The main point of your article seems to be this: a strategy should be defined by its answers to overcoming the seven obstacles, not the composition of the deck, and all deck compositions that answer the questions in the same way are in fact the same strategy. But 1) to make this reversal in the “conclusion” that is halfway through the article, you have to assume the common compositional definition of a deck type and everyone has to be on the same page, and 2) you fail to follow through on your new definition in the second half of the article. I will try to make these criticisms clear below.
Your Hermit/Market Square example is a really good example because everyone is clear about what you are talking about. It's a very explicitly defined deck and build order and you link to an article that describes it, so anyone who does not know what you are talking about can get on the same page before reading about its solutions to the obstacles. Great, we know how to build a Hermit/Market Square deck, and now we know that we can think of its definition as not the build order laid out in the linked article, but instead as the solution to overcoming the seven obstacles.
The "Big money (also known as good stuff)" example is actually a pretty terrible example even after the edits. It seems like you are talking about something a lot more ill-defined than the Hermit/Market Square example. The example fails to provide the same cathartic reversal as the Hermit/Market Square example because you do not get us on the same page for the position from which you want to reverse. Then you try to generalize other deck compositions as “big money” based on the answers to the seven obstacles and the disconnect increases because we weren’t on the same page to start.
How exactly do I play a "Big money (also known as good stuff)" strategy mechanically? What’s the composition of the deck? What’s the build order? Not based on your definition, but based on the definition you are trying to refute: the before-the-reversal, composition-based definition.
If it's so simple, why am I (and many others) so confused every time you talk about "Big money (also known as good stuff)" or really any other “strategy”?
Much better would be if you first used Big Money Ultimate (only basic treasure and basic victory cards) as the example. To be really specific, maybe pick a bot in
this thread. Then, after the conclusion, in part 2, generalize. Make the point that how BMU overcomes the seven obstacles applies to other deck compositions, as well, for example, a deck that buys only Mystics. Because they have the same answers, they are the same strategy.
But even this is not obvious. If my answer to #4 for BMU would have been “The high-quality cards you add to your deck are all Basic Treasures”, rather than what you wrote, then the Mystic deck would not be the same strategy as BMU. So you have to impose some kind of generalization in the answers to group deck compositions into strategies. How general can you go while still being useful? It's not obvious.
In Part 2, you NEED to define big money, engine, slog, and rush in the context of the seven obstacles. What exactly are you thinking? I have no clue based on your article and responses to comments in the thread. (Well, maybe more for engine because you endorse faust’s post.) Because answering the seven obstacles at the right level of generalization is not trivial, you cannot leave it to the reader as an exercise. You need to do the work to lay them all out yourself because clearly people do not agree with you.
Even more confusingly, in part 2, you define a new deck type (stockpile) by deck composition rather than in your new way: the answers to the seven articles. In fact, you never outline its solutions to the seven obstacles at all. Further, in the comments you go back and forth between deck composition definitions and seven obstacles definitions as it suits you which is very confusing.
I think it’s important that you are very explicit about laying out all of these definitions for big money, rush, slog, combo, and engine in the article because I really do not understand your distinctions and I do not agree with your characterization of WW’s articles on the deck types. I think if you are more clear, there would be less confusion.
For example, you say:
the concept of there being a continuum between big money and engine with all sorts of strategies with different numbers of moving parts in between was invented by you and I never heard of it before today.
But Wandering Winder says:
Basically, [big money] gets the bulk of its income from treasures bigger than copper, so silver, gold, platinum, fool’s gold, venture, etc. It also doesn’t cycle particularly quickly.
and
there are a number of different types of Big Money deck… Terminal Draw… Terminal Non-Draw… Engine Hybrid… Treasure Flood
Under Engine Hybrid:
Also, you will sometimes add a little nonterminal draw to the terminal non-draw money deck, and this can maintain a money feel. Do both, and you are creeping into engine territory. A weak dividing line is how often you will pass up gold for a cheaper component, though this isn’t foolproof.
and
Of course, every deck is different, and every particular kingdom is different. And there aren’t necessarily big bright dividing lines between all five deck types – indeed, I think every type fits fairly nicely ‘between’ two others, and at some point, the two can bleed into each other.
So it is incorrect of you to say you have never heard of the concept of a continuum between big money and engine. It’s right in the WW articles you supposedly agree with and are expanding upon.
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In short, I agree very much with
I think this is a useful article, but I think the title puts the focus in the wrong place. In my opinion, the valuable insight here is thinking about the "obstacles" and the need to determine a strategy that can address each one.