Sept 1 2007 Banned/Restricted Announcement

[Spiderman]

Here

Pretty much the "big" surprise is that Shazarad has been banned.

Aaron Forsythe explains some of it...

 

[Oversoul]

There is some cogent justification in that article for banning Shahrazad, but I still think it's a load of crap. That's a bit harsh, but the justification seems to consist of the following...

-It requires a lot of time.
-Setting aside the original game takes time and space.
-It can be abused as a stalling mechanism.

My counterargument to "it requires a lot of time": So do hundreds of other strategies, many of which are also single cards. I understand the need for time constraints, but this isn't Tic-Tac-Toe. Things are going to take time. Has it been demonstrated that Shahrazad takes more time than any other comparable strategy in Vintage? It's easy to imagine a long, drawn-out subgame within a long, drawn-out subgame within a long, drawn-out game. But if you consider only the worst-case scenario, then you're going to want to ban a lot more than just Shahrazad.

My counterargument to "setting aside the original game requires time and space": No, it doesn't. Wow, that was easy. Okay, so this was not a major point raised in Forsythe's article. I think it was one sentence out of the whole thing. But I like it because it's so easy to refute. I presently have the Mooseman/Melkor ultimate drafting challenge game set aside on a CD case. And that's not to show off how well I can conserve space. It would be easy to make an even more compact configuration is space mandated it, but I find the present configuration most convenient. And it's certainly not time-consuming either.

My counterargument to "it can be abused as a stalling mechanism": Okay, this is the one argument I might buy. Intentionally stalling with Shahrazad can lead to much more extreme situation than someone simply trying to play the card. I see three problems with this justification. Firstly, it assumes that stalling with Shahrazad is somehow unfair. Annoying? Sure, but there are a lot of annoying strategies people can use. I'm sure a lot of players didn't like to see opponents repeatedly forcing draws with Worldgorger Dragon. Maybe some of them even wanted it banned, but they're obviously biased little crybabies. Secondly, it assumes that if there is a problem, banning Shahrazad is the proper solution. Were other options even considered? If players find another way to stall for the win, does that get banned too? Finally, it assumes that Shahrazad is particularly good. I've seen absolutely no evidence of this. I don't recall ever seeing or hearing of anyone using Shahrazad in Vintage except as a joke or in casual games. I remember when someone (Mark Rosewater, I believe) wrote an article about big mistakes he'd made, and in the section for Dream Halls, he linked to a detailed tournament log in which a player used Dream Halls to sweep through the opposition. That kind of log would probably shut me up. But here there's no evidence whatsoever.

 

[Ephraim]

I am reposting here the arguments that I have made on The Mana Drain regarding this issue. I fully stand behind the decision to ban Shahrazad.

I keep seeing, "But the opponent can always concede!" The opponent only has a reason to concede because there are time and space constraints created by the tournament structure and having nothing whatsoever to do with the actual game of Magic. By my estimation, the Shahrazad deck is bad and without time as a consideration, a good player with a good deck will probably prevail against nested subgames. The Shahrazad deck isn't trying to play a winning game of Magic, though. It's trying to game the tournament system. If you want to argue that the tournament system is as much a part of competitive Magic as the actual game is, I can't tell you not to have that opinion, but I will state without reservation that I find that attitude contemptible. There is a reason why it is punishable to play slowly. The rules are geared to promote good play, not to encourage the player who knows how to waste time when they're up a game.

I approve of the principle behind the banning of Shahrazad. Ante, dexterity, and now flagrant abuse of timed matches are considered unsuitable for competitive Magic. I value the integrity of the competition more than I value the principle of "every card ever printed," so I agree with the decision to ban Shahrazad.

 

[Oversoul]

I am reposting here the arguments that I have made on The Mana Drain regarding this issue. I fully stand behind the decision to ban Shahrazad.

I keep seeing, "But the opponent can always concede!" The opponent only has a reason to concede because there are time and space constraints created by the tournament structure and having nothing whatsoever to do with the actual game of Magic. By my estimation, the Shahrazad deck is bad and without time as a consideration, a good player with a good deck will probably prevail against nested subgames. The Shahrazad deck isn't trying to play a winning game of Magic, though. It's trying to game the tournament system. If you want to argue that the tournament system is as much a part of competitive Magic as the actual game is, I can't tell you not to have that opinion, but I will state without reservation that I find that attitude contemptible. There is a reason why it is punishable to play slowly. The rules are geared to promote good play, not to encourage the player who knows how to waste time when they're up a game.

I approve of the principle behind the banning of Shahrazad. Ante, dexterity, and now flagrant abuse of timed matches are considered unsuitable for competitive Magic. I value the integrity of the competition more than I value the principle of "every card ever printed," so I agree with the decision to ban Shahrazad.

Most of that seems at least reasonably grounded and I don't think I'll bother to refute it because it seems to be rebutting what some people on TMD said, rather than what I said (I don't think that conceding being an option is an excuse, nor do I believe that the rules as they are allowing for it means that it should necessarily be considered fair play).

However, if you're going to ban Shahrazad on principle because it can be abused to stall matches, then what's the next step? What about all the other cards that could be abused to stall matches? Do we ban those too?

Shahrazad's potential for lengthening matches is pretty simple. You play it, a subgame starts and takes up time, then maybe you can even play another copy and begin a sub-subgame or whatever. You could also play it as part of a real strategy by milling the opponent or playing a deck that's more resilient in the subgames than what your opponent will have. What I think matters here is the fact that it seems to suck in both of these cases. The stalling use could be a nuisance for some players and honorable uses can actually be pretty cool, which is why I resent the ban, but neither one if neither is a viable tournament strategy, who cares? I could potentially use Stasis to try to win the game, or I could potentially use it to draw the game out for an absurd number of turns. I could potentially use Mist Dragon to try to win, or I could potentially make it gain flying and lose flying every once in a while to take up a few seconds at a time in what might be an already drawn-out match.

Actually some cards are much less viable as legitimate ways to win the game than Shahrazad, but could be used to stall. The most extreme example that comes to mind is Divine Intervention, which has almost no use in a winning strategy, but can easily be used as a means of forcing a draw. And I can't see it being viable in tournaments either, but if someone, somewhere did happen to get creative enough to break Divine Intervention as a way to shut down the opponent after winning game one or as a way to force a draw, well, more power to that person, although then I could at least understand a case for banning the card (I'd prefer a change to the tournament rules if it seemed necessary, like Divine Intervention could be stopped by ruling that a player forcing more than one game to end in a draw loses the match if the alloted time expires--at the moment I can't think of a good, simple one that would stop Shahrazad in the same way, but it probably wouldn't be that difficult).

But unless Shahrazad-stalling is a legitimate threat in Vintage tournaments, who cares? I'm not trying to be cynical here and I really haven't been keeping up with Vintage much, but you mention "the Shahrazad deck" as though someone has actually broken this thing. The only Vintage-legal decks (which I believe eliminates the "most annoying deck ever" and that was a joke anyway--it certainly wouldn't hold up against a first-tier competitive Vintage deck) I've ever encountered that used Shahrazad were using it in what one might call the "honorable way." For example, a white weenie deck that can be more consistent than most of its opponents (who are likely searching for good cards and pulling them out of the library, where they won't be when the subgame happens). Anyway, what is this "Shahrazad" deck you speak of and has anyone actually had success with it?

 

[Ephraim]

No, there isn't actually an authoritative "Sharazad deck." What I was trying to suggest was that any deck that would be genuinely strengthened by Shahrazad is, statistically, much weaker than competitive Vintage decks. Given enough time, the competitive deck is likely to win many of the subgames*. Because of the way that tournaments are set up, however, there is not enough time. In fact, the player most likely to win the actual game has a lot of incentive to just pay half of his life to ensure that he'll have enough time to execute his victory. Statistically speaking, paying half of his life is a worse game decision than playing out the subgame, but it is one that he has to make because he has to be concerned with the amount of time that he has to finish the match.

A card like Divine Intervention, at least, draws the game entirely on its own merits. There is no arbitrary, external force dictating that there are two more turns remaining before the game is a draw. The banning of Shahrazad is not about a deck forcing a lot of draws. It's about a deck forcing the opponent to make decisions based on something besides the game itself.

*(If you do not believe me regarding this statement, consider that non-interactive decks are so strong right now that some Vintage players consider the format dull because even control decks based on Mana Drain are insufficient in the current metagame.)

 

[train]

blah.... I don't see the big difference, even with Aaron's explanation... I think it can be played to take advantage of many things...

Browbeat and Dash Hopes for example... if they lose the subgames, then those cards actually get much stonger... (not having as much life to "give-up") as would a burn or aggro deck build...

Why not allow it to remain since those are already strong decks?...

 

[Oversoul]

No, there isn't actually an authoritative "Sharazad deck." What I was trying to suggest was that any deck that would be genuinely strengthened by Shahrazad is, statistically, much weaker than competitive Vintage decks. Given enough time, the competitive deck is likely to win many of the subgames*. Because of the way that tournaments are set up, however, there is not enough time.

But that's speculation. Is there any real evidence that there exists a deck that can do this? Like I said, the concept is simple enough. And that's why I can see the remote potential for a problem. But that potential doesn't seem to have been realized (which is enough, in my mind, to oppose the ban or at least strongly consider it). And Shahrazad is not the only card with such potential.

As far as Divine Intervention goes, yes, it does draw a game on its own. But it could potentially draw the whole match with the help of a time limit (exactly the same situation Shahrazad seems to have been banned over). For example, I play with a controlling Academy Rector deck and beat you in game one, but then I sideboard in Divine Intervention and force a draw in every game until the time expires. If I could actually do this, I'd be exploiting the time limit to win the match. But there's the rather major detail that I can not do this: no such deck exists. If I try to stall with Divine Intervention, I get rolled over, probably without drawing even a single game.

If I try to stall with Shahrazad, my opponent either rolls me over in the subgame and makes me lose half my life in the real game, then finishes me off, or concedes the subgame and rolls me over in the real game because losing half his life wasn't enough for me to win when I'm playing with such a crappy strategy, or he simply stops the Shahrazad from resolving. Yeah, it's possible that he stalls for enough time to win. It's also possible that I get struck by lightning later today. Neither situation particularly worries me.