Ha! The point I was raising in my previous article is only reinforced today. Check out Tom LaPille's article, especially the Vintage section. This is really annoying.
Peace,
-Troy
Friday, June 25, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
The Stagnation Continues
Heya,
So the June B/R announcement comes and goes without any changes for Vintage. One person on TheManaDrain said, "The format is really diverse right now. I'm not sure that unrestricting cards is the way to go right now." Diverse? Maybe, maybe not. One thing is for sure, the format is stagnant.
Since September of '08, we've had Mana Drain-Time Vault decks, Shop-Prison Decks, and Disruptive Agro decks dominating the format. Dredge moves up and down but remains only slightly tweaked and at the bottom of the major archetype list. Oath zig-zags more wildly as the new fattie of the quarter gets released in the newest set, makes an impact, and then people adjust.
In fact, Oath is probably the only place real innovation has happened recently. Instead of fast fatties like Akroma, Razia, and Helkite, the archetype has moved to disruptive fatties like Iona, Terrastadon, and on occasion Emrakul.
The only really interesting debate, IMO, that has gone on for a long time is whether or not Trinisphere and Black Lotus belong in MUD lists anymore. The Black Lotus discussion would have been much more interesting if those same lists didn't include Mana Vault. I guess the toying around with Mystic Remora was interesting too. But anyway, I digress.
It's unfortunate, IMO, that there are several fun decks that are on the sidelines because they can't really break into the format right now. Goblins are out. Bomberman is dead. Elf combo is out. R/G Beatz is out. Dark Ritual Combo is virtually out. Dragon Combo is out despite Entomb's unrestriction. Grow decks are out. Slaver is out. The format could be so much more diverse and dynamic but it's stifled thanks, in large part, to poor management of the B/R List.
I want to go back to the Golden Age of Vintage (Summer '07-Summer '08). I want to take a look at three "decks" (I use that term very loosely here) from that era: Gush Decks, Flash Decks, and Agro Decks.
Gush was such a dynamic source of innovation from that time. Obviously GAT came out first since everyone remembered it from the first Gush era. Followed by Empty Gifts. Then a whole string of innovative decks like Next Level Doomsday, The Tropical Storm, and Tyrant Oath. It all finally culminated in MS Paint just before the restrictions of June 2008.
"Oh c'mon, Troy. That's not innovation. That's just switching the win condition around." Um, well that may be, but when you witch from Quirion Dryad to Tidespout Tyrant as your win condition, that's a major shift in strategy and more importantly, a major shift in counter-strategy. When you go from a storm kill to Painter-Grindstone, that's a major shift in strategy. And the cards that work against one, won't against the other.
When you switch from Inkwell Leviathan to Sphinx of the Steel Wind, that's not a major shift in strategy. When you go from 9 Sphere to 13 Sphere, that's not a major switch in strategy. When you add Show and Tell to an Oath deck, you're not changing the basic function of the deck. That's just making the decks more efficient which only squeezes other decks out of the meta.
Okay, let's go back and look at Agro decks from the Golden Age. The knee jerk reaction I always hear is, "There weren't any back then. It was all Gush!" What a bunch of crap. First, let me highlight one deck I thought was particularly cool during this era: "Gob-Lines". Remember that Dredge, Flash, TPS, and Gush relied a lot on the graveyard at the time. Gob-Lines main-decked Leyline of the Void, Wastelands, and Earwig Squad to fight those decks. This was totally awesome and a nightmare for those decks that faced it. TPS would lose its Tendrils. Tyrant Oath would lose its Tyrants. Flash couldn't function. Dredge folded like a house of cards. What made this deck so cool in my mind is that the age old tribal deck of Goblins went from an all-in agro deck, to a disruptive agro deck. Pilots had to change their mindset and rightfully so. The meta was shifting constantly and so should the strategies to compete against it. Gob-Lines never got much traction, though. Shortly after Earwig Squad was released, Gush and Flash got restricted and reliance on the graveyard diminished- especially after the printing of Tez.
But that wasn't the only agro deck of note at the time. Everyone forgets (or nearly everyone) that a simple R/G Beatz deck won a SCG Power 9 tournament in Chicago. Yep, a deck sporting bland critters like Kird Ape and Skyshroud Elite and burn spells demolished a well tuned meta of Gush and Shop. The deck got picked up in tournaments everywhere and became a real contender- until the restrictions. It didn't pack a lot of disruptive creatures- maybe Gorilla Shaman or Viashino Heretic. It just beat face to win. Good luck with anything like that winning now.
Finally, let me talk about Flash for a minute. Flash went through a lot of mutations. First, to bust a myth, the Turn Zero Kill deck sporting Gemstone Cavern, Disciple of the Vault, and X cost artifact creatures probably never existed. Or, if it did, performed so horribly it never posted any top 8 results. In Vintage, Flash had three major incarnations. One was a Sliver deck. It used Venomous Sliver and Heart Sliver to kill with poison counters. Poison counters, people! What competitive deck ever won with poison counters in a constructed format? It's gotta be the only instance of this happening in Magic's history. That's incredible. Sadly, it's mostly forgotten.
Another incarnation was a combo with Kikki-Jiki Mirror Breaker. This one was really complex and had all sorts of vulnerabilities to cards like Pithing Needle, burn spells, and Tormod's Crypt in addition to LotV. It honestly, didn't work that well and still required an attack.
The last form of the deck was Reveilark kill with Mogg Fanatic. This was definitely the best. Unlike the other two, you didn't need to attack to win. And you could win at instant speed with the "lost the game" triggers of Summoner's Pact and Pact of Negation on the stack. That was the real innovation of the deck. Eschewing the combat phase for a true combo trick. It radically changed the way people had to play against it. That's when Flash spiked up to a whopping 12.5% of the top 8 meta. wow. The decks adjusted quickly, MS Paint hit the scene, and Flash was back down below 10%.
But the thing is, the deck totally changed the way it won. It went from attacking to pinging. That's a much greater shift in tactics than tossing in the newest robot, fattie, or duplicate printing that we've been stuck doing for the last two years.
And you know, I'm not even going into how Slaver Decks, Masknought Decks, Shop Decks, Ritual Decks, Fish, and off-the-wall Rogue Decks innovated during this period. Every couple of months the meta game changed to a point where it was different, exciting, and engaging. You could never rest. You had to constantly update your main deck and your sideboard.
This latest decision by the DCI just keeps the status quo. It doesn't change the dynamic that's been at work for the last 22 months. And it's hard to see how this will change through printings thanks to RnD's decision to put more emphasis on crashing creatures into each other while at the same time de-emphasizing wins that use spells and new engines.
So, we're kinda stuck. The DCI has said they want to keep Vintage to 5 pillars. RnD has said they want to emphasize the creature and planeswaler card types over instants, sorceries, artifacts, and lands. Therefore, the likelihood of a new pillar or engine for Vintage is extremely low. It follows then, that for the foreseeable future, change is unlikely. The best we can hope for is deck tweaking.
-Troy
So the June B/R announcement comes and goes without any changes for Vintage. One person on TheManaDrain said, "The format is really diverse right now. I'm not sure that unrestricting cards is the way to go right now." Diverse? Maybe, maybe not. One thing is for sure, the format is stagnant.
Since September of '08, we've had Mana Drain-Time Vault decks, Shop-Prison Decks, and Disruptive Agro decks dominating the format. Dredge moves up and down but remains only slightly tweaked and at the bottom of the major archetype list. Oath zig-zags more wildly as the new fattie of the quarter gets released in the newest set, makes an impact, and then people adjust.
In fact, Oath is probably the only place real innovation has happened recently. Instead of fast fatties like Akroma, Razia, and Helkite, the archetype has moved to disruptive fatties like Iona, Terrastadon, and on occasion Emrakul.
The only really interesting debate, IMO, that has gone on for a long time is whether or not Trinisphere and Black Lotus belong in MUD lists anymore. The Black Lotus discussion would have been much more interesting if those same lists didn't include Mana Vault. I guess the toying around with Mystic Remora was interesting too. But anyway, I digress.
It's unfortunate, IMO, that there are several fun decks that are on the sidelines because they can't really break into the format right now. Goblins are out. Bomberman is dead. Elf combo is out. R/G Beatz is out. Dark Ritual Combo is virtually out. Dragon Combo is out despite Entomb's unrestriction. Grow decks are out. Slaver is out. The format could be so much more diverse and dynamic but it's stifled thanks, in large part, to poor management of the B/R List.
I want to go back to the Golden Age of Vintage (Summer '07-Summer '08). I want to take a look at three "decks" (I use that term very loosely here) from that era: Gush Decks, Flash Decks, and Agro Decks.
Gush was such a dynamic source of innovation from that time. Obviously GAT came out first since everyone remembered it from the first Gush era. Followed by Empty Gifts. Then a whole string of innovative decks like Next Level Doomsday, The Tropical Storm, and Tyrant Oath. It all finally culminated in MS Paint just before the restrictions of June 2008.
"Oh c'mon, Troy. That's not innovation. That's just switching the win condition around." Um, well that may be, but when you witch from Quirion Dryad to Tidespout Tyrant as your win condition, that's a major shift in strategy and more importantly, a major shift in counter-strategy. When you go from a storm kill to Painter-Grindstone, that's a major shift in strategy. And the cards that work against one, won't against the other.
When you switch from Inkwell Leviathan to Sphinx of the Steel Wind, that's not a major shift in strategy. When you go from 9 Sphere to 13 Sphere, that's not a major switch in strategy. When you add Show and Tell to an Oath deck, you're not changing the basic function of the deck. That's just making the decks more efficient which only squeezes other decks out of the meta.
Okay, let's go back and look at Agro decks from the Golden Age. The knee jerk reaction I always hear is, "There weren't any back then. It was all Gush!" What a bunch of crap. First, let me highlight one deck I thought was particularly cool during this era: "Gob-Lines". Remember that Dredge, Flash, TPS, and Gush relied a lot on the graveyard at the time. Gob-Lines main-decked Leyline of the Void, Wastelands, and Earwig Squad to fight those decks. This was totally awesome and a nightmare for those decks that faced it. TPS would lose its Tendrils. Tyrant Oath would lose its Tyrants. Flash couldn't function. Dredge folded like a house of cards. What made this deck so cool in my mind is that the age old tribal deck of Goblins went from an all-in agro deck, to a disruptive agro deck. Pilots had to change their mindset and rightfully so. The meta was shifting constantly and so should the strategies to compete against it. Gob-Lines never got much traction, though. Shortly after Earwig Squad was released, Gush and Flash got restricted and reliance on the graveyard diminished- especially after the printing of Tez.
But that wasn't the only agro deck of note at the time. Everyone forgets (or nearly everyone) that a simple R/G Beatz deck won a SCG Power 9 tournament in Chicago. Yep, a deck sporting bland critters like Kird Ape and Skyshroud Elite and burn spells demolished a well tuned meta of Gush and Shop. The deck got picked up in tournaments everywhere and became a real contender- until the restrictions. It didn't pack a lot of disruptive creatures- maybe Gorilla Shaman or Viashino Heretic. It just beat face to win. Good luck with anything like that winning now.
Finally, let me talk about Flash for a minute. Flash went through a lot of mutations. First, to bust a myth, the Turn Zero Kill deck sporting Gemstone Cavern, Disciple of the Vault, and X cost artifact creatures probably never existed. Or, if it did, performed so horribly it never posted any top 8 results. In Vintage, Flash had three major incarnations. One was a Sliver deck. It used Venomous Sliver and Heart Sliver to kill with poison counters. Poison counters, people! What competitive deck ever won with poison counters in a constructed format? It's gotta be the only instance of this happening in Magic's history. That's incredible. Sadly, it's mostly forgotten.
Another incarnation was a combo with Kikki-Jiki Mirror Breaker. This one was really complex and had all sorts of vulnerabilities to cards like Pithing Needle, burn spells, and Tormod's Crypt in addition to LotV. It honestly, didn't work that well and still required an attack.
The last form of the deck was Reveilark kill with Mogg Fanatic. This was definitely the best. Unlike the other two, you didn't need to attack to win. And you could win at instant speed with the "lost the game" triggers of Summoner's Pact and Pact of Negation on the stack. That was the real innovation of the deck. Eschewing the combat phase for a true combo trick. It radically changed the way people had to play against it. That's when Flash spiked up to a whopping 12.5% of the top 8 meta. wow. The decks adjusted quickly, MS Paint hit the scene, and Flash was back down below 10%.
But the thing is, the deck totally changed the way it won. It went from attacking to pinging. That's a much greater shift in tactics than tossing in the newest robot, fattie, or duplicate printing that we've been stuck doing for the last two years.
And you know, I'm not even going into how Slaver Decks, Masknought Decks, Shop Decks, Ritual Decks, Fish, and off-the-wall Rogue Decks innovated during this period. Every couple of months the meta game changed to a point where it was different, exciting, and engaging. You could never rest. You had to constantly update your main deck and your sideboard.
This latest decision by the DCI just keeps the status quo. It doesn't change the dynamic that's been at work for the last 22 months. And it's hard to see how this will change through printings thanks to RnD's decision to put more emphasis on crashing creatures into each other while at the same time de-emphasizing wins that use spells and new engines.
So, we're kinda stuck. The DCI has said they want to keep Vintage to 5 pillars. RnD has said they want to emphasize the creature and planeswaler card types over instants, sorceries, artifacts, and lands. Therefore, the likelihood of a new pillar or engine for Vintage is extremely low. It follows then, that for the foreseeable future, change is unlikely. The best we can hope for is deck tweaking.
Yay.
Peace,
-Troy
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
An Open Letter about the Vintage B/R List
Dear Members of the DCI,
I am writing to you to discuss the current state of the Vintage Banned/Restricted list. Each year, this list receives a thorough examination by the Vintage community and by the DCI. In the past, the DCI has been very receptive to community feedback about the B/R list. I hope that continues. In this letter, I examine several cards that have been discussed in the community as candidates for unrestriction. I lay out several reasons each could come off the list in your next update. I hope that what I have written is helpful and illuminating. Cards are listed in alphabetical order.
Balance
Many years ago, Balance was overlooked in Magic. Its symmetry made it difficult to use and the fact that it hit what, at the time, were the game’s three most important resources caused confusion on how to really use it best. Then came along The Deck. Brian Weissman showed just how strong the card was and voilla, people suddenly understood the card and put it to good use. In a short period of time, you had Maysonet Rack Balance. Not too long after, the card is put on the restricted list where it has remained.
I’ll risk stating the obvious and say that the metagame has changed since then. What made Balance so broken back then was that it was a Wrath of God, Armageddon, and Mind Twist all wrapped into one card for a measly 1W. However, I submit that those effects are now no longer powerful in Vintage and that Balance’s casting cost is hardly too little for its effect.
Let’s start with Balance’s Mind Twist effect. Knocking your opponent down to 1 or 2 cards is really great… at least in theory. Mind Twist has been unrestricted for some time now and has not been a factor in Vintage magic whatsoever. It fails to even appear in mono-black suicide decks that could easily ramp it up with Dark Ritual. One reason for its lack of impact is that the graveyard is hardly a place players don’t have access to. The graveyard, in Vintage, is just and extension of one’s hand in many cases. Dredge decks, Crucible of Worlds, Yawgmoth’s Will, and Goblin Welder take great advantage of the graveyard and represent no small portion of the Vintage metagame. There are plenty of decks that one would face in a Vintage tournament where Balance’s “Mind Twist” effect is more of a liability than a boon.
The Armageddon effect of Balance has almost been entirely neutralized. A majority of Vintage games run only 4 to 5 turns and are often locked up sooner than that. In that amount of time, it is much harder to build up a sizeable land disparity between players. The reason is that there are so many viable sources of cheap artifact mana. Two of the best decks in the metagame Tez-control and MUD use a full compliment of artifact mana. They don’t rely on having a large number of lands in play to cast their spells. Two or three at the most will do just fine. Also consider that other strong contenders in Vintage like Dredge decks and Oath of Druids decks play few lands. Add do that, Crucible of Worlds and Life from the Loam showing up in many different archetypes, and it is easy to see how the Armageddon effect has lost most if not all of its potency. As a strategy, using Balance to blow up your opponent’s lands is just not viable anymore.
Finally, the Wrath of God effect. There are lots of agro decks in Vintage. Fish and X/G Beatz decks are large factors in any tournament. So Balance’s 1W casting cost to clear the board should be the perfect answer, right? Well, if it were, wouldn’t decks play it as a singleton and then use any one of their three to five tutors to get it? The fact is, Balance isn’t even played as a sideboard card. What is played, however, is Sower of Temptation. A control player would gladly pay 2UU to steal a single creature rather than 1W to wipe the board. This is where Balance’s casting cost comes in. 1W is actually a harder casting cost to manage in a current Vintage Magic deck than 2UU. There are just not enough incentives to squeeze in white for a single card when there are plenty of cards in more powerful colors that can do essentially the same thing or better. Consider that powerful white cards like Land Tax, Agrivian Find, Abeyance, and Enlightened Tutor see next to no play. It, therefore, doesn’t take a great leap of faith to suggest that Balance too will see little or no play in Vintage.
If Balance were to find a home in Vintage, it would almost certainly not be in blue-based Force/Drain decks. It could be in five color Mishra’s Workshop decks that can mitigate the symmetry of sacrificing creatures/lands and discarding cards thanks to Goblin Welder and Crucible of Worlds. Even so, using the card would not be easy since Workshop mana can’t be used to cast it, Dredge decks are always part of the metagame, and one mana counterspells like Spell Snare and Spell Pierce are very popular (Spell Pierce has made Morphing.de’s top ten most played Vintage spell list several times in the past few months). Thus, while Balance may be advantageous for a particular pillar of the metagame, it is not likely it will have much of an impact on the overall environment.
Burning Wish
It is somewhat bewildering as to why Burning Wish is still on the restricted list. It’s a type of tutor and as a rule, tutors are given extra consideration for the B/R list. I understand that, but a lot has changed since it was first placed there. First, Lion’s Eye Diamond was restricted. LED allowed you to tutor for a card, sacrifice the Diamond in response, then be able to cast the card you just tutored for. Without 4 LED, all tutors were weakened to some degree. However, the greatest weakening of Burning Wish came with the M10 rules. It can no longer retrieve cards from the Exile zone. Getting back your Yawgmoth’s Will or sorceries exiled by Tormod’s Crypt is no longer possible with Burning Wish. Since this was a major facet of that card’s power in Vintage, Burning Wish is only a shell of its former self.
Let’s look at some similar cards. Personal Tutor is unrestricted and can search for Sorceries. It’s a blue card- automatically making it better- and costs one less mana. It’s topdeck feature is certainly a powerful drawback, but so is Burning Wish’s ability to only be able to search the sideboard. Grim Tutor is easily cast in Dark Ritual decks and can search for anything, not just sorceries. And yet, neither Personal Tutor nor Grim Tutor see much play at all in Vintage. They haven’t been in the top 50 cards on Morphling.de in who knows how long. Cunning Wish has been unrestricted all along and gets blue instants- the most powerful cards in Magic! However, almost no one in the community has advocated for its restriction. If cards as good if not better than Burning Wish can be safely unrestricted, one has to wonder why Burning Wish can’t be unrestricted too.
Decks that might potentially benefit most from an unrestricted Burning Wish would perhaps be Dark Ritual Decks or red-based Null Rod decks. Ritual decks might still try to take advantage of Wish’s ability to fetch Yawgmoth’s Will from the sideboard, but this is unlikely for a number of reasons. First, they can already play Grim Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Demonic Tutor, and Vampiric Tutor to fetch Yawg’s Will. Ritual decks pack massive numbers of draw spells that let them draw into Will and then recycle them a second time after casting it. Taking out more versatile cards like tutors or draw spells for more narrow cards like wishes is generally not a good idea in Vintage. Red Null Rod decks might try Burning Wish to search for answer cards that can destroy artifacts or creatures. This would certainly make those decks more competitive and flexible, but even so, it’s hard to imagine a red deck taking out cards like Gorilla Shaman, Ancient Grudge, Pyroblast, or Magus of the Moon to make room for Burning Wish. It is very likely that Burning Wish will end up in the dustbin right along Personal Tutor, Cunning Wish, and Grim Tutor.
Flash
Flash was restricted with a whole batch of blue cards in June 2008 in an attempt to correct the Vintage metagame. The results of the Legacy tournament in Columbus Ohio about a year prior were certainly a factor. The idea that a turn zero win was possible was also part of that decision according to the article on magicthegathering.com that explained the restriction. The thing is, all the assumptions about Flash were just not bourn out by the tournament data.
First, Legacy is not Vintage. Flash dominated in Columbus way back when, but according to Stephen Menendian’s research, the BEST Flash decks ever did in Vintage was make up 10% of the top 8’s. Just as a frame of reference, Gush decks peaked out at 25% and Tez decks around 45%. Flash was never a major factor in Vintage tournament victories but instead challenged players to build very flexible sideboards. It is easy to argue that Flash improved Vintage diversity and the metagame suffered as a result its restriction.
Second, to my knowledge (and I have searched very, very hard) there has never been a recorded instance of a turn zero Flash win in a Vintage tournament of any size. It may have happened somewhere, but there is just no record of it ever occurring that I have found, and it certainly never happened at a major tournament. There was a lot of hysteria at the time about it being possible, but the route to achieve a turn zero kill is so inconsistent, few people- if any people at all- ventured in that direction. Succinctly, the turn zero kill was never a concern for the Vintage community.
Finally, Flash was most weakened by the other restrictions made at the time, namely Brainstorm, Ponder, and Merchant Scroll. These cards were not just helpful for Flash decks, they were absolutely critical. Flash’s strength lied totally in its speed. If it could not win quickly, it could not win at all. The combo is so easily thwarted with cards like Pithing Needle, Leyline of the Void, Ravenous Trap, and Tormod’s Crypt. With the June 2008 restrictions, Flash lost 9 of its best cards, and the de facto replacement for those cards (Thirst for Knowledge) is now also restricted. Without Ponder to dig through a deck, without Merchant Scroll of quickly tutor up Flash, without Brainstorm to shuffle back the multiple combo pieces from a player’s hand, Flash loses almost all of its viability.
In comparing it to other cards, Flash is most like Entomb in many respects. Each take 2 cards in-hand to win. Each can go off (with a lot of luck) on turn 1. Each can manipulate cards in the graveyard infinitely. Each combo is most likely going to be backed up with Duress and cheap countermagic. When Entomb was unrestricted there was a lot of fear that Worldgorger Dragon combo decks would take over the format. It never happened. The combo is too fragile, too hard to piece together, and too inconsistent anymore. Once upon a time it was powerful, but things have changed. Flash is in the same boat. Without all the blue deck manipulation, the Flash combo is too fragile, too hard to piece together, and too inconsistent. I believe Entomb demonstrates quite well that cards that are win conditions can, for the most part, be unrestricted so long as the support cards like Brainstorm, Ponder, and Merchant Scroll remain on the restricted list.
Currently, Flash is the ONLY card on the Vintage B/R list that deals exclusively with creatures. That makes it totally unique and quite historical. The DCI has had a history for many years now of not restricting cards that interact solely with creature cards. This includes cards like Worldly Tutor and Gaea’s Cradle which look similar to other cards on the B/R list. It seems remarkable and quite inconsistent that Flash is restricted in light of past DCI policy. That alone, I believe, should put Flash into consideration for unrestriction.
I realize that Flash may fall under the “Force of Will” pillar, and that the DCI is trying to balance that pillar against the others. However, a close look at Vintage reveals that Null Rod decks, Dark Ritual Decks, and Bazaar of Baghdad Decks quite often use Force of Will as well. I feel it is much more constructive to look at Force of Will + Mana Drain decks as a pillar. Flash would not likely fit into that category. Old Flash decks used Force of Will and Pact of Negation to back up their combo because they didn’t cost any mana. They did not use Mana Drain because it would mean that they would need 1UUU to cast Flash with protection. That is a very, very difficult mana cost to achieve in Vintage. It is highly unlikely that Flash would turn to Mana Drain for help.
Consequently, Flash decks would be very different from the other Force/Drain decks in Vintage. More than likely, Flash players would use cards like Spell Pierce and Pact of Negation to back up their combo. This may especially be true since the number of blue draw spells available to Flash is now more limited than before. Thus, a new avenue of deckbuilding would open up for Vintage enthusiasts. And new avenues of deckbuilding are what Vintage is all about.
Gush
The situation with Gush is a lot like the situation with Flash. Gush decks were strong not because of Gush or even because of the Gush-Fastbond combo. Their real power came from Brainstorm, Ponder, and Merchant scroll. Chaining Gushes consecutively on the same turn allowed players to quickly draw into their win condition. Thanks to the June 2008 restrictions, Gush decks, like Flash decks, have lost 9 of their best cards. The replacements are laughable. Slight of Hand, Opt, and Strategic Planning would have to be subbed in. These cards are clearly not even close to the power level of other Vintage staples. Also, since Gush was restricted we have had three VERY significant printings. Ethersworn Canonist, Mindbreak Trap, and Lodestone Golem are massive factors in Vintage and would be even more so with Gush unrestricted. These three new cards along with Gaddok Teeg and Thorn of Amethyst from Lorwyn Block present a formidable obstacle for Gush decks to overcome.
It’s easy to think that Gush decks were the supreme masters of the Vintage metagame back in the second Gush Era. However, according to the data gathered by Stephen Menendian, Gush based decks were evenly matched with Mishra’s Worskshop decks. Each made up 25% of the metagame. And if you look at the metagame at the time, it was the most diverse Vintage had ever been. 49% of the metagame was “Rest of the Field.” That means people could build and play nearly any kind of deck they wanted because the Gush and Shop decks were so focused on beating each other, they couldn’t worry about anything else. This time period was widely hailed as the Golden Age of Vintage, and despite the minor grumblings at the time (there was always be minor grumblings no matter what you do), people were generally happy with the format.
And just to give a word about Gush’s diversity back then. Gush supported six distinct archetypes at the same time- GAT, Empty Gifts, Next Level Doomsday, MS Paint, The Tropical Storm, and Tyrant Oath. Diversity is the lifeblood of any format. Each of the archetypes I just listed required a different set of tactics to beat. Tyrant Oath was nothing like Next Level Doomsday. MS Paint was nothing like GAT. During the 2nd Gush Era, the Golden Age, whatever you want to call it, Vintage had its greatest diversity. It was a tremendous and exciting time to play.
Gush is its own Vintage pillar. It would use Force of Will, but as I demonstrated earlier, many of the other pillars do as well. Gush relies on drawing lots of cards to win. This is not much different from Dark Ritual decks that use most of the restricted list to do the same thing. Unlike the current Force of Will/Mana Drain decks that can overly dominate the top 8’s from time to time, Gush decks have a specific weakness to Workshop Prison decks and to mana denial strategies like Wasteland, Sphere of Resistance/Trinisphere, and Magus of the Moon. Unrestricting Gush would cause a shakeup in Vintage and either realign the dominant archetypes OR add a brand new set of archetypes to the mix.
It’s not like the other pillars would be defenseless against it. Null Rod decks have Ethersworn Canonist, Rule of Law, Quasili Pridemage, and Gaddok Teeg to counter Gush’s drawing potential; Shop decks have Thorn of Amethyst, Sphere of Resistance, Trinisphere, and Lodestone Golem. Mana Drain decks have Spell Pierce, Mindbreak Trap, Ravenous Trap, and the recently re-discovered Mystic Remora. Therefore the other pillars of the format have the tools and are very capable of fending off a challenge from Gush decks. Consequently, I strongly believe Gush can be unrestricted.
Imperial Seal
Tutors are tricky in Vintage. They unlock so many lines of play. They are the grease for the decks’ engines. The more powerful ones are restricted. The less powerful ones are unplayed. Imperial Seal, I think, straddles the fence. It’s powerful since it can retrieve any card. However, it is weak because it casts at sorcery speed and costs you 2 life.
The sorcery speed of Imperial Seal is its greatest drawback. It means that the caster is giving up card advantage and flexibility for card selection. As with all formats, card advantage is important in Vintage. Cards that are disadvantageous are seldom played. I think this is why Imperial Seal has gone unused for the most part in Vintage. Players generally don’t like giving up cards now for cards next turn. Despite the fact that it fetches anything, Imperial Seal has not found a home in Vintage outside a few Storm decks and Workshop decks, and it’s hardly required in most of the builds. When evaluating Imperial Seal versus draw spells, discard spells, or other tutors, it just loses out because of its slow benefits.
Not only is Imperial Seal slow, the loss of two life it causes is no trivial matter in Vintage anymore. Consider the life attrition many decks face already. Fetch Lands, Force of Will, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Thoughtseize, Dark Confidant, and Vampiric Tutor see wide play across many pillars and archetypes. Never mind other outlying life-sinks like Ancient Tomb, Necropotence, Yawgmoth’s Bargain, Ad Nauseam, City of Brass, Night’s Whisper, and Skeletal Scrying. Spending down one’s life to play cards has become routine in Vintage Magic. It’s not uncommon to inflict six or more “damage” to one’s self during a game. That’s almost of third of a player’s life points. Against agro decks, six damage is not an insignificant amount.
Consider then, playing 4 Imperial Seals in a deck. Casting it twice in a game results in –2 card advantage and –4 life. One way of looking it is skipping two draws and giving your opponent and extra attack without him having to spend any resources to accomplish that. Casting it three times in a game results in even steeper losses. Adding it all up, it’s easy to see how a deck with four Imperial Seals could easily cause its player to lose 10 or more life during the course of the game without the other player having to do much of anything. The benefits of better card selection quickly become outweighed by the opportunity costs and life point costs of this card.
In addition, after a player resolves an Imperial Seal, he is effectively cutting himself off from using any fetch lands or other tutors to react to his opponent until he draws the top card of his library. That is significant in Vintage where the board state can change very rapidly. Imperial Seal does not see widespread play now because few players want to limit their options to that degree. Value is placed more on flexibility.
The history of tutors and the B/R list for Vintage is interesting to say the least. Mystical Tutor and Vampiric Tutor are so powerful they must be restricted. However, Enlightened Tutor, Personal Tutor, and Grim Tutor are not. Burning Wish is restricted. Cunning Wish isn’t. Imperial Seal is restricted but hardly used. Some of the best cards Imperial Seal can go and fetch are most like Tinker, Yawgmoth’s Will, Black Lotus, a Storm card, Time Vault, or Voltaic Key. But unrestricted one mana tutors like Personal Tutor and Enlightened Tutor can already do that and they almost never make an appearance in decklists. If tutors that already do the job of Imperial Seal can be safely unrestricted, it stands to reason that Imperial Seal can be unrestricted as well.
The most likely two pillars to use Imperial Seal would be Dark Ritual decks and Mishra’s Workshop decks. Five color Shop Decks could use the Seal to tutor up their next lock piece or an answer to the opponent’s strategy that they don’t need RIGHT NOW. Since Ritual decks have lots of draw spells, they could use Imperial Seal to find the last piece to their Storm puzzle they need so they can combo out. However, Ritual decks would have to watch their life attrition carefully and drawing into more Imperial Seals after playing a Draw 7 isn’t all that great unless you get more draw spells with the mana to cast them all at the same time. As mentioned earlier, Ritual decks are under-performing in the current meta game and could use some help. Five color Shop decks already have access to many tutors to grab what they need out of their libraries so it’s questionable how much extra oomph Imperial Seal would give them. Given all of this, I believe it is quite safe to unrestrict Imperial Seal for Vintage.
Mana Vault
The best argument for unrestricting Mana Vault can be made by comparing it to other cards like it. Consider that the following cards are all unrestricted in Vintage: Mox Diamond, Chrome Mox, Grim Monolith, Everflowing Chalice, Dark Ritual, and Cabal Ritual. The two Mox cards were unrestricted to no effect at all. They have a zero casting cost and can provide on-color mana. That sounds powerful on the surface, but Vintage Players haven’t found a way to take advantage of it. These cards showed that not all artifact mana is dangerous. Later, Grim Monolith was unrestricted. This one took a little longer due to the memory of the Power Artifact combo still being in the psyche of Vintage enthusiasts. Again, though, unrestricting Grim Monolith has had absolutely no effect on the Vintage metagame.
However, I think there are better analogies in Magic for Mana Vault. All along, Dark Ritual and Cabal Ritual have been unrestricted. They provide three (or more) on-color mana at instant speed. That’s something Mana Vault cannot do. And like Mana Vault, they are effectively one use mana sources. True, Mana Vault can be untapped with Voltaic Key. But the Rituals can be reused with Yawgmoth’s Will. So I think the comparison between these cards is fair. If those two spells, along with the other artifact mana sources can exist as unrestricted without degenerating the metgame, it reasonable to ask why Mana Vault shouldn’t be unrestricted. It’s hard to imagine it being much more powerful than any of those cards.
The best place for unrestricted Mana Vault would be in Goblin Charbelcher decks. It would give them easy access to three colorless mana and likely replace the seldom used Grim Monolith. Mishra’s Workshop decks may use it, but with the plethora of other artifact mana sources, it’s hard to see how much gain there would be in replacing lock pieces or lands with these. Mana Drain decks would be loathe to take out other cards more pertinent to their strategy just for some one time use mana acceleration. Indeed, the fact that Mana Vault can basically only be used once limits a player’s flexibility with the card and makes it more likely to be used in a wacky combo deck or in a budget prison deck that doesn’t run Mishra’s Workshop. Mana Vault can be safely unrestricted.
Mind’s Desire
The Storm mechanic, without a doubt, changed Magic: The Gathering. The reviews are certainly mixed. I’ll quote Aaron Forsythe on it, “Nothing good ever came of that abomination.” Given the context of that quote (namely the Standard and Extended environment during the Dragonstorm Era) it’s understandable. However, Vintage is a different animal and one that is probably not given much thought by the design team- although we definitely appreciate the fun new cards they’ve been sending our way over the last few sets.
A card like Disciple of the Vault for example may break Standard or Extended in half, but in Vintage it never really did find a home of any kind. When it comes to Storm cards, there have been several prove themselves powerful enough to make it into tournament play. For the most part, these are Brain Freeze, Mind’s Desire, Empty the Warrens, Grapeshot, and Tendrils of Agony. Looking back over the decklists that have included these cards since their release, it is very interesting to note that few, if any decks, ran more than two copies of a single storm spell. In fact, for the vast majority of decks that used them, only one copy of can be found in their lists. The reason is that any more than that would just be redundant and unhelpful.
Storm spells tend to have a higher casting cost than the bulk of spells you’ll find in a Vintage deck. This makes them extremely difficult to play until the very last minute when the deck seizes victory. At that point, the deck’s opponent has two options: quickly find some way to nullify the Storm spell or watch as the game slips away. It wouldn’t matter if there was one Storm spell or three in the Storm player’s hand. When the game gets to that critical point, it is either won or lost. There is no recovery.
Would multiple Desires make that much difference in a Storm deck? Well, it might be hard to say. First, no one knows what it might be like. Mind’s Desire was preemptively restricted before anyone had a chance to see what the card could do as a 4-of in Vintage. Second, history shows that multiple copies of Storm spells don’t improve the speed or consistency of the deck, and in fact, multiple copies may harm that deck’s ability to pack disruption and protect its combo. Third, Mind’s Desire has a whopping six casting costing including double blue. Achieving that kind of mana is a very difficult task and once one is resolved, that is typically the end of the game- one way or the other. The rest of the deck is so filled with tutors and draw spells, that the storm player need only find his kill card to win. This isn’t hard. Resolving multiple Mind’s Desires is no doubt powerful. I just question whether or not it’s a necessary accomplishment for a deck to win.
Compare it to Ad Nauseam. Ad Nauseam can net a player 20 cards or more, but how often would a Vintage Storm player want to resolve multiple copies of one? The answer is hardly ever. How many times would having two Ad Nauseams or two Minds Desires in one’s opening hand be a good thing? The answer is almost never. Taking a mulligan into a Mind’s Desire is also a horrendous position to be in, and Storm players mulligan quite frequently in Vintage. These cards are powerful, but one needs to set up properly for them- especially for Mind’s Desire. I am unconvinced that having multiple Minds Desires automatically makes a storm deck stronger than one with multiple Ad Nauseams.
The obvious pillar Mind’s Desire would affect would be Dark Ritual decks. For the last eight months (and maybe longer), Ritual decks have been at their lowest ebb in Vintage in many, many years- perhaps their lowest ever. They are being outclassed by Mana Drain, Workshop, and Null Rod decks. Even if other spells I’ve mentioned in this letter like Burning Wish and Gush were unrestricted, it is very doubtful Ritual decks would make any sort of dominating return. There are plenty of Dark Ritual players out there who are looking for something to get excited about. Mind’s Desire would accomplish that. Ritual-based decks would still have an uphill battle to climb, but at least now they’d have some new tools to work with. Many of the cards I mentioned earlier that would hamper Gush decks would also hamper decks using Mind’s Desire.
At the very least, Vintage players ought to have the opportunity to see if unrestricted Mind’s Desire would warp the format. It is a shame that there was never any opportunity to experiment with the card in its fullness. Vintage players thrive on experimentation and here’s a card that never got its chance. Therefore, I suggest that it come off the B/R List in the interests of a new Storm Archetype, in the interests of format diversity, and in the interests of seeing whether or not the card should have even been on that list in the first place.
Regrowth
Regrowth is one of the old guard. It’s been on the restricted list for ages. In the beginning, this card was extremely powerful, especially because of Time Walk. I remember the old combo after Legends came out: cast Time Walk -> Regrowth -> Time Walk -> Recall -> Time Walk -> Regrowth -> Time Walk. Those were the days. At the time, that was clearly broken. But times are quite different now.
Casting spells at sorcery speed in Vintage in an anathema- especially when doing it with an off color like green. Tying up one’s own mana on one’s own turn limits future choices greatly. Anytime someone decides to do that, the payoff must be large. Regrowth relies on something being in the graveyard that is good enough to spend an extra 1G on during the main phase to play. There are very few cards in Vintage that meet that criteria anymore. Duplicative printings have ensured that one’s library is full of answers, draw spells, counterspells, and other flexible cards to meet any given situation. It is much easier to tutor for something or to draw into something you know will almost always be in your library rather than Regrow something that may or may not be in your graveyard.
Take, for instance, the disparity in the use of cards like Vampiric Tutor, Mystical Tutor, and Enlightened Tutor versus the use of Reclaim. Reclaim is an instant and costs just one mana like the Mirage-block tutors, but it has never seen competitive play. Why? It’s because the ability to search your deck for a card is way more powerful than the ability to search your graveyard. If a card interacts with the graveyard, it has to do something more than just search. Regrowth doesn’t.
Also, consider the amount of graveyard hate that has been printed in recent years. Leyline of the Void, Jotun Grunt, Extirpate, Relic of Progenitous, Faerie Macabre, Ravenous Trap, Bojuka Pit, and so on. The graveyard is a very dangerous place for cards to be. Unlike Yawgmoth’s Will, Regrowth only lets you return a single card. With all the graveyard hate that is omnipresent in both main decks and sideboards, relying on Regrowth as any kind of strategy is risky at best and futile at worst. In the last four years, any card (aside from Yawgmoth’s Will and Tarmogoyf) that relies on the graveyard has lost a great deal of its potency for the Vintage format.
This loss of potency is easily seen in similar cards. Take for instance Eternal Witness and Nature’s Spiral. Neither of these cards have ever made an impact despite the fact they could be quite useful. The impact Eternal Witness had on other formats could easily be seen. But it was dead in Vintage. Nature’s Spiral could return commonly used cards like Black Lotus, Strip Mine, and Time Vault but has never been used to do so. There are just better cards.
Regrowth suffers from not being easily repeatable. Crucible of Worlds, Goblin Welder, Life from the Loam, and Yawgmoth’s Will are the graveyard recursion cards of choice now. Their effects are repeatable, fairly cheap, and in colors more relevant to most decks.
If cards like Déjà vu and Relearn- which are only slightly more expensive to cast and *on color* for decks that want to replay the most powerful spells in the game- never saw play and other cards similar to Regrowth never saw play and better, repeatable alternatives to Regrowth already exist, then it’s doubtful unrestricting it would have very much of an impact on the Vintage Format.
The decks that would benefit most from a Regrowth unrestriction would likely be green-based Null Rod decks. These decks could pack their libraries full of Regrowths as insurance vs. countermagic and artifact destruction. Regrowth would serve as a means to recycle important cards like Seal of Cleansing, Seal of Primordium, Quasili Pridemage, Rack and Ruin, or Pyroblast.
Thank you so much for reading this rather lengthy letter. I know your time is valuable. I hope that I have provided you with some food for thought and a legitimate discussion piece for considering unrestricting cards this June.
Sincerely,
-Troy M. Costisick
I am writing to you to discuss the current state of the Vintage Banned/Restricted list. Each year, this list receives a thorough examination by the Vintage community and by the DCI. In the past, the DCI has been very receptive to community feedback about the B/R list. I hope that continues. In this letter, I examine several cards that have been discussed in the community as candidates for unrestriction. I lay out several reasons each could come off the list in your next update. I hope that what I have written is helpful and illuminating. Cards are listed in alphabetical order.
Balance
Many years ago, Balance was overlooked in Magic. Its symmetry made it difficult to use and the fact that it hit what, at the time, were the game’s three most important resources caused confusion on how to really use it best. Then came along The Deck. Brian Weissman showed just how strong the card was and voilla, people suddenly understood the card and put it to good use. In a short period of time, you had Maysonet Rack Balance. Not too long after, the card is put on the restricted list where it has remained.
I’ll risk stating the obvious and say that the metagame has changed since then. What made Balance so broken back then was that it was a Wrath of God, Armageddon, and Mind Twist all wrapped into one card for a measly 1W. However, I submit that those effects are now no longer powerful in Vintage and that Balance’s casting cost is hardly too little for its effect.
Let’s start with Balance’s Mind Twist effect. Knocking your opponent down to 1 or 2 cards is really great… at least in theory. Mind Twist has been unrestricted for some time now and has not been a factor in Vintage magic whatsoever. It fails to even appear in mono-black suicide decks that could easily ramp it up with Dark Ritual. One reason for its lack of impact is that the graveyard is hardly a place players don’t have access to. The graveyard, in Vintage, is just and extension of one’s hand in many cases. Dredge decks, Crucible of Worlds, Yawgmoth’s Will, and Goblin Welder take great advantage of the graveyard and represent no small portion of the Vintage metagame. There are plenty of decks that one would face in a Vintage tournament where Balance’s “Mind Twist” effect is more of a liability than a boon.
The Armageddon effect of Balance has almost been entirely neutralized. A majority of Vintage games run only 4 to 5 turns and are often locked up sooner than that. In that amount of time, it is much harder to build up a sizeable land disparity between players. The reason is that there are so many viable sources of cheap artifact mana. Two of the best decks in the metagame Tez-control and MUD use a full compliment of artifact mana. They don’t rely on having a large number of lands in play to cast their spells. Two or three at the most will do just fine. Also consider that other strong contenders in Vintage like Dredge decks and Oath of Druids decks play few lands. Add do that, Crucible of Worlds and Life from the Loam showing up in many different archetypes, and it is easy to see how the Armageddon effect has lost most if not all of its potency. As a strategy, using Balance to blow up your opponent’s lands is just not viable anymore.
Finally, the Wrath of God effect. There are lots of agro decks in Vintage. Fish and X/G Beatz decks are large factors in any tournament. So Balance’s 1W casting cost to clear the board should be the perfect answer, right? Well, if it were, wouldn’t decks play it as a singleton and then use any one of their three to five tutors to get it? The fact is, Balance isn’t even played as a sideboard card. What is played, however, is Sower of Temptation. A control player would gladly pay 2UU to steal a single creature rather than 1W to wipe the board. This is where Balance’s casting cost comes in. 1W is actually a harder casting cost to manage in a current Vintage Magic deck than 2UU. There are just not enough incentives to squeeze in white for a single card when there are plenty of cards in more powerful colors that can do essentially the same thing or better. Consider that powerful white cards like Land Tax, Agrivian Find, Abeyance, and Enlightened Tutor see next to no play. It, therefore, doesn’t take a great leap of faith to suggest that Balance too will see little or no play in Vintage.
If Balance were to find a home in Vintage, it would almost certainly not be in blue-based Force/Drain decks. It could be in five color Mishra’s Workshop decks that can mitigate the symmetry of sacrificing creatures/lands and discarding cards thanks to Goblin Welder and Crucible of Worlds. Even so, using the card would not be easy since Workshop mana can’t be used to cast it, Dredge decks are always part of the metagame, and one mana counterspells like Spell Snare and Spell Pierce are very popular (Spell Pierce has made Morphing.de’s top ten most played Vintage spell list several times in the past few months). Thus, while Balance may be advantageous for a particular pillar of the metagame, it is not likely it will have much of an impact on the overall environment.
Burning Wish
It is somewhat bewildering as to why Burning Wish is still on the restricted list. It’s a type of tutor and as a rule, tutors are given extra consideration for the B/R list. I understand that, but a lot has changed since it was first placed there. First, Lion’s Eye Diamond was restricted. LED allowed you to tutor for a card, sacrifice the Diamond in response, then be able to cast the card you just tutored for. Without 4 LED, all tutors were weakened to some degree. However, the greatest weakening of Burning Wish came with the M10 rules. It can no longer retrieve cards from the Exile zone. Getting back your Yawgmoth’s Will or sorceries exiled by Tormod’s Crypt is no longer possible with Burning Wish. Since this was a major facet of that card’s power in Vintage, Burning Wish is only a shell of its former self.
Let’s look at some similar cards. Personal Tutor is unrestricted and can search for Sorceries. It’s a blue card- automatically making it better- and costs one less mana. It’s topdeck feature is certainly a powerful drawback, but so is Burning Wish’s ability to only be able to search the sideboard. Grim Tutor is easily cast in Dark Ritual decks and can search for anything, not just sorceries. And yet, neither Personal Tutor nor Grim Tutor see much play at all in Vintage. They haven’t been in the top 50 cards on Morphling.de in who knows how long. Cunning Wish has been unrestricted all along and gets blue instants- the most powerful cards in Magic! However, almost no one in the community has advocated for its restriction. If cards as good if not better than Burning Wish can be safely unrestricted, one has to wonder why Burning Wish can’t be unrestricted too.
Decks that might potentially benefit most from an unrestricted Burning Wish would perhaps be Dark Ritual Decks or red-based Null Rod decks. Ritual decks might still try to take advantage of Wish’s ability to fetch Yawgmoth’s Will from the sideboard, but this is unlikely for a number of reasons. First, they can already play Grim Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Demonic Tutor, and Vampiric Tutor to fetch Yawg’s Will. Ritual decks pack massive numbers of draw spells that let them draw into Will and then recycle them a second time after casting it. Taking out more versatile cards like tutors or draw spells for more narrow cards like wishes is generally not a good idea in Vintage. Red Null Rod decks might try Burning Wish to search for answer cards that can destroy artifacts or creatures. This would certainly make those decks more competitive and flexible, but even so, it’s hard to imagine a red deck taking out cards like Gorilla Shaman, Ancient Grudge, Pyroblast, or Magus of the Moon to make room for Burning Wish. It is very likely that Burning Wish will end up in the dustbin right along Personal Tutor, Cunning Wish, and Grim Tutor.
Flash
Flash was restricted with a whole batch of blue cards in June 2008 in an attempt to correct the Vintage metagame. The results of the Legacy tournament in Columbus Ohio about a year prior were certainly a factor. The idea that a turn zero win was possible was also part of that decision according to the article on magicthegathering.com that explained the restriction. The thing is, all the assumptions about Flash were just not bourn out by the tournament data.
First, Legacy is not Vintage. Flash dominated in Columbus way back when, but according to Stephen Menendian’s research, the BEST Flash decks ever did in Vintage was make up 10% of the top 8’s. Just as a frame of reference, Gush decks peaked out at 25% and Tez decks around 45%. Flash was never a major factor in Vintage tournament victories but instead challenged players to build very flexible sideboards. It is easy to argue that Flash improved Vintage diversity and the metagame suffered as a result its restriction.
Second, to my knowledge (and I have searched very, very hard) there has never been a recorded instance of a turn zero Flash win in a Vintage tournament of any size. It may have happened somewhere, but there is just no record of it ever occurring that I have found, and it certainly never happened at a major tournament. There was a lot of hysteria at the time about it being possible, but the route to achieve a turn zero kill is so inconsistent, few people- if any people at all- ventured in that direction. Succinctly, the turn zero kill was never a concern for the Vintage community.
Finally, Flash was most weakened by the other restrictions made at the time, namely Brainstorm, Ponder, and Merchant Scroll. These cards were not just helpful for Flash decks, they were absolutely critical. Flash’s strength lied totally in its speed. If it could not win quickly, it could not win at all. The combo is so easily thwarted with cards like Pithing Needle, Leyline of the Void, Ravenous Trap, and Tormod’s Crypt. With the June 2008 restrictions, Flash lost 9 of its best cards, and the de facto replacement for those cards (Thirst for Knowledge) is now also restricted. Without Ponder to dig through a deck, without Merchant Scroll of quickly tutor up Flash, without Brainstorm to shuffle back the multiple combo pieces from a player’s hand, Flash loses almost all of its viability.
In comparing it to other cards, Flash is most like Entomb in many respects. Each take 2 cards in-hand to win. Each can go off (with a lot of luck) on turn 1. Each can manipulate cards in the graveyard infinitely. Each combo is most likely going to be backed up with Duress and cheap countermagic. When Entomb was unrestricted there was a lot of fear that Worldgorger Dragon combo decks would take over the format. It never happened. The combo is too fragile, too hard to piece together, and too inconsistent anymore. Once upon a time it was powerful, but things have changed. Flash is in the same boat. Without all the blue deck manipulation, the Flash combo is too fragile, too hard to piece together, and too inconsistent. I believe Entomb demonstrates quite well that cards that are win conditions can, for the most part, be unrestricted so long as the support cards like Brainstorm, Ponder, and Merchant Scroll remain on the restricted list.
Currently, Flash is the ONLY card on the Vintage B/R list that deals exclusively with creatures. That makes it totally unique and quite historical. The DCI has had a history for many years now of not restricting cards that interact solely with creature cards. This includes cards like Worldly Tutor and Gaea’s Cradle which look similar to other cards on the B/R list. It seems remarkable and quite inconsistent that Flash is restricted in light of past DCI policy. That alone, I believe, should put Flash into consideration for unrestriction.
I realize that Flash may fall under the “Force of Will” pillar, and that the DCI is trying to balance that pillar against the others. However, a close look at Vintage reveals that Null Rod decks, Dark Ritual Decks, and Bazaar of Baghdad Decks quite often use Force of Will as well. I feel it is much more constructive to look at Force of Will + Mana Drain decks as a pillar. Flash would not likely fit into that category. Old Flash decks used Force of Will and Pact of Negation to back up their combo because they didn’t cost any mana. They did not use Mana Drain because it would mean that they would need 1UUU to cast Flash with protection. That is a very, very difficult mana cost to achieve in Vintage. It is highly unlikely that Flash would turn to Mana Drain for help.
Consequently, Flash decks would be very different from the other Force/Drain decks in Vintage. More than likely, Flash players would use cards like Spell Pierce and Pact of Negation to back up their combo. This may especially be true since the number of blue draw spells available to Flash is now more limited than before. Thus, a new avenue of deckbuilding would open up for Vintage enthusiasts. And new avenues of deckbuilding are what Vintage is all about.
Gush
The situation with Gush is a lot like the situation with Flash. Gush decks were strong not because of Gush or even because of the Gush-Fastbond combo. Their real power came from Brainstorm, Ponder, and Merchant scroll. Chaining Gushes consecutively on the same turn allowed players to quickly draw into their win condition. Thanks to the June 2008 restrictions, Gush decks, like Flash decks, have lost 9 of their best cards. The replacements are laughable. Slight of Hand, Opt, and Strategic Planning would have to be subbed in. These cards are clearly not even close to the power level of other Vintage staples. Also, since Gush was restricted we have had three VERY significant printings. Ethersworn Canonist, Mindbreak Trap, and Lodestone Golem are massive factors in Vintage and would be even more so with Gush unrestricted. These three new cards along with Gaddok Teeg and Thorn of Amethyst from Lorwyn Block present a formidable obstacle for Gush decks to overcome.
It’s easy to think that Gush decks were the supreme masters of the Vintage metagame back in the second Gush Era. However, according to the data gathered by Stephen Menendian, Gush based decks were evenly matched with Mishra’s Worskshop decks. Each made up 25% of the metagame. And if you look at the metagame at the time, it was the most diverse Vintage had ever been. 49% of the metagame was “Rest of the Field.” That means people could build and play nearly any kind of deck they wanted because the Gush and Shop decks were so focused on beating each other, they couldn’t worry about anything else. This time period was widely hailed as the Golden Age of Vintage, and despite the minor grumblings at the time (there was always be minor grumblings no matter what you do), people were generally happy with the format.
And just to give a word about Gush’s diversity back then. Gush supported six distinct archetypes at the same time- GAT, Empty Gifts, Next Level Doomsday, MS Paint, The Tropical Storm, and Tyrant Oath. Diversity is the lifeblood of any format. Each of the archetypes I just listed required a different set of tactics to beat. Tyrant Oath was nothing like Next Level Doomsday. MS Paint was nothing like GAT. During the 2nd Gush Era, the Golden Age, whatever you want to call it, Vintage had its greatest diversity. It was a tremendous and exciting time to play.
Gush is its own Vintage pillar. It would use Force of Will, but as I demonstrated earlier, many of the other pillars do as well. Gush relies on drawing lots of cards to win. This is not much different from Dark Ritual decks that use most of the restricted list to do the same thing. Unlike the current Force of Will/Mana Drain decks that can overly dominate the top 8’s from time to time, Gush decks have a specific weakness to Workshop Prison decks and to mana denial strategies like Wasteland, Sphere of Resistance/Trinisphere, and Magus of the Moon. Unrestricting Gush would cause a shakeup in Vintage and either realign the dominant archetypes OR add a brand new set of archetypes to the mix.
It’s not like the other pillars would be defenseless against it. Null Rod decks have Ethersworn Canonist, Rule of Law, Quasili Pridemage, and Gaddok Teeg to counter Gush’s drawing potential; Shop decks have Thorn of Amethyst, Sphere of Resistance, Trinisphere, and Lodestone Golem. Mana Drain decks have Spell Pierce, Mindbreak Trap, Ravenous Trap, and the recently re-discovered Mystic Remora. Therefore the other pillars of the format have the tools and are very capable of fending off a challenge from Gush decks. Consequently, I strongly believe Gush can be unrestricted.
Imperial Seal
Tutors are tricky in Vintage. They unlock so many lines of play. They are the grease for the decks’ engines. The more powerful ones are restricted. The less powerful ones are unplayed. Imperial Seal, I think, straddles the fence. It’s powerful since it can retrieve any card. However, it is weak because it casts at sorcery speed and costs you 2 life.
The sorcery speed of Imperial Seal is its greatest drawback. It means that the caster is giving up card advantage and flexibility for card selection. As with all formats, card advantage is important in Vintage. Cards that are disadvantageous are seldom played. I think this is why Imperial Seal has gone unused for the most part in Vintage. Players generally don’t like giving up cards now for cards next turn. Despite the fact that it fetches anything, Imperial Seal has not found a home in Vintage outside a few Storm decks and Workshop decks, and it’s hardly required in most of the builds. When evaluating Imperial Seal versus draw spells, discard spells, or other tutors, it just loses out because of its slow benefits.
Not only is Imperial Seal slow, the loss of two life it causes is no trivial matter in Vintage anymore. Consider the life attrition many decks face already. Fetch Lands, Force of Will, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Thoughtseize, Dark Confidant, and Vampiric Tutor see wide play across many pillars and archetypes. Never mind other outlying life-sinks like Ancient Tomb, Necropotence, Yawgmoth’s Bargain, Ad Nauseam, City of Brass, Night’s Whisper, and Skeletal Scrying. Spending down one’s life to play cards has become routine in Vintage Magic. It’s not uncommon to inflict six or more “damage” to one’s self during a game. That’s almost of third of a player’s life points. Against agro decks, six damage is not an insignificant amount.
Consider then, playing 4 Imperial Seals in a deck. Casting it twice in a game results in –2 card advantage and –4 life. One way of looking it is skipping two draws and giving your opponent and extra attack without him having to spend any resources to accomplish that. Casting it three times in a game results in even steeper losses. Adding it all up, it’s easy to see how a deck with four Imperial Seals could easily cause its player to lose 10 or more life during the course of the game without the other player having to do much of anything. The benefits of better card selection quickly become outweighed by the opportunity costs and life point costs of this card.
In addition, after a player resolves an Imperial Seal, he is effectively cutting himself off from using any fetch lands or other tutors to react to his opponent until he draws the top card of his library. That is significant in Vintage where the board state can change very rapidly. Imperial Seal does not see widespread play now because few players want to limit their options to that degree. Value is placed more on flexibility.
The history of tutors and the B/R list for Vintage is interesting to say the least. Mystical Tutor and Vampiric Tutor are so powerful they must be restricted. However, Enlightened Tutor, Personal Tutor, and Grim Tutor are not. Burning Wish is restricted. Cunning Wish isn’t. Imperial Seal is restricted but hardly used. Some of the best cards Imperial Seal can go and fetch are most like Tinker, Yawgmoth’s Will, Black Lotus, a Storm card, Time Vault, or Voltaic Key. But unrestricted one mana tutors like Personal Tutor and Enlightened Tutor can already do that and they almost never make an appearance in decklists. If tutors that already do the job of Imperial Seal can be safely unrestricted, it stands to reason that Imperial Seal can be unrestricted as well.
The most likely two pillars to use Imperial Seal would be Dark Ritual decks and Mishra’s Workshop decks. Five color Shop Decks could use the Seal to tutor up their next lock piece or an answer to the opponent’s strategy that they don’t need RIGHT NOW. Since Ritual decks have lots of draw spells, they could use Imperial Seal to find the last piece to their Storm puzzle they need so they can combo out. However, Ritual decks would have to watch their life attrition carefully and drawing into more Imperial Seals after playing a Draw 7 isn’t all that great unless you get more draw spells with the mana to cast them all at the same time. As mentioned earlier, Ritual decks are under-performing in the current meta game and could use some help. Five color Shop decks already have access to many tutors to grab what they need out of their libraries so it’s questionable how much extra oomph Imperial Seal would give them. Given all of this, I believe it is quite safe to unrestrict Imperial Seal for Vintage.
Mana Vault
The best argument for unrestricting Mana Vault can be made by comparing it to other cards like it. Consider that the following cards are all unrestricted in Vintage: Mox Diamond, Chrome Mox, Grim Monolith, Everflowing Chalice, Dark Ritual, and Cabal Ritual. The two Mox cards were unrestricted to no effect at all. They have a zero casting cost and can provide on-color mana. That sounds powerful on the surface, but Vintage Players haven’t found a way to take advantage of it. These cards showed that not all artifact mana is dangerous. Later, Grim Monolith was unrestricted. This one took a little longer due to the memory of the Power Artifact combo still being in the psyche of Vintage enthusiasts. Again, though, unrestricting Grim Monolith has had absolutely no effect on the Vintage metagame.
However, I think there are better analogies in Magic for Mana Vault. All along, Dark Ritual and Cabal Ritual have been unrestricted. They provide three (or more) on-color mana at instant speed. That’s something Mana Vault cannot do. And like Mana Vault, they are effectively one use mana sources. True, Mana Vault can be untapped with Voltaic Key. But the Rituals can be reused with Yawgmoth’s Will. So I think the comparison between these cards is fair. If those two spells, along with the other artifact mana sources can exist as unrestricted without degenerating the metgame, it reasonable to ask why Mana Vault shouldn’t be unrestricted. It’s hard to imagine it being much more powerful than any of those cards.
The best place for unrestricted Mana Vault would be in Goblin Charbelcher decks. It would give them easy access to three colorless mana and likely replace the seldom used Grim Monolith. Mishra’s Workshop decks may use it, but with the plethora of other artifact mana sources, it’s hard to see how much gain there would be in replacing lock pieces or lands with these. Mana Drain decks would be loathe to take out other cards more pertinent to their strategy just for some one time use mana acceleration. Indeed, the fact that Mana Vault can basically only be used once limits a player’s flexibility with the card and makes it more likely to be used in a wacky combo deck or in a budget prison deck that doesn’t run Mishra’s Workshop. Mana Vault can be safely unrestricted.
Mind’s Desire
The Storm mechanic, without a doubt, changed Magic: The Gathering. The reviews are certainly mixed. I’ll quote Aaron Forsythe on it, “Nothing good ever came of that abomination.” Given the context of that quote (namely the Standard and Extended environment during the Dragonstorm Era) it’s understandable. However, Vintage is a different animal and one that is probably not given much thought by the design team- although we definitely appreciate the fun new cards they’ve been sending our way over the last few sets.
A card like Disciple of the Vault for example may break Standard or Extended in half, but in Vintage it never really did find a home of any kind. When it comes to Storm cards, there have been several prove themselves powerful enough to make it into tournament play. For the most part, these are Brain Freeze, Mind’s Desire, Empty the Warrens, Grapeshot, and Tendrils of Agony. Looking back over the decklists that have included these cards since their release, it is very interesting to note that few, if any decks, ran more than two copies of a single storm spell. In fact, for the vast majority of decks that used them, only one copy of can be found in their lists. The reason is that any more than that would just be redundant and unhelpful.
Storm spells tend to have a higher casting cost than the bulk of spells you’ll find in a Vintage deck. This makes them extremely difficult to play until the very last minute when the deck seizes victory. At that point, the deck’s opponent has two options: quickly find some way to nullify the Storm spell or watch as the game slips away. It wouldn’t matter if there was one Storm spell or three in the Storm player’s hand. When the game gets to that critical point, it is either won or lost. There is no recovery.
Would multiple Desires make that much difference in a Storm deck? Well, it might be hard to say. First, no one knows what it might be like. Mind’s Desire was preemptively restricted before anyone had a chance to see what the card could do as a 4-of in Vintage. Second, history shows that multiple copies of Storm spells don’t improve the speed or consistency of the deck, and in fact, multiple copies may harm that deck’s ability to pack disruption and protect its combo. Third, Mind’s Desire has a whopping six casting costing including double blue. Achieving that kind of mana is a very difficult task and once one is resolved, that is typically the end of the game- one way or the other. The rest of the deck is so filled with tutors and draw spells, that the storm player need only find his kill card to win. This isn’t hard. Resolving multiple Mind’s Desires is no doubt powerful. I just question whether or not it’s a necessary accomplishment for a deck to win.
Compare it to Ad Nauseam. Ad Nauseam can net a player 20 cards or more, but how often would a Vintage Storm player want to resolve multiple copies of one? The answer is hardly ever. How many times would having two Ad Nauseams or two Minds Desires in one’s opening hand be a good thing? The answer is almost never. Taking a mulligan into a Mind’s Desire is also a horrendous position to be in, and Storm players mulligan quite frequently in Vintage. These cards are powerful, but one needs to set up properly for them- especially for Mind’s Desire. I am unconvinced that having multiple Minds Desires automatically makes a storm deck stronger than one with multiple Ad Nauseams.
The obvious pillar Mind’s Desire would affect would be Dark Ritual decks. For the last eight months (and maybe longer), Ritual decks have been at their lowest ebb in Vintage in many, many years- perhaps their lowest ever. They are being outclassed by Mana Drain, Workshop, and Null Rod decks. Even if other spells I’ve mentioned in this letter like Burning Wish and Gush were unrestricted, it is very doubtful Ritual decks would make any sort of dominating return. There are plenty of Dark Ritual players out there who are looking for something to get excited about. Mind’s Desire would accomplish that. Ritual-based decks would still have an uphill battle to climb, but at least now they’d have some new tools to work with. Many of the cards I mentioned earlier that would hamper Gush decks would also hamper decks using Mind’s Desire.
At the very least, Vintage players ought to have the opportunity to see if unrestricted Mind’s Desire would warp the format. It is a shame that there was never any opportunity to experiment with the card in its fullness. Vintage players thrive on experimentation and here’s a card that never got its chance. Therefore, I suggest that it come off the B/R List in the interests of a new Storm Archetype, in the interests of format diversity, and in the interests of seeing whether or not the card should have even been on that list in the first place.
Regrowth
Regrowth is one of the old guard. It’s been on the restricted list for ages. In the beginning, this card was extremely powerful, especially because of Time Walk. I remember the old combo after Legends came out: cast Time Walk -> Regrowth -> Time Walk -> Recall -> Time Walk -> Regrowth -> Time Walk. Those were the days. At the time, that was clearly broken. But times are quite different now.
Casting spells at sorcery speed in Vintage in an anathema- especially when doing it with an off color like green. Tying up one’s own mana on one’s own turn limits future choices greatly. Anytime someone decides to do that, the payoff must be large. Regrowth relies on something being in the graveyard that is good enough to spend an extra 1G on during the main phase to play. There are very few cards in Vintage that meet that criteria anymore. Duplicative printings have ensured that one’s library is full of answers, draw spells, counterspells, and other flexible cards to meet any given situation. It is much easier to tutor for something or to draw into something you know will almost always be in your library rather than Regrow something that may or may not be in your graveyard.
Take, for instance, the disparity in the use of cards like Vampiric Tutor, Mystical Tutor, and Enlightened Tutor versus the use of Reclaim. Reclaim is an instant and costs just one mana like the Mirage-block tutors, but it has never seen competitive play. Why? It’s because the ability to search your deck for a card is way more powerful than the ability to search your graveyard. If a card interacts with the graveyard, it has to do something more than just search. Regrowth doesn’t.
Also, consider the amount of graveyard hate that has been printed in recent years. Leyline of the Void, Jotun Grunt, Extirpate, Relic of Progenitous, Faerie Macabre, Ravenous Trap, Bojuka Pit, and so on. The graveyard is a very dangerous place for cards to be. Unlike Yawgmoth’s Will, Regrowth only lets you return a single card. With all the graveyard hate that is omnipresent in both main decks and sideboards, relying on Regrowth as any kind of strategy is risky at best and futile at worst. In the last four years, any card (aside from Yawgmoth’s Will and Tarmogoyf) that relies on the graveyard has lost a great deal of its potency for the Vintage format.
This loss of potency is easily seen in similar cards. Take for instance Eternal Witness and Nature’s Spiral. Neither of these cards have ever made an impact despite the fact they could be quite useful. The impact Eternal Witness had on other formats could easily be seen. But it was dead in Vintage. Nature’s Spiral could return commonly used cards like Black Lotus, Strip Mine, and Time Vault but has never been used to do so. There are just better cards.
Regrowth suffers from not being easily repeatable. Crucible of Worlds, Goblin Welder, Life from the Loam, and Yawgmoth’s Will are the graveyard recursion cards of choice now. Their effects are repeatable, fairly cheap, and in colors more relevant to most decks.
If cards like Déjà vu and Relearn- which are only slightly more expensive to cast and *on color* for decks that want to replay the most powerful spells in the game- never saw play and other cards similar to Regrowth never saw play and better, repeatable alternatives to Regrowth already exist, then it’s doubtful unrestricting it would have very much of an impact on the Vintage Format.
The decks that would benefit most from a Regrowth unrestriction would likely be green-based Null Rod decks. These decks could pack their libraries full of Regrowths as insurance vs. countermagic and artifact destruction. Regrowth would serve as a means to recycle important cards like Seal of Cleansing, Seal of Primordium, Quasili Pridemage, Rack and Ruin, or Pyroblast.
Thank you so much for reading this rather lengthy letter. I know your time is valuable. I hope that I have provided you with some food for thought and a legitimate discussion piece for considering unrestricting cards this June.
Sincerely,
-Troy M. Costisick
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