You say "every T1 player should have at their fingertips" but the article is Premium...

I know that you have nothing to do with that, and I don't want to come off as whiny, but like you said, this information is important to the general understanding of the format, and the more people understand the format the better.

I can understand deck-related articles and tournament reports being Premium, but this in particular seems like the kind of article that should be avaliable for everyone to read.

Maybe I'm just dissapointed because I really liked Stanton's breakdowns...

I definitely enjoyed this article a lot. It laid out something that players can easily take for granted: the unique, yet at points precarious nature of the Vintage mana-base. I'm especially looking forward to the article on non-rotations, too. Great writing, JP!

Again, many cards are on the restricted list in order to keep the game playable. If the Power 9 et all were unrestricted, then Type 1 really would be about who won the dice roll, or at least something very close. The restricted list exists to keep the game fun. Remember, at its core, this is still a game, and games are about enjoyment. People have fun doing broken things, but there is a certain level of brokenness that just makes the game unfun. It's the DCI's job to maintain the "brokenness asymptote" if you will; Vintage should have the most brokenness possible, while still being a playable, fun game. At least, that's how I, and apparently many others, feel.

Despite what you may think of Smemmen's positions, everyone should give him credit for keeping us on our toes. Between this and his re-earthing of the proxy debate, he's definitely making the Type 1 community take a moment to think about some important issues.

I feel that, in conjunction with the proxy debate, the debate over whether or not to ban Will is really, at it's core, a debate over what we, as a community, want Type 1 to be. Not only would banning Will remove the most powerful card in Magic from the game completely and forever, it would also set a precedent, meaning that, in the future, other cards, deemed 'too powerful' could also be removed. (Tinker has been mentioned)

Steve made a good argument again the 'slippery slope', and it's true that, perhaps with the exception of Tinker, nothing else even comes close to Will. Nonetheless, the fact remains that a card has been completely erased from the game because of its power. This says alot about the format.

Currently, Vintage is the format you can go to play with the most powerful cards in the game. Alot of the allure of the format resides in that fact. Standard had quite the boom when Ravager Affinity ran abound. Now, you could argue that this was partially because it was easier to win uphill matches (playskill wise) with the deck, but I and many others believe that the Ravager craze was at least a great deal due to the fact that people love playing powerful cards and powerful decks. And I personally feel that the biggest draw to Vintage is that you can play with the most power. (including the Power with a capital P)

True, were Will restricted, the game would be more balanced. Will, like so many other Vintage staples, was a mistake. Just as the moxen, and Lotus, and Recall, and Workshop were mistakes. Magic with those cards removed is, on the whole, a better game, from a design standpoint.

This seems to have put players in to two camps: those who want Vintage to be (technically speaking) a better (designed, balanced) game, and those who love the unbalanced power of playing with RnD's mistakes.

(Aside-- To those of you who want to play with all the old cards, with the widest, deepest cardpool avaliable, but want to play without all of Wizard's screwups, and in a format that rewards playskill over all else, seriously give Legacy a try. If Legacy had the level of support Type 1 had, it would be truly amazing)

So where does the DCI fall? Somewhere in between, I think, but closer to the fun side of the game. They've historically used the restricted list to keep the game on a playable level (fast mana, riduculously powerful cards like Tinker) remove some cards that were just obviously wrong (Dream Halls, Mind's Desire) and take out key parts of decks that were simply dominating the format (Gush, Burning Wish). However, they recently restricted Trinisphere, which, while arguably no more broken that many other unrestricted cards, and not an integral part of a clearly dominating deck, made the game less fun. Also note that Mishra's Workshop still comes in a 4-of, when it is clearly an unbalanced card. The same could be said, to a lesser extend, for Dark Ritual and Mana Drain. But these cards help to define our format, and restricting them would definitely restore alot of balance to Vintage (and, in the end, result in Legacy) but remove alot of the feel.

In the end, banning Will may or may not completely change the format. However, the precedent the decision will set very well may. Personally, I love Vintage because of the brokeness, because of the wanton power. To me, Vintage in all its glamour and glory is about weilding that power. I play Legacy when I want a deep, non-rotating cardpool and tuned, balanced card game. I play Vintage when I want to shuffle up the most powerful, least balanced cards Magic has to offer. For me and many other players, Vintage is all about the broken, and Will is simply the best of the worst.

(And besides, even if Will is restricted, Steve and the rest of the Meandeck crew will just move on to exploiting the next most broken card, and the next one after that. I swear, those guys'll break Llanowar Elves, someday.)