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How I voted and why

Started by ChristophO, 01-04-2016, 07:22:06 PM

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Tabris

There is a discussion on facebook going on and I posted a response there. For the people who are not part of that group I post that text here aswell.

I must say I felt quite overwhelmed when I was reading your text. Sadly not in a good way. In my eyes your thoughtprocess shows an immense lack of basic knowledge about matchups and the ability to see the greater picture of how a metagame works. Dont get me wrong I think you are a good magic player who has many years of experience but when reading stuff like "the only rival to izzet is rdw" I wonder how often did you actually play both side of this matchup and even other decks which are out of your comfort zone?

To speak in such absolute ways like "Emperion Izzet beats RDW" presents a really simplified way of looking at things.That you think
because of a silly tech you drastically change the outcome of 100 matches for instance makes me think you never played a match of highlander. I would expect such a statement from someone
who comes from legacy/standard/modern and is used to static matchups and limited ways of permutations how those decks interact with each other but not from someone who played a singleton format for so many years. And which is even worse, you take this premise to ban a card which is not even close to be the problem.

Also your assessment that decks without a plan dont play any meaningful role. I mean really? Like we are not even close to having the format solved and with that limited view on it
that will never be the case. There are so many decks possible and our choices are heavily influenced by other factors than pure powerlevel of cards (and I feel silly that I even have to mention this).

That you think you can make such a statement shows a serious lack of understanding how potent the format actually is. Some months ago you couldnt imagine anything else than Blood being the best deck now its of course only its "counter" is capeable to do it. (Another really simplified way of thinking that UR would dominate Blood just because of its nonbasic hate package.

Unlike UR BLood has many lines which close to immediatly beat an avagerage draw of izzet because every elve or 4 toughness or t3 walker challenges UR to have an answer real quick while UR always
need very specific cards to even come ahead)

Other decks are not just at the sideline in your picture of Ur vs Ux vs RDW. We have so many potent decks which can easily come on top of tournaments and were already there. When you look at tournament results I really hope you take more into your analysis than just the winner. The difference between T16 decks is mostly one game/opp score influenced by IDs and of course so much fucking variance.

Like we had this discussion before the data our format provides is laughable and nothing else in comparison to 30 GPs a year with thousands of players which after playing thousands of games come to a conclusion what deck the "actual" best deck is. To think you can assert this and even pin it down to 2 cards in one deck is such a ridiculous claim.

Also its quite ironic when I see you talking about powerlevel while you want to make sure Tolarian Academy and Oath of druids stays in the format while answers to that should go (B2B, Moon)
NonBasic hate is so crucial for healthy metagame. And why would you ever unban Pod how is that adding more diversity to the metagame (if that would be a criterion you desire) with getting more and more busted creatures skipping the balancing factor, mana cost. Those kind of statements make me doubt you really have the health of the metagame in mind when looking at your ban/unban decissions

And how is pod unbanning keeping blue at bay? If anything they find it faster than other colors and I did an actual statistical research back when pod was legal (low samplesize of some weeks and 2 big tournaments) and 70% of the games were won by the player resolving pod first, but that just as a sidenote.

So Keeping greed in check should always be desirable look at the 1v1 Commander. They just smash 4c commanders with ancient tombs and have silly midrange value battles. Far less decission making involved just throwing good stuff at each other (which is the way standard works since the powerlevel rises and rises) and of course in an eternal format that all becomes even worse. That is btw the reason why so many decks are capable of beating "your" best deck. Because cards got so efficient so versatile and so powerful that a lot of random decks work just fine.

You need very specific answers real quick against most threats these days. I can live with a different opinion about how a metagame should look like. Of course those things can differ (very generous of me I know) but your way of looking at things come to me more as a bias than an actual analysis of how decks/matchups work in our format.

There is so much more but as I said at the begining I am simply overwhelmed when adressing all the flaws in your thinking. Sorry for the harsh tone but since you are at part responsible for how the format looks and decide how people have to play the format I have to adress that.

Dr. Opossum

(I wrote this yesterday evening and I don't want to reread this whole thing again. I'm sorry for a lot of spelling errors and maybe i missed something.)

People asked for transparency so i try to give some. To comprehend bannings or unbannings of a single card it is important to understand the full result and the voting process itself, which is somehow organized in kind of ,,steps". First: The members of the Council are subject to certain rules. Talking about and copypasting of specific texts and votings connected to single persons (except from the own, of course) or posts that make  the votings of a specific persons per inference clear is not allowed and that is why it makes the transparency a little complicated for us and even this thread, up to a certain point, kind of ,,gray area". This rule should mostly protect Council members from ,,witch hunting" (and it seems some facebook groups prove that concern with passive aggressive and open aggressive comments), strengthen the Council more closely and force them to find a well discussed result with which the entire Council can live (which is very very tough).
We try to discuss format related topics the whole year and in a regular way but a voting phase starts usually one month before the official announcement.

First weeks:
For an better overview we use a google doc for our votings, which can be changed at any time till a specific deadline is reached and additionally use the forum to justify and discuss our decisions.
Usually I am responsible for creating the table and therefore have the chance to enter my choice first and without being influenced by other Council members.
in this phase i voted for ,,no changes". It is no secret, that I am an archenemy of tutors in general, drain and dig and (obviously) votings are made by individuals with specific views and preferences. But, and that is an important point, being a Council member is not a freeway ticket for forming an ,,perfect" format that you love... but no one else. That is why our main task is to find a balance between "subjetive views" and "what is best for the format and what want their players".
,,No changes" was my balance. Without taking into account the strength of single cards, and with a view to all areas where European Highlander is played (as far as possible), Izzet (as well as their individual colors) have a strong but not invincible effect. Sure, blue and red are very popular, but if we ban the shit out of this colors another color will be ,,most popular" and we move in circles.
On the other side I can't see any value in the unban of more tutors even if there are stronger ones in the format already.

Last weeks:
It was pretty soon clear  that the Council did not share my concerns about Entomb and Seal and that both oft hem would be unbanned.
But, and that was more problematic for me, the majority of the Council sees a format-damaging dominance in blue, which is not only urgent, but also to solve rudely. How this solution should look (which cards) and to what extent (how many cards) each of us defined differently and suddenly three blue cards were to be banned in the next days: Mystical Tutor, Mana drain and Dig Throught Time. At this point voting is more tactical and based on compromises. While others were sticking to the idea of 3 blue cards, I tried to keep the changes small and comprehensible and to observe the consequences of one blue card and the upcoming unban of Seal and Entomb. For me this compromise was Mystical Tutor. Not just for the reasons already discussed in detail....

(Copypaste from an older watchlist thread. Closed the tab and can't find it anymore.:
We have decided to put Mystical Tutor on the Watch list.
Each legal Tutor in the format has a distinct search and/ or timing restriction. However, Mystical Tutor is barely disadvantaged in many aspects.
- Mystical Tutor is an auto-include in nearly all Combo decks, which play blue. It searches directly for the needed Combo part or enables/ secures the Combo turn by searching for e.g. discard or counter backup.
- The color blue does not only have strong protection and support spells (Mana Drain, Force of Will, Intuition, etc.), but also has much easier possibilities to draw the searched card outside of the draw step.
- Mystical Tutor searches much more flexible than his "siblings" Enlightened or Worldly Tutor. Mystical Tutor finds direct answers in form of protection (discard, counter) and removal (mass or spot removal for all permanent card types), but also indirect answers (other tutors).
- Mystical Tutor searches card types, with which could only be interacted on the stack and therefore are much more difficult to be prevented.
- Mystical Tutor is as one-drop or due to his EoT option, mana efficient.
- Mystical Tutor has only the timing restriction for instant spells.
- Mystical Tutor gets more and more options with each new set, like any other tutor too.
-> The potential of this card is unmistakably and therefore should be observed.)

... but mostly because of:

Quote from: Dr. Opossum on 19-09-2017, 10:27:19 PM
Bannings in council seems to be tactical anyway. I can life with the "take a stupid op tutor and give a stupid op tutor" idea, so i would give you the missing vote for mystical. But, sry, I can only lol about the "ban 3 blue cards at once". There is no need, there is no sense and I don't want to be killed by the community for banning randomly a lot of shit just because of positions. The ban of mystical will also weaken the power of DTT, Cruise and Drain. Again: Take a little advice from WotC. Ban carefully and observe the consequences of single cards instead of banning arbitrarily and much.

Yes, maybe Mystical Tutor is not the strongest blue card. And yes, there are stronger tutors in the format. But this is not the point. Balancing the format is not banning the best cards and everyone play Pauper or RDW and is upset the whole time. In the end and after every banning season all of us Council members are, in the best case, somehow satisfied with the result but never amazed. And this simply makes sense, when more than one person try to form a format. Balancing ist to find compromises. And if this is the lowest common denominator I can live with it.

But, and this IS a problem, we actually don't have a common view with clear criteria. But I also doubt that this can be implemented at all or would avoid future discussions. The question at what point a card could be considered as ,,fair" and not ,,banworthy" is even with rules (like ,,Not able to win in the first two rounds." or ,,A tutoring effect needs to cost at least 2 mana.") still subject to interpretations and needs corner case rules for every specific ,,draw back" (e.g. instant tutor for one mana is ,,not fair", but instant tutor for one mana at the top of the libary is ,,fair") to make it actually ,,clear". + If there are more than one persons involved the result is connected to compromises again and the outcome will be a weird composition of different views like bannings in general. + It is still no guarantee that the community overall will agree with Bannings or mostly the more active and small hardcore player part.

Maqi

@Tabris (copied from the Facebook discussion):

My statements have to be viewed as "ceteris paribus". I thought this would be clear when talking about a matter of probabilities.
By stating, I should not be arguing as simplistic as you insinuate, you seem to think I'm arguing in absolutes. Which I don't. But I should have made that clearer.

When I say that Emperion-Izzet beats RDW, I of course don't mean all the time. About 60% is my estimation.

You however make a mistake in the opposing direction by saying: "Everything can beat everything all the time, bc decks are generally potent and Highlander has critically more variance than other formats so the meta is healthy."

This is not true. Variance doesn't go all the way.

There are best decks.

Sadly these decks happen to play in a way a lot of people dislike.

Several not-so enfranchised players told me face-to-face they stopped playing bc Highlander morphed into all blue mirrors which they disliked.

They have a point and I feel obliged to act bc I share some of their fears/discontent.

DarkLight

First of all I'm playing the german Highlander format now for more than 10 years and I think I will still play it for another +10 years :) ...

... but the discussion around the 'Mystical Tutor' BAN in the Facebook-Group brought me to write down my opinion about the council decisions which concerns me since quite a while now.

This post is not meant to hate the council system, it's members or the decisions they made in the past. I think they did a great job over the years, BUT since like ~2 years BANS and UNBANS for me feel much more random then before.
The latest decision to BAN 'Mystical Tutor' in my opinion is a (weak) try to handle the kinda overwhelming performance of blue based decks in some local metagames.
For me it feels like the council decided to BAN one of the weakest possible ban-worthy blue cards, and as far as I saw the discussion in the Facebook-Group many other players are thinking the same.
It's nice to see they recognized and try to fix the power of blue based decks, but it looks like they picked the wrong card for this purpose.
I know that decisions to BAN or UNBAN cards normaly need a good and deep research on different metagames. This can be pretty time consuming and council members don't have endless free time to spend on this research, before they dicide what to BAN or UNBAN so they possibly rely (too much?) on other council members and their opinions what needs to be BANNED or UNBANNED.
I think the BAN of 'Mystical Tutor' is a result of this.

How to change this? Here are some suggestions from my side.

1. Community Vote:
One month before every BAN / UNBAN announcement there could be a community voting which cards should be BANNED / UNBANNED and the top 3 card(s) of BAN and UNBAN getting a vote in the final councils vote (just like another council member).
2. Addition of council members:
Adding council members who are pretty active and most likely from regions which are not represented now in the council. I don't know how the seats are distributed at the moment (maybe you guys could write them down on HighlanderMagic.info or the new homepage whenever it comes online).
3. A more transparent voting:
I don't want to say that every council member has to explain how and why he voted like he did (like Vazdru and Maqi did this time or other coucil members did before), but the end result of the voting would be nice to know for the community for sure. So the community can maybe discuss more specified and the council members can get more input of different opinions.

By the way Tabris you as former council member should have enough insight in processes who lead to a BAN or UNBAN so please don't forget that Maqi and Vazdru are the only two council members who tried to explain their decision yet.
There are some more members who voted for the 'Mystical Tutor' BAN which was the original point to start this discussion.
I don't say you have to agree with their voting and decisions but for me I really appreciate the insight these two gave us on their voting. For me it makes it much easier to understand the decisions made by the council and I hope they will continue with this in the future.

And for all those who are whining and crying now, if you want more impact to change something try to get your seat in the council however with constructive and good work around the format.

I will post this only here in the forum because I don't like the Facebook discussions at all but it would be nice to read some more different opinions from community- and council members on this subject, because we can only make it better if we work together.








Formerly known as With-FuLL-Force.

ChristophO

#19
I have voted like this:

Mystical Tutor
Back to Basics
Blood Moon
Dig through time

Unban:
Imperial Seal


After the community argued for more insight in Voting I published my voting intent a few times but never got enough of a response to warrant the effort. As you can see by my votes I wanted to reduce the power level of blue some. In my opinion Mystical tutor and Dig through time are the worst offenders. I could not convince enough fellow council members for the dig ban though it was really close voting wise. Mana Drain also got a lot of votes by other council members. Please keep in mind that not all communities feel thart blue is too strong and that this is represented by council members as well. There was/is a lack of consenus which card is the worst offender. For me it was Mystical tutor. Due to DtT/Cruise/Fact or fiction the card is never dead and there is a plethora of lethal tutor targets (PoP, Ruination, Cryptic, Bonfire etc.) that can be gotten at instant speed for 1 lowly mana whenever the opponent can not interact and victory is 100%. It is this consistency along its high power level that made me chose those two cards.

As for Blood Moon and Back to basics I feel those cards are in a weird spot (my opinion following). Due to the singleton nature they do not really hate out greedy multicolor decks at metagame levels that are fun for  players. Still they give some freewins and especially with library manipulation the downside of a possible dead card is not enough of a detriment. I think gameplay would be imporved by removing those two cards. That said the support for that course seems to be minimal right now (which gives me some pause for thought). What I can not take serious is people insinuating that it is easy and sensible to always play around those cards suggesting mana bases of 6+ basic lands (and 9 fetchies)  which results in half or more of ones deck to be comprised of non basic lands. Which means that the choice is to either fetch a basic and lose versus Wasteland or fetch a non basic and lose vs Blood moon.

Edith:
I also voted for Demonic Tutor to be banned (but almost nobody else did) and it was rather clear very early on that the card was to stay, so I fogot about it when I made this post.

DarkLight

Quote from: ChristophO on 03-10-2017, 06:17:33 PM
After the community argued for more insight in Voting I published my voting intent a few times but never got enough of a response to warrant the effort.
I really appreciate the insight and would thank you too for the effort, but it really looks like not many players these days are that grateful. They prefer to beef around on Facebook instead of suggesting changes we can work out together with the community and the council.
Formerly known as With-FuLL-Force.

pyyhttu

Finnish community voiced their guidelines, comprised well into this post: https://mtgsuomi.fi/keskustelu/index.php?topic=71161.msg376090#msg376090

That thread "Tulevat Highlanderbannit - mielipiteitä tutoreista" roughly translates into: "Highlander bans - opinions about tutors are welcome"

So we approached the question from the tutor standpoint: what is deemed too strong, what should stay or go in current meta, role of keycards vs. tutors and so on.

Core message, formulated by Nastaboi from the answers was:

*SNIP*
Demonic and Mystical should stay in the format. If Imperial Seal is to be unbanned, tutor ban list is then, from the standpoint of tutor power level, consistent. And having Demonic as the strongest tutor in the format is OK. If tutor based decks after this start to somehow overly dominating (combo), then Demonic could be banned, and Seal left to format.
*SNIP*

Mystical was never deemed as a problem. We voted accordingly with Nastaboi: Entomb and Imperial unbanned.

Only difference was, that I wanted to shorten the watchlist, as I see, that cards now are kept too easily in there --> watchlist is constantly growing.


Tabris

@DarkLight

What difference does it make if we "beef" on facebook or here around? Also the reach of this website is laughable in comparison to FB. And suggestions on how to fix this mess were made. What are you talking about?

DarkLight

Quote from: pyyhttu on 04-10-2017, 12:08:57 PM
Only difference was, that I wanted to shorten the watchlist, as I see, that cards now are kept too easily in there --> watchlist is constantly growing.

I posted a thread about this 1 year ago ...
http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=1243.msg13061#msg13061
... but as I pointed out yesterday people these days are not interessted in solving problems but creating some (example: just watch at the latest Facebook discussions)

@Tabris
How is this forum not reachable? I think every Highlander player should know this site/forum.
It's not on the forum or website it's on the users/players to keep it active and I don't see people are willing to do this at the moment.
For sure every idiot has facebook these days and every idiot can post useless comments without thinking about it, take this forum as filter for people who are really interessted in the format and want to work on changes in cooperation with other players from the community and the council.
Formerly known as With-FuLL-Force.

mox-fanatic

Since I have no facebook account I appreciate any discussion here in the forum.

As stated above any highlander player should know it.

Imho raging does not help here. And according to the rumors I heared about the facebook "discussion" that's what is happening on facebook.

Vazdru

Quote from: DarkLight on 03-10-2017, 04:47:26 PM

How to change this? Here are some suggestions from my side.

1. Community Vote:
One month before every BAN / UNBAN announcement there could be a community voting which cards should be BANNED / UNBANNED and the top 3 card(s) of BAN and UNBAN getting a vote in the final councils vote (just like another council member).


Would be ok for me. I will forward your proposal to the council.


Quote from: DarkLight on 03-10-2017, 04:47:26 PM

2. Addition of council members:
Adding council members who are pretty active and most likely from regions which are not represented now in the council. I don't know how the seats are distributed at the moment (maybe you guys could write them down on HighlanderMagic.info or the new homepage whenever it comes online).


agreed too
we are working on it, council grew in the last year to 8 players
the problem is:
players are hard to find
who prove their dedication for the format for a longer time and are willing to spend their free time for its developmement (discussions, announcements etc).
who do not come from the same community as a current council member (balanced voting power of a community)
..and futhermore have to be insulted and face hostility for their effort in the end

Quote from: DarkLight on 03-10-2017, 04:47:26 PM

3. A more transparent voting:
I don't want to say that every council member has to explain how and why he voted like he did (like Vazdru and Maqi did this time or other coucil members did before), but the end result of the voting would be nice to know for the community for sure. So the community can maybe discuss more specified and the council members can get more input of different opinions.


we are working on this too like this thread shows already
if the community would request a statement before the votings I would give it too
but the haters haven't tried to influence my decisions before the voting process but only cry out loud after it
community could bring in thoughts and proposals and can be sure it will be heard and answered of the council
Far below the earth
Where the demons hunt the souls of those that sleep
In the city of the Vazdru and the Drin
Where the black flame burns inside the palace fountain.

ChristophO

Quote from: Tabris on 04-10-2017, 01:32:01 PM
@DarkLight

What difference does it make if we "beef" on facebook or here around? Also the reach of this website is laughable in comparison to FB. And suggestions on how to fix this mess were made. What are you talking about?

I have told you this several times already: Facebook content can only be seen when logged into facebook. To create reach and visibilty for our format moving "official" dicussion, statements, and information within facebook is miserable. 

I agree that this page is in a sorry state and even more miserable. I am not qualified to make a new page and all the help I tried to offer over the years by establishing contact between professionals and the people claiming to work on this has been rejected. I also proposed fundraiser tournaments to help pay which was also rejected.