Originally Posted by Bardo
Of the 35 decks we know of that Top 8'd at the GPTs this weekend, over 2/3 were running Force of Will. Only four total decks didn't either
1) Have the ability to win on turn 1.
2) Play heavy Blue disruption.
3) Play heavy Black disruption.
Which were 2 Goblins and 2 Life from the Loam decks, respectively. And I believe at least one of those Goblins builds was running Therapy and Leylines.
Last edited by Peter_Rotten; 05-10-2007 at 03:04 PM. Reason: Preemptive strike to prevent nitpickiness.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Ah, okay. I'd like to see more data when it becomes available, but this is the kind of answer I was looking for.
I enjoyed the article, and I can agree with the "wait and see" at this point. But I also agree that appealing to protocol is silly. It's WOTC's job to make money, that's it. Un-Errataing Flash with the timing they did was, in my opinion, an oversight, as it will make a lot of people unhappy, and it's causing us to lose months of preparation in many cases.
As for flash being overpowered, I think it's a combination of a few things:
Flash decks can pack up to 16 forms of control of their own (see Jack Flash), even Solidarity can't do this.
Flash requires 1 cast spell and 1 card in hand to go off. This means that a lot of hate no longer applies to them (glowrider, chant...). It also means they don't "commit" to the combo at any point like most decks.
Even controllish versions of flash tend to win around T3. The non-control ones can win T2 in most cases. This beats anything in the format. We essentially see balls to the wall combo without control winning on average T2-3, and controllish combo winning T4. A turn may not seem like much, but it's huge in this format.
Finally, Flash requires only 1-2 lands to win. This makes any land disruption impossible.
Flash wins at instant speed (even worse!).
While I won't argue that any individual reason here matters, when you combine them, I really do think Flash is ban-worthy.
So yeah, Discrete Math is good:
((4 choose 1) * (4 choose 1) * (4 choose 1) * (8 choose 1) * (56 choose 3)) / (60 choose 7) = 0.0367487978
That assumes 4 gemstones, 4 hulks, 4 flashes, and 8 ssg/esg. That is also pre-mulligan. Post-mulligan it becomes:
card7 = ((4 choose 1) * (4 choose 1) * (4 choose 1) * (8 choose 1) * (56 choose 3)) / (60 choose 7) = 0.0367487978
card6 = ((1 - 0.0367487978) * (4 choose 1) * (4 choose 1) * (4 choose 1) * (8 choose 1) * (56 choose 2)) / (60 choose 6) = 0.0151707101
card5 = ((1 - 0.0367487978 - 0.0151707101) * (4 choose 1) * (4 choose 1) * (4 choose 1) * (8 choose 1) * (56 choose 1)) / (60 choose 5) = 0.00497725975
total = card7 + card6 + card5 = 0.0568967676
This ignores the chance of drawing double gemstones, which would allow you to brainstorm into more possible combo pieces. I'm assuming this % is small enough where it won't matter however, as having double gemstones + bs + most of your combo pieces is rare... Also, you can change the number of SSG/ESG you have in an obvious way to fix this math if you'd like.
I'll work on doing post FS build, this shouldn't be very much harder...
It's also worth pointing out that just because a card can be stopped doesn't mean it's not too strong for balanced gameplay. This is an argument that everyone who has tried to defend Flash has made and it's not a correct one.
For example, let's make up a card called "Disco Inferno."
Disco Inferno
R
Sorcery
You can't play spells or abilities while Disco Inferno is on the stack.
You win the game.
This card's not broken in the slightest, right? In fact, it's perfectly fair. I doubt it would even be a rare if not for that ridiculous WOTC principle to make all game-ending cards rare.
I mean, on the play, you can Duress or Therapy it out, Tomb/Chalice for 1, Drop a Mox and Meddling Mage for Disco Inferno, or pass the turn and be ready with the Hydroblasts and Blue Elemental Blasts that you maindeck. Everyone should maindeck them, in fact. Good deck design mandates you run the Blasts maindeck in a Disco Inferno metagame. You should never ever ever lose to this card on the play. If you did, it was the fault of your deck design and bad mulliganing on your part.
On the draw, it's still not that bad. They can go Mountain, Disco Inferno. So what? If you didn't suck at Legacy, you'd be running Force of Will and Foil, as well as Gemstone Caverns to power out Angel's Grace or the Blast. And they can't even counter back! No sweat! In fact, if you can't handle Mountain / Disco Inferno, you have no business playing in a competitive Legacy format. Learn to Mulligan for those Forces and Gemstone Caverns.
What, you may ask, do you do if they have something like Swamp/Duress or Plains/Chant, followed by Petal/Inferno? Well, that's a four card combination, and the odds of them having anything that are slim. You've just got to take your occasional beating and learn to construct your decks better, mulligan correctly, and maximize your chances for victory.
Furthermore, no tournament results exist for Saturday Night Fever, which is the main build of Disco Inferno combo. Therefore it hasn't proven itself in any real competition. And since most of you haven't even tested the card yet, you can't make any real claims about its power level, as we've all been reminded oh so many times throughout every thread on this site. And it can't even win any faster than Belcher without Gemstone Caverns/Quicken/Simian Spirit Guide/Disco Inferno, which is a rare four-card combo and still vulnerable to Force of Will and Foil!
What Jank! When you lose to Disco Inferno, it's your own fault for losing to the deck by not adequately preparing your deck with Force, Foil, BEB, Hydroblast, Duress, and Therapy, and learning to mulligan accordingly. And you'll be shamed by society to such a degree that you'll never be able to show your face in the local skating rink again.
Thank you, Tacosnape, for articulating what I've been thinking. To put it even more succinctly, I don't need to eat poo to know it don't taste good.
Btw, somebody needs to get cracking on making that "Disco Inferno" card! Let's see it!
Team Info-Ninja: Shhh... We don't exist.
Of course you do. In fact, you have to conduct extensive culinary research with this, swishing it around your palette, making sure you sample enough different kinds to support your stance, and you better make sure you've eaten it in just about every situation you can imagine before you try to make any claims.
Mmmm. I love the taste of "Savage Pwnage by Satire" Pie.
Seriously, though, I don't know what you guys are complaining about. They even snuck a sneaky hoser to the card into the same set:
Just fit four into your sideboard and quit whining. God, it even cycles against other decks.
Edit:
Hey...
Shut up.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Unfortunately, since Wizards is a bunch of sneaky bastards, they removed the power level Errata from "Stayin' Alive" that changed "Opponet" into "Opponent," so now it's dead other than the 7 mana hardcast cantrip part.
EDIT: Damn you, IBA, now I can't quit singing "Visquo Returno." It's going to be stuck in my head all night now. :)
I, for one, want to print out those cards and start doing some serious deck building...
"You are attractive and have many good qualities."
LMFAO. IBA wins another thread.
Team Info-Ninja: Shhh... We don't exist.
LOL funniest cards.. period.
Seriously, though, I don't know what you guys are complaining about. They even snuck a sneaky hoser to the card into the same set:
Just fit four into your sideboard and quit whining. God, it even cycles against other decks.
BluffYouOut.com Currently Under Construction, But Coming Soon!
Team Necro: Playing Decks You Wish You Built First.
The Most Consistant + Inconsistant Magic Player in History.
"Has anyone seen the latest episode of Lock This Thread?" Peter Rotten
Guys, guys. These cards aren't legal in Legacy. They are RED AND WHITE. And the good one's a sorcery. They banned that nonsense weeks ago.
Nothing like Unicorn Cards to ruin a perfectly good thread. I must regretfully point our attention away from hilarity and back at the topic at hand. Let's try to move on.
/scans back up at cards
Yup, they're still fucking funny. But let's try to focus.
Please read the rest of the thread before you critique my math or ask for an explanation. I already explained it on this thread: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...0&postcount=10. More descriptively, since I'm finding the hands that DON'T win on turn 0, there are four ways to do that: 0 Flash, 0 Caverns, 0Hulk0Pact, 0SpiritGuide0Pact. P = (Deck Size - Cards to Avoid choose Hand Size)/(Deck Size choose Hand Size). The number of cards to avoid is what is in Column B in the spreadsheet. The trick is to make sure Pact count doesn't overlap for CD, ACD, BCD, and ABCD.
That's not quite right; that was the initial approach I tried. According to that method, the Probability of turn 1 FoW = (4 choose 1)(59 choose 6)/(60 choose 7)=37%. We know that's wrong, so let's look at why:
Problem #1) The total pool of cards you're choosing from is more than 60. This is wrong
Problem #2) You're only finding the probability of one of each, not multiples. You have two options:
A) Find P(1), then increase (this is untenable), or
B) Find P(0 of each) then subtract. This method for FoW is 1-(4 choose 0)(56 choose 7)/(60 choose 7) = 39.9% or what we expect.
Gemstone Cavern is Legendary, so drawing multiples is actually pretty bad. For reference, to get the mulligan percentages I checked the same statistics by decreasing the hand size in my table, then found the hypergeometric probabiltiy. As in:
P(Mull to 5) = P(7)+P(!7)*P(6)+P(!7)P(!6)*P(5)
Anyway, the spreadsheet I included in my article does all this math for you. I spent a lot of time on it, so I'm relatively sure it's correct (had Seer, Niton, Draconis and Pokerface from #scg and David Kleppinger from #TheManaDrain checking my math and logic).
More topically, I don't really construe my argument as "Belcher is broken so Flash isn't". I don't consider Belcher, TES, or IGGy broken in the sense of being ban-worthy. My argument is that we can't really point to a card and say, "This card is broken in the abstract" or "This card is ban-worthy in the abstract" (Desire much?). We use barometers or indicators of how good or bad or broken or ban-worthy it is. The indicator most people are using to determine that Flash is OMGWTFBBQ is that the pool of deck choices is radically shrinking. My counter-argument was to draw upon tournament results and demonstrate that the deck choices people were complaining about weren't actually good to begin with.
Let's look at the Top 8s from the last Duel for Duals:
4x Vial Goblins: pushed out of the metagame by Flash.
Mantle Affinity: can possibly compensate by going to FoW or Chalice or Cabal Therapy as has been already suggested
Iggy: Can compete
Gro: Can compete
43 Land: Pushed out of the metagame by Flash
RGBSA: Can't compete
2x Threshold: Can compete
Solidarity: May or may not be able to compete
BBS: Can't compete (but pushed out of the metagame by GOBLINS)
BW Confidant: Can compete
Landstill: Can compete
Let's assume this is the entire pool of decks that were worth playing at the time for simplicity's sake (and it's not a bad list, with a few oddballs). BBS and 43Land can't compete with existing metagame elements (Goblins, combo). I mean, the 43Land guy got lucky and beat Parallax playing Tide to begin with. Mantle Affinity was already going through an upheaval to be able to beat combo. And Goblins may or may not be able to compete with the new combo decks, but it was already having problems with TES and Belcher.
My points is that while Flash may be very very good, the decks that it is theoretically pushing out of the metagame were already on their out. If those people that played Flash all played IGGy or TES or Belcher, would the Top 8 results have been any different? I maintain Flash being so prevalent makes it as much a metagame factor as being difficult to beat.
Magic Level 3 Judge
Southern USA Regional Coordinator
Flash is broken, bad for the format, and is going to get banned June 1st. It will be impossible to make any sense out of your position after this happens.
Notice that all the decks you say can compete are based in either blue or black. Also, you say that Iggy and Solidarity can compete but they are both almost strictly worse than Flash.
You say that this state of affairs was inevitable based on Belcher and possibly TES. You may be correct. However, the logical conclusion is not that Flash is not bad for the format, but that Belcher and possibly TES are. Whether or not the metagame was already heading in this direction is absolutely irrelevant to the question of whether or not it is good for the format.
Furthermore, you oversimplify the situation greatly. When we say Threshold can compete in a Belcher metagame, we mean it is extremely good against Belcher and has respectable matchups elsewhere. When we say Threshold can compete in a Flash metagame, we mean that it may be able to post slightly favorable results against Flash after serious alterations that prevent it from competing against any other deck. Flash, being much better than Belcher, is also far more popular, and therefore playing a deck that loses to Flash is almost surely incorrect while playing a deck that loses to Belcher may be the right choice. Goblins is quite able to compete despite Belcher because blue decks will beat Belcher out and Goblins can get wins against the rest of the field. Goblins is much worse in a Flash environment, however, because the blue decks may still lose and the pool of decks Goblins can beat is much smaller. Goblins can even beat Belcher on occasion by sideboarding hate, but this is much less likely with Flash. So even if the format was moving in the same direction, it is unlikely that the effects would have been as drastic.
To summarize, your premise is arguable but even if accepted it has no relevance to the health of the format.
Sorry, you're completely correct here. Though i loved combinatorics, it's been a good 8 years since I've done it, so I'm a bit rusty. I may yet try to do this just to verify that I still CAN do it, but I'll trust your math. Besides, I don't think it's turn 0 wins that makes flash broken.
Just wanted to acknowledge my mistake
I think my biggest fear is that the metagame is starting to look like Yugioh. Where whoever gets the better starting hand wins. And this is on top of letting ridiculous cards seep through the cracks and then realizing 'oh wait, maybe that card isn't healthy for the format after all'.
I don't play anymore, but UDE has banned and unbanned Graceful Charity enough to lose a LOT of face.
If Flash, Belcher and TES are the wave of the future. They might as well change the rules and have everyone make 40 card decks and all creatures haste just to make the environment look more appro-po.
In conclusion, some serious work needs to be done, come June 1. starting with Flash. I'm a little bit wary on what to do with Belcher, even though it takes 1 more card than Flash to make the combo go off turn 1.
In Mother Russia, metagame breaks you!
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