@Red_Shadow You're not just playing those teem spells one after another in a couple minutes, though.

@BrianS Perhaps, but I was under the impression the two were generally connected. If you're going to win or lose in ten plays you'll usually get a bit more time to think about them than for waffling about whether to attack with each creature every turn for many turns. If the game isn't threatening to go long there's not nearly as much reason for a judge to call slow play, right?

@Red_Shadow Key phrase: in a couple of minutes. In order to get it all right reliably you have to spend some time to think things through. This is not a deck where you just glance at your hand and lay your cards down in order.

@BrianS Right, but "too long" is completely vaguely defined in the rules so the judges ultimately have to choose based on whether the rate of play is such that it'll use up too much of the round time or not. I saw an article by a judge a few months ago basically saying this - il try and find it later. The rough time limits for various choices were based on dividing up the available round time. (Of course, guidelines like that work better in more sane formats like standard...)

I'll certainly edit in a bit about slow play though!

@Jefromi "if you're to the point where clearly you'll either win or lose within a minute once you decide, you might get some leeway" Based on what? Your own experience? If so, how many times at Competitive or Regular REL have you called or been called for slow play and actually observed this? I see nothing in Silvestri's article that explains this behavior, but I'm sure you had a good reason for adding it.

I'm also not sure why half of this answer and almost all of its comments are centered around slow play. Slow Play is a penalty awarded to slow players, not to players with slow decks. You cannot possibly be awarded a penalty for playing a slow deck at a reasonable pace.

@Rainbolt The answer is not half about that. I mentioned it in the answer simply to say that if (as is quite possible) the decisions take you long enough to cause issues, you may well run into slow play - that is, it's a difficult deck to play at a reasonable pace. The answer is primarily about the simple fact that when a deck is extremely difficult to play, you likely either take too long to play it, or you rush yourself and don't play as well.

@Rainbolt The article doesn't cover this exact examle, but the others show the point: the "reasonable" amount of time for decisions depends on the difficulty and weight of the decisions. Just as you'll get more time for deciding an attack than for playing a land on turn one, you will likely get more time for deciding "should I try to combo off this turn or not?" To take the comparison further, taking 30-60 seconds once in a game for an obviously critical (e.g. both players on low life) attack with complex board state is a more likely to fly than taking that long for a turn one haste attack.

Note that the philosophy section of the slow play rules says "All players have the responsibility to play quickly enough so that their opponents are not at a significant disadvantage because of the time limit." That is, "reasonable" is not just about playing as fast as a human can reasonably play the deck, but playing fast enough to give both players a fair share of the available time in the round. Given the vagueness of the rules, there's a lot of room for variation in application. But the rules do make it reasonable for judges to call something slow play even if you can't play any faster.

@Jefromi You've satisfied my first question about having longer to play during critical positions. Your other response is still unfounded. How is a slow deck prone to slow play? If the deck is slow, you are bound to become adept at playing quickly with it. The rules are vague, but your speculation exceeds what actually happens in practice.

@Rainbolt "you are bound to become adept at playing quickly with it" - that's possible. But the article about this deck was written by Stephen Menendian, a former Vintage World Champion, he loves the deck, and he's the one who said he doesn't think it's really possible to get fast enough with it to play in tournaments. The OP asked why people (in particular the author) don't think it's playable, and that's why: the deck is slow/complex enough that even skilled, motivated players don't think they can do it.

@Jefromi You are suddenly having another conversation altogether. When you said that a slow deck is prone to slow play, I assumed you were talking about game play violation called "Slow Play". You even referenced the philosophy section of the IPG. When Stephen Menendian said that the deck is too slow to play, he meant that you'll have trouble finishing a game on time no matter how fast you play. His thoughts have literally nothing to do with the infraction known as Slow Play.

@Rainbolt Look at the first paragraph of my answer. I'm talking about both of those things, though the primary and original focus is total time, not Slow Play. But they are both potential issues, depending on exactly what happens. If you sit there for ten minutes contemplating whether to go off, that's likely Slow Play, even if you're going to be pretty fast after that. If you split up all the thinking enough to avoid Slow Play, you may still be too slow for the rounds. All Menendian said was it'd be hard to "...do that in a reasonable amount of time..."

That said, the distinction isn't really that important. Per the philosophy section we've both mentioned now, the whole point is to get the games done within the round, with enough time for both players. If a judge notices you're causing problems in that department, you get Slow Play. If they don't, you get drawn matches. Either way, the core problem is the same: the deck is slow enough to play to cause problems.

@Jefromi You said it best yourself with "If a judge notices that you are causing problems". Not "If a judge notices that the deck is causing problems". You are spreading misinformation by claiming that a slow deck could cause you to be penalized for playing slowing. Slow deck and slow play aren't even remotely related. Playing slowly is the only thing that can get you penalized for playing slowly. Period.

@Jefromi You could be playing the fastest deck in the world, capable of winning on turn one after only playing a mere handful of spells, and you could get called for Slow Play. Likewise, you could be playing the slowest deck in the world, and never be called for Slow Play.

Menendian said the deck is prone to going to time. He never once mentioned receiving an infraction for it. You made that up.

I never said he got an infraction for it.

The Philosophy section of the IPG doesn't mention slow decks. It only mentions slow play.

So you are out of authoritative sources. Why is Slow Play mentioned at all in your answer?

I said that it's possible you could get an infraction for it, if you're slow enough to make the critical decisions - that is, the way this deck is slow (certain critical decisions are very hard to make) is a way that could cause you to run into Slow Play.

The IPG doesn't have to specifically mention slow decks. What it mentions is people taking more than their share of the time, which is something you could do if you are not fast enough with this deck.

You could get an infraction for Slow Play playing any deck at any time. Why did you choose to give your speech on Slow Play in this answer?

I didn't give a speech on it, I explained it to someone who doesn't know anything about tournaments.

And I did so because this deck does have more potential for it than others.

How does this deck have more potential for being awarded Slow Play penalty than others?

Remember, the IPG does say that the idea of Slow Play infractions is to avoid players taking too much of the time.

And as we've discussed, unless you're really really good, it's likely that you are going to have trouble playing this deck fast enough, i.e. you'll have trouble not taking more than your share of the time.

The key decision points, especially whether or not to go off, are going to slow you down a lot - and although judges will be more lenient about them, they won't let you sit there forever thinking.

You answered the question with the question. How is "likely that you are going to have trouble playing this deck fast enough"?

Oh, I think I understand your confusion now.

By all means, enlighten me.

You appear to think that decks that have tons of stuff going on have more key decision points.

Nope, that's not it, don't worry.

The deck doesn't have more decision points, it has ones that are harder to decide.

Did you describe that at all in your answer?

It certainly seems like the less bullheaded way to answer my original question.

No, I did not analyze exactly what it is that makes this particular deck slow to play, and in exactly what manner it is slow to play.

Because the OP explicitly wasn't asking about that - they were simply asking about what makes a slow deck not viable in tournaments.

Oh, so you wrote an entire answer, and a long one at that, without having a clue as to how this deck works?

And I gave the ways in which it can cause problems, both of which potentially apply to this deck, depending on who's playing it.

No, I answered the question that was asked, not the one that you're trying to ask me.

You didn't answer the question without having a clue as to how the deck works?

I'm confused. So you do know how the deck works?

No, believe it or not, I have a reasonably good idea how the deck works.

I'm not saying I could play it well, or fast.

I understand well enough to see that if you're not careful, you could easily run into Slow Play, and you could also easily run into time limits.

Why didn't you bring up Game Play Error - Game Rule Violation? If the deck is particularly complex, is it not prone to more game play errors?

"if you're not careful, you could easily run into Slow Play" applies equally to all decks.

Perhaps it's worth adding. But as far as I can tell, the primary reason people think it's not viable is time - the assumption being that you're going to take as long as you need to play properly, and that may be too long.

@Rainbolt Again, no, it doesn't. Decks like this are unique in that you are forced to make a lot of decisions all at once without taking any actions in the game.

If you want to look at it the other way, and say you'll play as fast as necessary to avoid issues, then yes, rules violations might become a bigger deal - though I think the issue is more what I mentioned in my answer, simply making the wrong play and losing, not breaking rules.

A judge will never award a player who has a lot of decisions to make a Slow Play penalty (unless they are making those decisions slowly)

That's... mostly true, but it's not quite the point.

That is my point. Slow Play is not in any way related to Slow Deck.

It is, a bit. Let me try again to explain, since it doesn't seem to have come across.

Sure. Go ahead and quote what the rules allow judges to do, ignore what they actually do in practice, and claim once more that this deck is particularly prone to that kind of thing without backing it up at all.

Or don't pretend that you know what judges would do in this situation, because I can tell that you don't, and instead stick to explaining exactly why this deck is prone to Slow Play.

Would a judge give you a slow play violation for taking, say, 5 minutes to decide whether to go off on turn 1?

Yes.

So, the point is, this deck is prone to that sort of thing. It's very easy even for a skilled practiced player to not be able to think through everything they need to think through in that "reasonable" amount of time, even if they're doing the best they can.

It might be "reasonable" to take a certain amount of time in that you are honestly thinking through scenarios and analyzing things and doing the work you need to do to play well, but it might not be "reasonable" in terms of the amount of time available for play.

Ok, your confusion seems now to be about what it means to take a reasonable amount of time to play. Have you heard of a deck called Time Warp in modern?

I think I know the one you're talking about, yeah.

Can you even begin to comprehend the disproportionate amount of play time that the pilot of that decks gets?

I think now what you're inching toward is the fact that Slow Play in practice isn't really enforced in an ideal way. That's part of why those judges wrote that article I linked in the first place - no one is really quite sure what a reasonable amount of time is, and enforcement is pretty spotty.

But Time Warp tends to spread the time across multiple decisions, yes?

Can you not pretend to know what ideal means?

It's much harder to get called for slow play if you're taking 15 seconds on each of many decisions than if you're trying to take a few minutes for a single one.

You haven't backed up the fact that this deck somehow forces players to take a few minutes on a single decision. You've said it, but you haven't backed it up.

I'm not saying it forces you. What I'm saying is that it's a deck that's slow enough to play to worry about time overall, and it doesn't actually have a huge number of decisions. There are a relatively small number of critical ones, since in many cases you can't just make one then figure out the rest, you have to plan the whole path.

So the total time taken is large, and a lot of that time ends up on a relatively small number of decisions.

But honestly, these details really aren't worth a lot of fussing over. The OP asked what the issues were, and this is one of them. Yes, if you're sufficiently skilled, you'll avoid it, but it's hard to be that skilled, and that was the point underlying the entire question and answers.

Can we stop bringing up how slow the deck is?

It is a totally separate issue. We've established that multiple times.

I agree with you that the deck is slow. Are we good on that front?

Slow in that you will at certain times have to spend quite a while thinking without making a play, right?

No, I want to be extremely clear. There are slow decks and there are slow players. You are going to need another name for decks that present single decisions that are so sufficiently complex that even a skilled player couldn't play the deck without being awarded a Slow Play infraction.

What do you mean when you say the deck is slow, then?

I'll give you an extreme example: A hard-lock, no-chance-of-winning deck.

Okay, that's not how this deck is slow, though.

This isn't a slow control deck.

Right. So let's not confuse the two.

The deck isn't slow. The players playing it are slow.

I thought you said you agreed that the deck was slow, though.

Only because you said it was, but I see now that you misuse the definition.

I'll rephrase: The deck may or may not be slow. The players playing it, according to you, are slow.

Okay, so then what you meant to say was that it is a deck which tends to take a long time to play with in practice?

@Rainbolt according to Stephen Menendian, too, I think?

If you claim that a deck somehow causes a player to play at an unreasonable pace, then you need to qualify that. Every time you go qualify it, you blame the deck. If it the deck is at fault, then the player is, by definition, not playing at an unreasonable pace.

Okay, well, if you want to go there, what do you mean by "reasonable" - is that "as fast as a skilled, practiced human can really be expected to do, even if that means sitting there for a few minutes thinking without making a play?"

Your question is leading. You first asked for my definition of reasonable, and then told me that reasonable includes "sitting there for a few minutes thinking".

I just provided my best guess based on what I've heard you say. Feel free to tell me how wrong it is, and explain what you actually meant.

"as fast as a skilled, practiced human can really be expected to do" was a decent definition by itself.

Okay, and if the analysis leading to a decent decision, thinking carefully through a sequence of plays and so on, takes a few minutes to do, is that reasonable?

Yes.

Have you established that this particular deck creates such a situation?

It's as though we have had this conversation quite a few times.

Yes, it is - so you must surely recall that I have established that it creates that possibility (more so than non-combo decks), and that as long as it's one of the possibilities, it's a reasonable thing to let the OP know about.

Telling someone with no tournament experience who has no idea why the deck might not be viable "you can't sit there for 5 minutes on turn one pondering whether to go off" is relevant.

You can establish possibility simply by calling it possible and then requiring me to disprove you.

It is also possible that this particular deck takes equally as long to make decisions for than any other.

That is way, way outside the scope of the question. The OP explicitly said they weren't asking for detailed analysis of why this deck runs into the issues, just what issues there are that make it unviable.

I don't need to rewrite Menendian's blog post, including how long it'll actually take you to think through all the decisions.

And you answered that question with "a possibility" of being called for Slow Play despite that claim being totally baseless.

It's sufficient to simply mention that the decisions are difficult and may take you too long sometimes.

You know what? You are absolutely right. I cannot disprove your possibility. There is a chance that this deck may cause players to take a long time making decisions. You should go ahead and make half of your answer about this possibility.

Correction: 40% of your answer

I won't be called on that one twice

This is based on a skilled player saying the deck is difficult to play fast enough, and going through several examples where there are single critical decisions that are difficult to get right.

There you go again.

You blend the two as though it were nothing simply because you cannot understand the line between them.

You can debate about whether you think that the slowness that Menendian mentions will lead you to going over round time or Slow Play, but both are possible.

Did Menendian talk about the player or the deck or both?

Did he say "The deck is difficult to win with quickly" or did he say "Players playing this deck tend to play slowly"?

You realize that the player is playing the deck, right? He discussed them as one, saying that the deck is such that the player will find it difficult to play fast enough.

And clearly he does not think that all decks are unviable for this reason, he said it specifically about this deck.

Which would imply that the deck wins slowly, does it not?

I don't need to go goldfish the deck for a while myself to verify that it tends to be slow to play even with practice, he's done that already.

No, the deck does not win slowly (by your definition) - the actual number of plays necessary to win is not that large.

If you could play back the game with every decision taking only a couple seconds, it would win very quickly.

(As compared to a control deck where it would still take forever)

I just went and actually read the article by Stephen, and he calls the deck not viable because you have to make numerous decisions.

He didn't say that you have to make a few decisions that take a really long time.

He just said that you have to make a lot of decisions in a single turn.

The article was also written 9 years ago.

If you really want to be this picky about it, he said "compress all of the numerous decisions of a typical Vintage game into the space of one turn", suggesting that there are not more decisions than normal, but that somehow you still have trouble making them all fast enough.

No, he suggested that compressing them all into a single turn was relevant.

This is really beside the point again, though: he said it was hard to play fast enough, one way or another.

Why that might be relevant 9 years ago I have no idea. It certainly is not relevant today. You can make a hundred decisions on turn 1 if you need to.

Maybe he didn't phrase it as well as he could have.

Is it true that I can make a hundred decisions on turn one?

Without being called for slow play?

Assuming no loops (that's another story altogether)

If you're not playing fast enough, being called for slow play is certainly one of the possibilities, yes.

You said yes and meant no?

Can I make a hundred decisions on turn one without being called for slow play?

And if you read through the goldfish examples, there are ones where he gives paragraphs of explanation about figuring out which spell to play first, so yes, I think slow play is a possibility here.

Ugh you are being stubborn. You literally just answered my question with Yes when you meant no.

No, I didn't at all.

@Rainbolt Yes, you can, if you make them fast enough. But the issue here is that you're not making a hundred, there are a few critical ones that take a lot of analysis.

If you are not playing fast enough, then "Yes' you can make a hundred decisions without being called for slow play?

That makes zero sense.

You interpreted that as a reply to your most recent statement; it was not.

I apologize for not finishing typing before you did.

I asked a question, and you responded yes with explanation.

"If you're not playing fast enough, being called for slow play is certainly one of the possibilities, yes." is the second part of "This is really beside the point again, though: he said it was hard to play fast enough, one way or another."

I didn't notice that the question had shown up before I finished typing what I was already saying and pressed enter.

"there are a few critical ones that take a lot of analysis" according to whom?

See the article, for example:

"But what do you do regarding the Consult and the Brainstorm?"

Brainstorm and Demonic Consultation have some important synergies. If you Brainstorm then you'll be able to remove the two worst cards from game via Consult. In addition you'll lessen the chance that the card you name is in the top six. The flip side of that is that if you Consult and then Brainstorm you'll dig more deeply through your deck. That's not very compelling compared to the synergy of Brainstorm followed by Consult.

{list of permutations}

We can eliminate any permutation that plays Consult before Land Grant simply because the risk of removing the Bayou is unacceptable. Thus we can eliminate (2) (3) and (4). That leaves us with (1) (5) or (6).

and... that's the first 1/3 or so.

I can see that decision taking a while the first time. And certainly taking longer to write. But why would a player who has been piloting the deck long enough to take it to a Vintage tournament suddenly be in analysis paralysis?

The main reason I don't find that convincing is that the same argument would lead you to think that eventually you'd be able to play the whole deck fast enough to be viable, and clearly Menendian doesn't think that's the case.

You need to add this to your answer.

I need to add that Menendian says it's hard to play fast enough to be viable? And that the reason it's hard is that you have to think about decisions?

I thought those things were fairly clear already.

Every deck requires thinking about decisions.

Okay, rephrasing:

you have to think more about decisions than usual

You never established that the deck is hard to play fast enough. It's not in your answer.

Rephrase: Menendian says that you have to think more about decisions than usual because X, Y, Z.

It doesn't have to be; it's in the blog post, and the OP knew it. He just didn't know how time rules worked in tournaments.

I can add it for the sake of anyone who doesn't want to read the full context and doesn't want to take for granted statements made based on that context, but we don't normally cater to readers in that way.

Done - in a very short form, since I really don't want to distract from the real content here, which is addressing the OP's core question of "why is playing slowly a problem?"

That wasn't the OP's core question.

"I am unfamiliar with tournament timing rules, and don't even know where to begin to understand his claim."

The OP's core question is why some decks are not tournament viable. It's literally the title.

And once again, that article is 9 years old. Do you have any idea when tournament timing rules were even introduced? Do you think they look the same as they did 9 years ago?

And, in now-deleted comments on the question, I asked if he was just asking about timing/rules/etc (and mentioned the round time limit) or if he was asking about the specific deck, and he said he was asking about timing and would accept an answer explaining the round time limit etc.

That part is true, I don't know what they were 9 years ago, though I'm pretty confident they still had limited time per round in some form.

You can't really run a tournament with multiple rounds and many people playing matches if you let rounds go forever.

Ok, the OP said that your answer is acceptable; therefore it is. How can I possibly argue with that?

Why didn't you just start this discussion off with "Op sez ur wrong"

Not just that, I answered the question the OP was asking.

I agree that the title does not convey it well.

I had no idea that you were basing all of this on understanding the question to be asking for analysis of the specific deck.

You based your analysis on a specific deck.

What you didn't do was back it up.

I based my analysis in order to convince you that it was an issue for this deck on that specific deck, yes.

You claimed that this specific deck is prone to causing players to play slowly.

And therefore wrote a huge answer 40% about Slow Play.

Were you writing an answer about this specific deck or not?

If so, back it up. If not, don't assume Slow Play.

If you mention Slow Play, back it up.

If you don't mention Slow play, don't back it up.

It's so easy. I don't understand why this is too hard for you to understand.

Do you think I need to back up "difficult to finish in 50 minutes"?

It's based on exactly the same premises, yet this entire time you've been saying only Slow Play is baseless and unbelievable.

Instead of asking what I meant by replacing it with text of your own, feel free to ask what I meant and quote a specific part of something I said.

I'm tired of avoiding your attempts to pretend I said something that I didn't say.

This entire time you've complained about lack of proof that Slow Play could be an issue, but you've not once mentioned going over round time being an issue.

I am not pretending anything. I asked an honest question - do you think "hard to not go over 50 minutes" needs backing up as well?

Going over round time isn't an issue.

Ok, let me rephrase that.

Going over round time is an issue. Going over round time is not directly related to Slow Play.

Okay, so you think it's obvious and doesn't need explanation that the deck may go over round time?

No, I didn't say that.

Just because we agree on a point does not absolve you of backing up that point in your answer.

Ah, so you the entire time thought that my entire answer was baseless, but also disagreed with the idea that slow play could happen, so you only mentioned the latter?

Gotcha, thanks.

Anyway, I backed it all up as you asked, so I think we're all good.

"the entire time thought that [insert something I never said here]."

You're the one who started a conversation about round time limit.

When did I ever say anything about that prior to you just bringing it up?

You've already told me slow play needed backing up (and was baseless) then just now told me I needed to back up round time limit issues, and that was basically the whole answer, so yes, I think that's what you said.