Brian Weissman, Paul Pantera, and twenty years of The Deck

I remember the day when Paul Pantera posted to mtg-strategy-l about a deck that some in the northwest were calling "The Deck". It seemed an impossibly pompous name for a particular deck list. Then again, the post itself was somewhat pretentious itself.

Since that day, and even quite recently, I've seen a bunch of deck lists that purport to be "The Deck", but not from either Paul or Brian. I thought I might post some data from the archives to clarify what was and was not in the earlier versions.

To be fair, the deck list was very fluid at the time - the rules of magic were young. The DCI was just starting to gel as something separate from WoTC. There weren't many rules about how things went on and off the restricted and banned lists, and that made them pretty fluid, with things being added, removed, and re-added relatively often. If you see a list with two Demonic Tutors, and then a later one with four Mind Twists, that could be exactly right.

People now think of The Deck as the quintessential control / card-advantage deck: discard, draw, and counter. That said, Brian's decks before and after the eponymous one, were based on large creatures, counters, and removal.

Early 1994

According to Brian himself in a recent interview with SvenskaMagic.com, the following decklist was what he was playing before legends came out, so it represents an early state of The Deck.

Pre-Legends Three color Counter-Stompy
Sets available: AL, BT, UL, RV, AN, AQ
Blue		Artifacts
4	Counterspell	1	Chaos Orb
4	Mahamoti Djinn	1	Ivory Tower
1	Ancestral Recall	4	Juggernaut
1	Time Walk	Mana
1	Timetwister	5	Moxen
2	Control Magic	1	Sol Ring
Black		1	Black Lotus
4	Mind Twist	4	Mana Vault
White		4	Tundra
4	Disenchant	4	Underground Sea
4	Swords to Plowshares	4	Library of Alexandria
2	Balance	2	Strip Mine
2	Argivian Archaeologist	3	Scrubland
36 spells, 27 mana (63 cards)

The core of the deck is 8 stompies with evasion potential, blue manipulation, white removal, and Mind Twist.

Blue had gotten way out in front of the rest of the colors with Ancestral Recall, Time Walk and Time Twister, so pretty much everyone was splashing blue for those. This led to what Brian and Paul later referred to as "the presumption of blue".

Trivia: Ancestral Recall was originally going to be a common, part of a group called the Boons, a 3-for-1 effect for each color: White: Healing Salve, Green: Giant Growth, Red: Lightening Bolt, Black: Dark Ritual, Blue: Ancestral Recall. Playtesting seemed to indicate that Ancestral Recall might be overpowered, so it was promoted to a rare, and Unstable Mutation was swapped in as the blue Boon.

Early 1995

Rules changes abound. Library of Alexandria and Mind Twist are restricted. There is discussion about whether Strip Mine should be restricted but it is not. Brian and others recognize the power of Balance and lobby unsuccessfully to restrict or even ban it, but it remains unlisted. Discussions about banning Chaos Orb entirely (because of its difficult mechanics and their impact on play) also do not come to fruition. All these restrictions will later be enacted.

During this period, Legends, The Dark, Fallen Empires, and 4th edition are released. Fallen Empires and 4th edition bring nothing of interest. Legends brings Recall (which is immediately restricted) as well as Mana Drain and Moat. All three will be staples of The Deck for the years to come.


Everyone is playing blue now. Much like "Black Summer" two years later, there is a virtual monoculture. No one is playing much that doesn't include the entire blue restricted list (Ancestral Recall, Timetwister, Time Walk, Recall) as well as Counterspell and Mana Drain. Those that aren't playing blue are building decks specifically tailored to defeat it.

According to Brian himself, this is the next version he played.

Pre-Ice Age Five color Card Advantage
Sets available: AL, BT, UL, RV, AN, AQ, LG, DK, FE, 4E
Blue		Artifacts
4	Counterspell	1	Chaos Orb
4	Mana Drain	1	Jayemdae Tome
1	Ancestral Recall	2	Disrupting Scepter
1	Time Walk	Mana
1	Timetwister	5	Moxes
1	Recall	1	Sol Ring
Black		1	Black Lotus
1	Mind Twist	4	City of Brass
1	Demonic Tutor	4	Underground Sea
White		4	Tundra
4	Disenchant	2	Volcanic Island
4	Swords to Plowshares	1	Library of Alexandria
2	Balance	2	Strip Mine
2	Serra Angel	2	Scrubland
2	Moat
Red
1	Red Elemental Blast
Green
1	Regrowth
34 spells, 26 mana (60 cards)

Red is splashed exclusively for Red Elemental Blast (there are more in the sideboard, all to stop early blue countermagic and Ancestral Recall) and green exclusively for Regrowth.

The win methods are drastically reduced: two Serra Angels. Someone notes that if you use Tormod's Crypt (often in the sideboard of this deck) at a sufficiently late moment in the game, you can kill someone with Timetwister.

August 1995

Over the next few months, Balance was restricted, and Chaos Orb was banned. The presumption of blue became even more certain. Other major formats were mono-black Juzam/discard and land destruction.

In August 1995, Paul Pantera posted this version on mtg-strategy-l. It was somewhat different. Paul even included a sideboard description, something we don't have for earlier versions. The deck now looked like this:

Pantera Five color Card Advantage
Sets available: AL, BT, UL, RV, AN, AQ, LG, DK, FE, 4E, IA
Blue		Artifacts		Sideboard
4	Mana Drain	2	Disrupting Scepter	2	Blood Moon
2	Counterspell	1	Jayemdae Tome	2	COP: Red
1	Ancestral Recall	1	Ivory Tower	2	Control Magic
1	Time Walk	Mana		2	Divine Offering
1	Timetwister	5	Moxes	1	Disrupting Sceptre
1	Recall	1	Sol Ring	1	Counterspell
1	Braingeyser	1	Black Lotus	1	Moat
Black		4	Island	1	Plains
1	Mind Twist	4	Tundra	1	Jayemdae Tome
1	Demonic Tutor	3	Plains	1	Tormod's Crypt
White		3	City of Brass
4	Disenchant	2	Strip Mine
4	Swords to Plowshares	2	Volcanic Island
2	Serra Angel	1	Underground Sea
2	Moat	1	Plateau
Red		1	Library of Alexandria
2	Red Elemental Blast
Green
1	Regrowth
32 spells, 28 mana (60 cards)

Just days later Brian Weissman posts from his account at netcom,with essentially the same card list.

There are some really quirky things about this deck:

1. There are two Red Elemental Blasts in the main deck. Blue was so predominant that having two maindeck REBs and sometimes a third one in the sideboard was completely appropriate.
2. At the time this came out, Ice Age had been released for 3 months, but this version doesn't include a Zuran Orb in the main deck or the sideboard. It's the last published version that doesn't.
3. This is the only tournament deck I've ever seen with basic land in the sideboard. Apparently land destruction was so harmful to this deck that occasionally you'd want to put in an extra plains.

And it was different from many other decks currently in play:

1. Braingeyser was added for a third "kill" card: a big Mana Drain could give an even bigger Braingeyser, forcing the opponent to draw out. Other than Millstone, this was a rarely used kill method.
2. At this time, running 28 mana was considered serious overkill: a lot of tournament decks were running 20-24. Brian was ahead of the curve here, noting that failing to play land on turns 1-4 is often fatal with this particular deck.

Variations on the theme

Patrick Chapin, in a well-researched article, shows a version of the deck containing Mirror Universe as a kill method. At this time, your life totals were checked only when the stack was empty, so you could tap and activate the Mirror Universe, putting the life-swap effect on the stack, and then bring your life to zero (perhaps by tapping a City of Brass). When the stack cleared your opponent had zero life.

Some versions of the deck include one or more Amnesia from The Dark to supplement the discard power lost by the now-restricted Mind Twist.

Ice Age (Later 1995-1996)

Most post-Ice Age versions of The Deck feature a Zuran Orb, and that's how you can tell it's a somewhat later version. Likewise Jester's Mask.

Late in 1995 Brian  posted a Type II deck list featuring a simpler card list. Brian referred to it as a Type II implementation of The Deck.

Type II "The Deck" Three color Card Advantage
Sets available: AL, BT, UL, RV, AN, AQ, LG, DK, FE, 4E, IA
White		Artifacts		Sideboard
4	Disenchant	4	Jayemdae Tome	4	Divine Offering
4	Swords to Plowshares	1	Zuran Orb	3	Meekstone
4	Savannah Lions	1	Feldon's Cane	3	Red Elemental Blast
3	Serra Angel	1	Jester's Cap	2	Pyroclasm
Blue		Mana		3	COP: Red
2	Deflection	4	Plains
1	Recall	4	Mountains
Red		4	Adarkar Wastes
4	Lightning Bolt	3	City of Brass
3	Fireball	4	Strip Mine
1	Pyrotechnics	4	Mishra's Factory
		4	Fellwar Stone
33 spells, 27 mana (60 cards)

It had many adherents (including myself) but never achieved a great deal of success. The card advantage seemingly offered by Deflection was rarely capitalized upon. The Serra / Fireball overlap for win conditions and the comparatively slow action of the tomes and the cap contributed to a diminished pace that kept it out of the top tier.

1997

In 1997 Brian posted a Type-I deck list that he thought could reliably beat The Deck: It was called (by most) The Roc Deck. It returned to the "eight hard-to-stop creatures plus blue manipulation" system from the original pre-legends version. The Juggernaut and Mahamoti Djinn were replaced with Roc of Kher Ridges and Phantom Monster (flying 3/3 creatures for 3R and 3U respectively) along with the usual blue/black support. Oscar tan writes about it here. This deck never really took off, most players preferred some variation of The Zoo, with its undercosted creatures and Black Vises.

Modern

Many people have tried to update The Deck to use the whole panoply of blue now available: 4 Force of Will become standard, Morphlings instead of Serras. Mostly these devolve into U/B/... decks chock full of tutors to take the early lead and hold it, rather the opposite of the original slow constriction.

People who use The Deck as a starting point for modern decks start from a position of weakness. The game just isn't the same now: Type I is mostly about dropping a turn 1/2/3 combo and winning before your opponent can drop a 4th land.

Microsoft: Why do some technical people hate it so?

To be clear, I have been an active dis-advocate of Microsoft for a long time, but I do enjoy reading pieces from all points of view.

Recently Scott Hanselman wrote a piece called "Microsoft Killed My Pappy" Scott and I actually have a lot in common so I find his confusion a little disingenuous. It is true that over the years I've heard a lot about Microsoft and why it's so evil, and most of it just doesn't wash. Scott's comments are absolutely right about that: Most of the anti-MS arguments you hear just don't ring true.

He writes:

One person said that he was still mad about the Microsoft Anti-Trust thing. "Hey, 10 years ago Microsoft did this..." That was initiated in 1998 for actions in 1994.

And goes on to say, essentially "Even if there was a bad, anticompetitive, perjuring Microsoft way-back-when, there's nothing to fuss about now".

More data: I have friends who work there, and actually at least one of my old professors does as well. They like it. They have their own office (a rare perq in Silicon Valley), the housing is cheap, the stock options are nice, and their bosses do NOT belong in a Dilbert cartoon. There's much to like at Microsoft. I've been on campus several different times, and it's always made a positive impression. The MS vision of the future, with the model houses and cool tech are definitely inspiring. It's not like good, smart people can't like Microsoft.

That does not, however, mean that there isn't something fundamentally wrong at the company. I think there is, and it's taken me a very long time to be able to articulate it

My first encounter

One of the earliest times I remember having a twinge about Microsoft and sitting down to think about it was regarding the AARD Code.

At this time Microsoft and Digital research had competing (and completely compatible) versions of DOS. Companies could use either one, and all the software running on them worked identically. This was true for the "Win.exe" executable which, back then, was how Windows 1, 2, 3, and 3.1 worked: win.exe was just another DOS application.

The AARD code was a small chunk of machine language written into the windows executable that would detect which version of DOS was running, and if it wasn't MS DOS, it would (occasionally, through a random number generator) put up an error window with a meaningless error message. The user could dismiss it, and everything went along fine.

All the new code did was make a previously perfectly functioning part of Microsoft Windows code work a little less well by throwing up an obscure error message that the user had to clear.

Business-wise, it was brilliant:  System administrators would eventually notice that the error message only happened on DR-DOS boxes, and switch people over to MS-DOS for their windows boxes to cut down on the annoying support calls. Market-share increases, stockholders rejoice!

User-wise, it was awful: It gave the user the impression that the software was not running perfectly, and held up long-running jobs at random places because the user had to hit return to keep the process going, essentially making DR-DOS boxes running big programs to be constantly monitored.

This was a designed and implemented feature. At heart I am a Capitalist: I think it should be OK for competitors to get sneaky with one another, but somehow this was different. I tried to explain what I didn't like to a couple of friends, and they responded as I normally would: "It's a competition thing. It's cool."

But that wasn't what bothered me. Think about the effort required:

• Someone had to write that code (in assembly language)
• Someone had to test it exhaustively (it would be bad if it ever flagged a MS DOS installation).
• They had to set up the flag in the build configuration system, because it was build-time configurable.
• They had to write (and perhaps translate) the error message, making it just creepy enough to scare people without making it overtly obvious they were slagging a competitor.
• They had to check that it would be legal. Because when you do something like this to a competitor, and you're as big as MS was even then, you always check with legal.

All in all, that's time from engineering, testing, ops, marketing, and legal departments that went into this one tiny piece of code. Probably half a dozen people plus a manager to get it out the door.

Different context, same thinking: font tech

There came a time, after Jobs left Apple, when there was a sea-change in the computing world. As is well known, Jobs had taken classes in calligraphy at his university, and he often talked about how that informed the ways that the font system of the Mac worked. They were, in apple tradition, beautiful on the screen. I have never owned a mac, but I acknowledge that for the 80s and a lot of the 90s, they were the leader in making fonts look good on a screen.

But then two things changed: Jobs left Apple, and MS poured a ton of money into research and development of subpixel positioning for their graphics engine and antialiasing fonts. The following version of windows was a complete leapfrog of Apple... Microsoft had taken the lead in this field.

And it was cool tech. It went in the rendering engine, not in the font itself, so when the code was run, everything, everywhere, looked great. It was a leap forward for all MS users and it worked for hundreds and hundreds of fonts, regardless of who made the font or what program used them. Almost. In fact, in all but one. One font which, regardless of whether IE, AutoCad, or Netscape Navigator requested it, would remain old-looking.

More research showed that this was entirely intentional: There was a conditional check in the code "If the font requested is such-and-such, do not smooth it". One font. Further checking by the press was that if you took the conditional out, the font smoothed just fine - it wasn't a problem with the algorithm or the font itself. In fact, some people just patched their machines to take the conditional out, and all was well. So why beat up this one font? It was the default serif font for one product: Netscape Navigator.

All the new code did was make a previously perfectly functioning part of Microsoft Windows code work a little less well by making one font among hundreds not render with the new engine.

Business-wise, it was brilliant. People would see, every day, that Netscape looked clunky while everything else looked great. Every day, some people would switch to IE from Netscape just because of eyestrain. Market-share increases, stockholders rejoice!

User-wise, it was awful: If you were someone who had specified that font in a document (say, for a quote in the middle of a Word document) then your entire presentation would look odd on the screen because the fonts were not rendered in the same fashion. In addition, any website that specified that font would render poorly. If you had designed your website using it, and your customer upgraded their OS, your website looked like crap whether it was in IE or Navigator.

As above, it's a change to the operating system: You have to code it, test it, get both code and test cases checked into the build system, and lastly check with legal to make sure you haven't made any promises about treating all fonts equally.

A pattern emerges

The examples I have given are (intentionally) very old, but according to direct experience and first-hand testimony, the mindset lives on:

• Labor goes in so that a small amount of functionality comes out.

Microsoft is willing to put engineering and labor into things that make the user experience worse in specific and controlled ways. They are willing to take things that always work and turn them into things that don't always work. To most engineers I know, that is extremely offensive. To do it to your own user base in order to enrich yourself may be legally ok but is morally bankrupt.

The (current and continuing) pattern that keeps me from using Microsoft products at all (I have none in my house) is the evil triad:

1. To increase shareholder value, Microsoft will
2. engineer something into a worse condition than it started, at the
3. expense of its own users

The fact that many of their users don't know it's happening (and thus don't care) has got nothing to do with my distaste for this practice. Nor does the fact that it's usually a relatively small burden. In my opinion, it's just wrong. I think a lot of other people feel the same way, even if they can't quite put words to it.

I don't think everyone agrees, nor should they, but Scott's puzzlement may belie a dearth of deeper investigation into the reasons people give, rather than an absence of reasons in the first place.