when I type it out -- know a guy who should be able to help with that.
In the meantime, are there any other "degenerate" decks people would like for me to goldfish? I'm certainly not wading into Stoneforge Mystic.flame (especially when Extratraz seems to be doing just that), so... other options?
-r
Had a penchant for trick'ry and teasin'.
The very last line
Might seem sans design
What I mean is without why or wherefore.
-Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter
This is a great post, I read the last one too and meant to comment, but was too caught up in SFM shenanigans, sorry!
I'd imagine that the next deck that will be under the microscope if it gains any amount of traction is the Protean Hulk deck. It seems like it's more difficult to stop than Grishoalbrand and people seem to be reporting higher rates of turn 3 kills.
As far as what I think we should do about these three decks? Nothing. If they start to dominate the meta and are top 8ing every single tournament, then I think we should consider them, but until then I just don't think their low meta percentages justify any real action by WOTC.
This is so ridiculous. You have to test the deck as a whole. You can't only count games where a specific card is in hand because that skews the results of the matchup.
Also, things like this "God, you are SO blind to SFM unban to say such arguments. Wotc must be watching and laughing their *** off now!" add absolutely nothing to the conversation in any way. This page has been largely positive in tone even though people disagree with each other, so let's keep it that way.
Exactly my points. This is more then just "what about Merfolk's matchup" which I am guessing is your pet deck. This is about the deck as a whole and how it matched up against other tier 1 decks (before they get modified slighlty to accomidate for SFM.. which would happen. You'd see more vapor snags and artifact destruction brought into the main. My hyperbole of "Oh Merfolk can't do anything against T2 SFM!!!" what about T2 Primetime? I can't imagine it's win rate is any better. The point is, you need to test out the deck as a whole and while I agree that overall, merfolk doesn't have a great matchup against the Abzan Blade deck I tested (again numbers written down at home and as such don't have them on me). I do feel that it has an overall good matchup against it anyway because of it's abundance of removal for lords and vials, it has discard to force Merfolk into top deck mode and sweepers out of the board didn't help. (not to mention you kill a couple lords and your Goyfs can take care of business from there).
No. What you are supposed to do is shuffle the deck and play with it. Its pretty simple.
If you fix your small 8 game sample to:
1. Have SFM in opening hand.
2. Have a sculpted "good" hand (which presumably contains hand disruption for turn 1 among other goodies).
3. Sculpt the opponent's hand, which means how the turns develop was predetermined. Like turn 1 discard, turn 2 SFM, turn 3 BS in 2 out of 3 games vs merfolk (66% consistency rate as opposed to 0% from Caleb's and niallplaysmagic's 16 real games)
4. Play against yourself which means you might play to obtain a desired outcome (ej. discarding the opponent's SFM turn 1 instead of their removal/counter spell which would guarantee your SFM surviving on turn 2 vs Jeskai)
5. Not account for sideboarding. Which gives the opponent (you) no chance to bring in their SFM hate for games 2 and 3.
Then yes, your results will undoubtedly conclude that SFM is busted. Derp!
Your effort is appreciated, but your testing is comparable to "he who shall not be named" who sculpted his hands and went on a turn 1 win streak with Bloom Titan at a tournament and got himself banned.
The question that needs to be answered is "Is SFM busted in modern?"
The question your testing answered is "Is SFM busted if I sculpt my hand and also play against myself using another deck with a sculpted hand?"
You set the perfect scenario for it to over perform. If you don't have time to test real games then just don't test at all because the games where you never draw SFM or have to mulligan are actually VERY important to judge how busted SFM is in the format.
Exatraz played 50 matches against every tier 1 deck and he apparently did not find it busted at all. I am looking forward to that testing report, which I don't believe will solve anything, but will shed a little more light on the issue.[/quote]
All I'm saying, is that from a statistical analysis point of view, you can't just disregard the inconvenient data where you didn't find a card. You can qualify the data and say that "In games where I drew 'x', 'y' happened 'z' amount of times," but if you exclude any irrelevant data it skews it in favor of what you're looking to say. For instance, if we're discussing how good Stony Silence is vs. Affinity, and we only count games where it was in our opening hand or in our first draw step, then you'll have results that are heavily skewed towards how good that card is when you draw it, but we don't play a game without variance like this. MANY games of modern will be played where you don't draw the card or cards that you need and this has to be accounted for. This isn't a magic issue, it's a stats issue.
It can't block Etched Champion... Germ Token is black.
Then let's go back to discussing the great post that Radio414 made. The anti SFM crowd is the one that brought it back up. If you look toward the top of the page we were all winding it down before people got all snappy again.
YOU are the broken record here man. You. It's literally the entire thread vs. you and Gkourou. Also, the rest of us have largely dropped the SFM talk, but you won't let it be. Your method of testing makes absolutely no sense in any kind of meaningful way. It's impossible to argue about this because you're eschewing logic completely here. One of the fundamental rules or argumentation is that you must establish the terms of conversation, something that we have been completely unable to do with you. I'm pretty sure that everyone's minds are pretty solidly made up on SFM at this point (and those of us who were strongest in favor have largely backed off and admitted it probably wouldn't be great for the meta), so I'm not sure what else you're looking for at this point.
Ktk - how has testing gone with AV in Twin? Anything interesting?
lol... I'm not the one trying to shove wild speculations unto others. I am the one trying to keep the discussion focused on FACTS. Meaning I am the one trying to keep a sane discussion around facts as opposed to an insane endless war of speculations.
I think you are the one who is not reading my posts because if you were, you wouldn't be asking me for test games of any kind. I am the one argumenting that no amount of testing will be enough to justify an unban of SFM or any of the other pre-banned cards. I am also the only one who isn't trying to argue about how fair or unfair SFM is because I don't have the numbers to do so. My whole argument is that I don't know if the card is fair or not, because it was pre-banned. I don't care if half of you think the card is broken and the other half doesn't. I don't care if the card makes X deck stronger or weaker. I don't have pet decks to slot these cards into. All I want is for these cards to get a fair shot at being legal in modern and my whole case rests on the FACT that 3 other pre-banned cards, originally thought of as broken for modern, have been unbanned and proved to be less than half as broken as WotC thought they were when they decided to pre-ban them. Its that simple, really.
It is actually extremely ironic that all of you pretty much agree with this:
...and yet you all continue with this absurd speculative war. This is why I walk out on these conversations when people want to shove their speculations on me to try and prove a point. I don't play that game, lets stick to the numbers... oh wait, we have no numbers, SFM has never been legal in modern, we have no numbers to discuss about. Thats my point, that first we need the numbers and for that we need the cards to be legal first.
And this is my que to walk out of here again... Way to keep it sane and civil man, good job.
EDIT: BTW, I play Lantern Control, I don't give a crap about SFM or Batterskull, you will not be beating me in a spectacular fashion. After I play my bridge, "You shall not pass".
Edit-
Thanks to Radio414 we actually have so numbers on Bloom and Grishoalbrand, but I have a question about the tests; Where these Goldfish numbers or matches against any particular deck? If they are goldfish numbers then I'm not too worried, as there are several decks that can boast such numbers, but if they are numbers against a particular deck then the numbers are very worrying.
Cheeri0sXWU
Reid Duke's Level One
Who's the Beatdown
Alt+0198=Æ
I have a feeling that's not what you meant, though.
I mentioned my criteria for a "kill" in the previously unnoticed "on the play" posts (linked again here and here for Bloom and Griselbrand respectively), but I should probably mention my rationale as well. Many opponents of Amulet Bloom cite two major problems with the deck: the uninteractive-ness of Hive Mind + Pact as a key offender in the deck, and the ability to chain Primeval Titans together easily, making even one 6/6 trampler into a nightmare to deal with. With this in mind, when I use "kill" in terms of Amulet Bloom, I refer to either playing Primeval Titan or Hive Mind + any Pact.
I included Through the Breach into Worldspine Wurm as a "kill" in Griselbrand/Tin Fins/Shoal Combo/
JUST PICK ONE AND LEAVE ME IN PEACEfor similar reasons. Does this inflate the numbers? Most definitely, but remember: the common goldfish cannot tell the difference between a 6/6 on turn 2 and being dead on their upkeep. Probably because no goldfish (yet) are able to play Magic, but that does not mean the analogy breaks down at all.(No, I didn't compare Bloom opponents to goldfish. That would be incredibly rude)
Just goldfishing. I will mention that the general "feel" of the data feels consistent with my actual play, i.e., one turn two kill about every three matches (with either deck), but I/we'd have to do a more in-depth analysis to confirm this.
Perception, of course, is important (this is where my pro-combo-deck bias shows, for those chomping at the bit to criticize). I've linked to this reddit post before which details how often Tron gets a Turn 3 Karn on the play and on the draw, using Python as a medium. You'll notice that the top-rated comment humorously details his perception of RG Tron as a Jund player (for the reddit-shy: it boils down to "You meant to say, 'They always have it'"). I've had multiple opponents call me and/or my deck degenerate for drawing the nuts, which will in turn affect their perception of the deck. At the same time, I've called my deck a piece of garbage as I draw Summer Bloom after Summer Bloom after Summer Bloom when I could be drawing one of about thirteen outs, which in turn is used as a counterargument.
Is it "disturbing" (as welcome_addiction puts it) that Griselbrand/Russel Brand/Brand X/Chemical X/
Screw you, this joke is still funnyappears to "kill" about fifty percent of the time at or before turn 3 on the draw? Sure, that's what happens when a goldfish doesn't have any discard/counterspells/graveyard hate/ways to make their opponent dead/etcetera. Let's be honest (this may be super condescending, but I don't really know a better way to put it. Accept my apologies), if your hand can't interact by turn 3 on the play, you probably shouldn't have kept that hand.-r
Had a penchant for trick'ry and teasin'.
The very last line
Might seem sans design
What I mean is without why or wherefore.
-Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter
Now, granted, Hive Mind is a little trickier as they technically lose "between" turns, so I see no problem in rounding down in that case to the turn you cast the Hive Mind with the Pact in hand. Still, if we're going to count simply casting a Primeval Titan as a win, then we need to completely reevaluate what is a win for every other deck. By this logic Thoughtseize into Tarmogoyf/Dark Confidant into Liliana is a win for Jund, but that seems disingenuous.
But that's irrelevant. A goldfish can't tell the difference between anything in Magic because it's a goldfish. There's a big difference between a 6/6 on turn 2 and actually winning the game. The former is a very powerful play, the latter is actually winning the game. I remember people spouting nonsense like "Tron breaks the turn 3 rule because it can cast a Karn on turn 3!" When goldfishing, the victory turn should be evaluate as the turn of actual victory, not the turn you just did something powerful but not gamewinning.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/latest-developments/development-risks-modern-2015-05-22
(Seriously, bookmark this.)
8 Goblins takes 3 turns to kill your opponent. So do Deus and Demigod (it has haste). Despite being an actual turn 4 kill deck (i.e. absolutely fine, if you think that only the actual kill turn counts), it's banned for being a virtual turn 1 kill deck.
|
|
Big Johnny.
This one seems a bit more complicated though, as it is multiple pieces that have been banned all in conjunction with one another. Seething Song, Rite of Flame and Chrome Mox are all pretttty busted , and the entire goal of the deck is to race out to an insurmountable advantage, the key word here being insurmountable - a turn 2 Primeval titan isn't insurmountable as much as it is just very difficult to deal with. While I see what you're saying, the level of brokenness out of that all in red build is off the charts (but I'll be damned if it doesn't look incredibly fun to play!) and makes the likes of Amulet look durdly and slow.
Logic time.
Premise: It's OK if a deck only actually wins on turn 4 or later.
AIR is a deck that only actually wins on turn 4. Sometimes turn 3, if you make 10 or 12 Goblins on turn 1 and your opponent has no blockers.
Thus it's OK for AIR to be in the format. Which, clearly, is not WotC's stance.
What is more insurmountable that 8 Goblins or a Deus of Calamity? Ans: a 6/6 trampler that tutors up more 6/6 tramplers. Pyroclasm the Goblins or Path the Deus and they're sunk. Path the Titan? lol, have another one.
|
|
Big Johnny.
I'm not against this - having a near uninteractable potential turn 2 kill isn't good in any respect.
In defense of my data, this sort of goldfishing does in essence match similar tests done on other decks. The RG Tron Karn on turn 3 one that I keep linking to, for example. If you (or bill_zagoudis or Sheepz or anyone else) want more detailed results than that, e.g., actual kill turns and the like, we're going to have to delve into recordings of real matches. I play about 10-20 games of Modern a week, normally, so compound that with recorded matches (of known non-cheaters, preferably) and we can probably get closer to the type of numbers you're suggesting.
Again, I see the disconnect here. It's definitely my fault, and I apologize for it.
-r
Had a penchant for trick'ry and teasin'.
The very last line
Might seem sans design
What I mean is without why or wherefore.
-Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter