I disagree due solely to the fact that Dragonstorm you could beat with other decks in the format, the only way to beat that sliver deck in the format was by drafting it, or at the least having it hated hard. Just like every other deck in history there was no other way to beat it than to join it, I only say it wouldnt work again because everyone at the table would be trying to draft it, but thats like saying Academy decks would be bad because everyone in the room was playing them. Again I feel its the one exception to the rule, an you are looking at it from a constructed point of view, from a limited perspective it is literally the only time the format has been play X or lose to X, nothing has even come close ever.

If you've ever taken the SAT's, you should know by now that while all A's are B's, not all B's are necessarily A's. As such, when the format is broken they always ban cards, but when they ban cards the format isn't always broken.

I'm pretty certain that formats have been broken more than just a few times, if your definition of format-breaking is that cards got banned as a result. Those two and Broken Jar, which someone else already mentioned, were just the first that came to my mind. And that's not counting anything before Revised, since all sorts of decks were format-breaking at the time.

Come to think of it, since Vengevine-Survival got Survival banned, would you consider that a deck that broke the format? Lots of cards have been added to the B&R list over the years….

See? I knew I'd forget one, and Memory Jar is absolutely one. Survival Madness and Thopter Depths were not format breaking.

"The Broken Jar" by Erik Lauer and Randy Buehler broke the format and was banned pretty much immidiatly…
"Survival Madness" by Caleb Durward
"DarkDepths ThopterFoundry" by Gerry Thompson

Just to name a few single player format breakings 😛

Also, when people talk about "breaking the format", I think they generally refer to their ability to create a deck that has a very strong percentage against a given field for the next tournament. To this end, something like the UWR deck was insane at the SCG LA event last January, and I think that that deck was a very impressive accomplishment in deck-building and metagaming.

You said it yourself: they were more prepared. You also admitted that if there was another event with the same format that it wouldn't work. If their plan worked for that event but would not work ever again despite the format not changing, then they clearly didn't break it. They won the event and made everyone look stupid because they were unprepared, but that happens all the time. When Dragonstorm using Spinerock Knoll took Worlds did it break the format? Not even close. They prepared better and made everyone look stupid, but as soon as people were expecting Dragonstorm again it was a terrible deck. Same exact thing.

People tried to draft against it and to draft the same strategy all weekend…its not like they did one draft. After talking to Van Lunen about it and watching the film, they were more prepared than anyone else there and they did break it. There was no way to stop the strategy because no one knew which slivers to hate draft. They had it down to a science how to wheel certain ones and which to take first even if it looked wrong. Limited formats in general I agree cant be busted but 2HG is a whole different animal and I feel as if there was another event with the same format after that you would be correct everyone would know and try and draft it then you end up like the Tolarian academy days where you have 3 slight;ly different archtypes trying to share the glory…however for this one time only I would say they did break the format, how else do you explain the fact that everyone knew what they were doing tried to hate against it and still got crushed? Its not like the tech was a secret after saturday everyone knew what they were doing.

I'm hardly in a position to talk since I don't do pro events, but then I'm also not the one running the patter either.

My default, it is impossible to break a limited format, and 2HG slivers isn't even close.
First of all, much like with standard affinity, the first people to draft slivers aren't accomplishing anything; they're unwrapping a present from Wizards. I'm not at all impressed by two guys saying "Hey, all these cards pump each other. Let's draft nothing but them!" Whether they tried it or not, it is the first strategy that every single person to draft Time Spiral thought of.
Second of all, and far more importantly, draft is a self-correcting format. If one draft strategy is disproportionately powerful than all other draft strategies in a particular limited format, the format will be balanced out by more people trying to draft that strategy. If you have a 4 2HG teams drafting at a table and three of them try to draft slivers, chances are the one remaining team will win and those three teams will have borderline unplayable decks. If your strategy only works as long as NO ONE ELSE thinks to do the same thing, you haven't broken a format; you just got lucky.

Thanks for the article a decent read though I feel like sometimes you rant more than you inform but its fine as someone who played through all of this I can understand the frustrations of each.