The indestructible clause doesn't matter. The exile clause doesn't matter (see lack of Demonfire in Vintage). Doesn't pass the Lodestone test.

Different than Delver and Young Peezy in one critical aspect. Flipped Delver and Peezy with a single token can trade with Lodestone and buy you some time.

You're right as always, Chubby! End of discussion!

Actually I'm really digging that idea. One thing I've been looking into is how to use the smallball Preordain engine to bootstrap into big blue plans like Tutor-Tinker. I have found some excellent solutions but it's generally a difficult problem - the best way I can put it is that Preordain promotes efficiency but Tutor-Tinker requires volume shooting.

Brain in a Bottle seems like it could be another solution, allowing you to decrease mana density, and it probably has synergy with both Preordains and bigger spells.

This is a way more appealing sphere breaking design than all those suggestions to print a channel or delve shatter.

I do like how this can power out instant Preordains and Thoughtseizes. I also think that there are a bunch of two-mana spells like NWhisper, BWish, DTutor etc. that I'm even less motivated to play now the Chalice is restricted. Maybe this would warrant looking into them again!

How sick would Brain into Tutor/Wish into Brain into Tinker (saccing Brain) look?

There's enough to like to seriously test it.

I'm not sure how they could make it any clearer. They are killing proxy tournaments.

The fact that they are doing this now, after over a decade of proxy tournaments being in existence, and coincidental with Eternal formats being playable online, is entirely unsurprising.

It's pretty obvious they want people to play Vintage and Legacy online instead.

Smmenen's list is missing Fastbond I think?

Otherwise it looks like a Mentor version of the list from Champs. I have my own thoughts as to why someone might go this way but would be interested to hear thoughts.

JVP on Gush and the restricted blue cards is nothing short of insane in any list of course, but I have to think in this deck that JVP on PYROBLAST (counter their draw spell then kill their Jace) is unbelievable too.

Painter seems super easy to transform into out of the SB. Just going to have to think if there are any applications for this.

JVP's ability not to tack on a 1U rider to the flashbacked spell is going to be the high-order bit in strategies like these. Tack on all of its other useful little abilities and it seems like pilots should actively be testing it.

Diophan that's very nice.

From your post from last page you showed you needed to go 0.54 in the old system to go infinite.

Now with your new evaluations for booster prices it appears that you needed to go 0.53 in the 3 round system, and 0.51 with their latest changes.

If your math is correct and assumptions reasonable (sure looks like it for the latter), then it seems it's getting easier and easier to go infinite which probably incentivizes people to play more.

Insanely good article. It is pretty obvious that losing Chalice will change the dynamic of Shop matchups entirely, but I'm glad you spelled it out with examples.

Great insight about Dack. Previously you needed non-1cc maindeck ways to get % against Shops because you weren't able to reliably stop LSG from ending the game. Now? Ha!

I think I implicitly agree with you about Delver getting better, but as you say - we need to test more and THEN declare that the format's heading into combo-control vs anti-combo-control. My early results are suggestive though.

To original poster: Magic design in recent years has gotten a lot more interesting. As a long time Vintage player I've actually been really into Standard lately because of the depth of interaction.

To subsequent posters: we go through this exercise every time formats don't immediately revolutionize Vintage. No, WotC probably doesn't give a crap about Vintage, but Magic is such a good game that they still accidentally upturn this most majestic of formats just by printing really good and beautifully designed cards.

Chubby: ok.

Getting more specific - what is the comparison with big Jace?

How's baby Jace tactically vs Oath? I would suspect big Jace is a better card but a worse fit in most shells.

BrassMan: nice update. One Q: attack for lethal?

Two-fisted and seeded games are a quick way of testing a large number of ideas quickly.

Once you land on a great idea then you should probably do a lot more "real" testing but honestly the key is probably weeding out crap ideas in the first place.

Abbot is very-small ball-with-some-upside, which is the direction Vintage has trended lately. I imagine flipping over Gush or Preordain is the outer range. This is very good but I wonder how easy it is to set up.

The body left behind is marginally relevant too I'd imagine.

Probably a Vintage fringe card but honestly it's worth throwing 10 seeded games at to get a real gauge of how it plays out.

My next round of testing will be with Jace in a Gush-based deck with some number of Delvers or Mentors. Soaking up Bolts is going to be an interesting game; if my opponent Missteps my Preordain and Bolts my Jace, how often do they still die to a flipped 3/2 flyer?

I love the idea that Jace is ok early and great late and lives in an even more favourable spot on the curve than Dack. A Snapcaster effect than can target Gush without splashing green is worth pursuing, especially when it has a second-turn alt-mode that isn't horrible.

Twiedel: Jace is legal now. Have you arrived at your conclusions via testing?

The conclusion is perfectly sound. Adding White's Mentors and Priests is a trump of sorts in the mirror, and gives you ~similar game against Oath, at the expense of every other relevant matchup. Looking forward to the metagame adaptations that ensue, though it's sad that White will inevitably ebb from lists going forward.

Chubby Rain: that is compelling evidence.

Blue instant speed draw-2 for 3 mana in Grixis control shells... This is the exact type of card design you really like to see for Vintage.

Don't know if this will be good enough BUT I know it's going to be hugely fun to try, the same way Dark Petition will be.

The Fetchland interaction is awesome. With this rule on mind, maybe deck designers will decide they need to run a couple more real lands so mulligan hands have a good chance of having one?

Don't know. The possibility is sweet !!!!

Vintage decks with 15 land will keep uncomfortable 5-card hands with 1 land a non-trivial amount of the time because, frankly, at that point card volume becomes an issue with Forces and whatnot. Is a four-card hand really gonna be any better?

This helps with that. Love the change. Don't see what's complicated about it.

Protoaddict, instead of DT, I liken this more to a Gifts where you always get Ritual and the insane one-card combo enabler of your choice.

With that analogy in mind, what are your thoughts?

Five mana is the going rate for Will. I think that's pretty amazing but it is a point up for debate.

The question in my mind is whether multiplexing that with five mana Necro (you rightly make the comparison to Bargain) will result in a playable strategy.

IMO it will. Maybe I should backpedal and state that the rate of the individual options is probably just a hair below "insane", but muxing the two buys a ton of slot efficiency elsewhere in your deck. The optionality and strength of the options means that you don't specifically have to architect a situation where you have an incredibly stocked graveyard or an overabundance of fast mana on top of your deck - you just adapt to what you have. I'm hoping that adds room to run real mana or lower octane engines to move the needle on some key matchups.

Hrishi, I think you're not thinking big enough. Now that you have a reliable way of both Willing AND Necroing at insane rate, the rest of the deck might actually be able to do things like run a not-embarrassing mana base, use alternate attack and defence angles like Tasigur, maybe even go crazy with Lake of the Dead?

That's the potential, not just tweaking stock lists that could have been played 8 years ago.

The current suite of combo tutors is awful so that's not a benchmark worth considering

Not sure that the mana cost is really misunderstood. The five up front means one cannot simply do a smallball Tinker post board, or fetch Lotus to power up an acceleration-poor hand.

What this is almost exactly like is Gifts, where one of the cards you get is Dark Ritual and the other one is exactly the card you want in hand.

That's kind of insane.

Thinking of this as +4 Dark Petition -4 [something] in existing Long/TPS shells is thinking really small IMO. My first thought is exploring the monoblack space and seeing what that yields. A light blue splash just for the Ancestral/Brainstorm/Ponder/Preordain package might be well warranted also.