Ryder wrote: ↑3 years ago
@Sojourner Dusk Sorcery speed barely matters. You usually know ahead of time when you're losing. It would only improve your odds against combo decks. Speaking of which, let's do some math.
Sorcery speed doesn't matter? Must be why all those board wipes are printed at Instant speed, then. With this assessment,
Platinum Angel must be at the top of your "should be banned" list due to similar metrics.
Ryder wrote: ↑3 years ago
Assume the deck playing Efficacity has a 40% win rate against other decks in meta (awful, likely to be at least 45%).
Then let's assume you manage to draw and cast Efficacity in 50% of your games (again awful, this is likely to be around 80% with proper deckbuilding).
First, a deck with an aggregate 40% win rate against its meta is not competitively viable. Second, if you manage to draw and cast a 6 CMC spell with no generic mana symbols in its casting cost with 80% consistency, you're stacking your deck. This assumes that you miss no more than one land drop in your first seven turns, and also that you managed to live for seven turns. Third, if you're going to tutor for this spell, you likely need to add either Black or Red to the deck (we're unlikely to see a reprint of
Personal Tutor any time soon, though Double Masters would have been excellent timing given its scarcity-inflated price), which rends the probability of being able to reliably cast this. Yes,
Granted exists, but now you're looking to either spend 10 mana in one turn or to let your opponent plan for you to try to cast this spell the rest of the game.
Ryder wrote: ↑3 years ago
Now you get to replay 50% of the games you'd lose. This alone bumps the deck's win ratio to 64%.
And now repeat this process, because you may want to restart the game again. The win ratio is now 78.4%.
We can repeat this process one more time. You will likely not be able to win due to time limits, but this process can still turn a loss into a draw.
The build you're describing here is predicated on stalling and having no win condition for the deck, where you're hoping your opponent(s) scoop in frustration after you cast this spell. And if I were to build a deck with that degree of control, why would I want to restart the game when I've already managed to prevent you from playing?
Ryder wrote: ↑3 years ago
I did not take into account decks which can actually power through this using counterspells or instant speed game-ending combos. But that's precisely why I lowered the percentages below realistic values. Besides, the whole meta would instantly revolve about playing Efficacity or beating it. Which is the definition of
broken.
Did you know players have access to these things called "creatures"? And that some of them can deal damage in something called a "combat phase"? And sometimes, though apparently very rarely in your reality, they put enough creatures together in a single deck and call it "Aggro" and can often kill an opponent prior to Turn 6. As far as "broken", the past two years have shown us cards that fit that definition.
Hogaak.
Oko.
T3feri.
Cauldron Familiar (okay, not so much this one, but there should be a moment of levity).
Ryder wrote: ↑3 years ago
Sojourner Dusk wrote: ↑3 years ago
[...] if I'm winning the game, why would I want to restart it?
If you're winning the game, you don't really care about anything else.
Really? When I'm winning, unless it's an utter rout where I have the game hard locked, I still want to make sure I can finish. I can recall many times being at 1 life and mounting a comeback against an opponent because their deck stalled and I went on a hot streak of timely threats and answers.
Ryder wrote: ↑3 years ago
I'm sorry to say it, but as you've brought
Karn Liberated to my attention, you've also lost 1.5 more points for Uniqueness and Subchallenge 2.
So, as a Judge, you didn't check to see if I had fulfilled the subchallnge? I mention the only tournament legal card with the word "Restart" in its text (no Do-Over for you), which also contradicts your Elegance assessment, and then you knock me for your laziness? If that's the word you based my subchallenge fulfillment on, how was it that you couldn't take a minute to search for
Restart on Scryfall (yes, there are three results, but that's because you literally can't spell "Firestarter" without "restart" in English)?
void_nothing wrote: ↑3 years ago
I'm personally not a big fan of shortening the MCC - even with a reduced player base this month, it doesn't seem fair. Even with three players in the third round, you could eliminate just the bottom scorer and have two finalists go at it in the fourth round.
Not my first choice, either, but after seven days, we only had 11 players, and there appears to be a lack of enthusiasm. Whether that's due to the nature of the challenge or an external source, I can't say. I'm not a Mod, I don't see the complaints. For me, eliminating the lowest combined score in the VS Round wouldn't differentiate it significantly from the scoring for the Final.