Yes, you're absolutely correct.  Just because you may win doesn't mean you should subject yourself to the lawsuit.

That said, it's all a matter of balancing values, isn't it?  If WOTC valued reprinting Reserved List cards, just how much value do they place on it?  Do they really care that much about Vintage and Legacy?  Their top 3 formats (Standard, Limited, Modern) make them plenty of money already, so I'd imagine there's not much incentive other than to milk a latent demand.  But if they did place a high value on it, there are plenty of paths they could take. 

For instance, someone mentioned that prior actions made it clear that WOTC heard directly from people complaining that printings came too close to breaking either the spirit or letter, or both, of the Reserved List.  If they know who these people are they can always give them confidential advanced warning that they plan to abolish the Reserved List, thereby preempting certain causes of action.  Those folks may take the opportunity to ruin the market for a bit, but the eventual reprints may fix that.

In the end I agree that what they're doing now is likely the path of least resistance and most practical.  And I'm not upset enough about the Reserved List to think too deeply on it.  But I assume WOTC has options for whichever path they choose.

I'm one of the many players who began playing when Unlimited turned into Revised and I stopped playing when I went to college (1999).  I picked the game back up again around the time of Dark Ascension.  While I was in college, my brother sold all my valuable cards for weed money, so I no longer had any duals (and I never owned power).  I've transitioned from Standard to Legacy and Modern and even some Vintage.  Reprints of shocks and fetches and mutavaults and thoughtseizes were great, and I bought low on other cards when MM and MM15 came out.  I now have 8/16 blue duals and 6 of the others along with all non-reserve, non-"vintage-only" (such as Mana Drain) staples for the eternal and non-rotating formats.  And I'm continuing to buy here and there.  Just yesterday I pulled the trigger on 2 Volcanic Islands (which brought me from 6 to the 8 mentioned blue duals). 

I don't mind the current prices, and don't mind biding my time and collecting when I feel it's right to purchase certain cards.  I'm not a fan of the Reserved List, but I don't see it as barring me from playing Legacy and most of the Vintage tournaments where I can borrow from a friend (who has 2 playsets of power) or proxy.

That said, as a 3L law student (there's a saying that nobody's as dangerous as a law student, because we don't know what we don't know, so take this with a grain of salt), I can't see a lawsuit arising from the termination of the Reserved List surviving summary judgment (where one side asks the judge to rule in their favor before trial begins because the other doesn't have enough facts to support the required legal elements).  If WOTC doesn't want to get rid of the Reserved List, I very much doubt it has anything to do with fear of legal ramifications.  That said, plenty of other, valid business reasons could exist.

Great podcast! It was very interesting to hear such an in-depth analysis supported by game theory on a single card.  Of course the discussion has many branches into other topics as well, which is part of what makes it so interesting.

At the end of the podcast you asked what card or cards we would like discussed should you continue this type of analysis.  How about a broad analysis of the various counterspells available in the format and their applications?  Drain, Force, Daze, Fluster, Pierce, Snare, etc. are all very different and only marginally fungible.  Some decks can utilize each, others can't.  When and where do they become obvious inclusions vs. potential inclusions vs. left out?  

I know this is a broader topic than just a single card focus like Probe but I think it could be a manageable conversation if organized correctly.  The answers may also seem obvious to many of us, but so did Probe's applications before hearing this podcast.  Yet it was still an interesting and informative discussion.

If you're really looking for a "pinger," Spikeshot Elder may just be the best choice.

There's a lot that spellskite won't affect. The aforementioned repeal for instance.

I agree not of this world is narrow and its inclusion is questionable, but if you're looking for a catch all to protect marit lage it's an option.

Thanks for the feedback.  Forgive me if my response seems like fence-sitting, but this is far from a finished, tuned list and a lot of the thought is still just theory-crafting.

The deck has 2 primary problems:
1. It's very mana-intensive.  Adding DRS seems to have helped this somewhat, but the general issue still remains.  Wastelands, Stages, and Depths are in the list to get sacrificed.  This means most other spells become harder to cast.  I know Thoughtseize and Duress are each only 1 mana, but the deck often finds itself in the situation where it needs every point of mana available just to activate the combo.  Perhaps a little patience is best here, though.

2. Once you present combo on board you have to pass the turn.  A lot of combo decks will be able to fire off a hand disruption spell, gauge whether the coast is clear, then combo and win on the spot.  Not so here.  And in this format each fresh draw can be incredibly powerful or help the opponent dig/tutor for their answer or simply win first.  This may read as confirmation bias, but I had a match against ErtaiAdept this past Saturday.  He won the match but in the game I won I played Hexmage and Depths and passed.  I believe he had a Jace on board, but I had Not of This World in my hand.  He spent some time digging, then activated Jace's unsummon, hoping to return Hexmage to my hand.  In response I sacrificed it and created a Marit Lage token.  He proceeded to cast Jace #2 and activate another unsummon ability, this time on the token.  Not of This World saved the day.  Now, that's just one anecdote and a situation that's not likely to come up all the time.  Perhaps TS/Duress could have prevented him from finding that second Jace.  However I do think it's demonstrative of a problem that Not of This World helps solve - we completely telegraph what we're doing, put fragile pieces on the board, and then pass the turn, thereby giving the opponent a full shot at answering.  

Of course, there's a flipside to that argument.  Later in the very same tournament I played against Doomsday (Chris Ferry).  I presented my combo and passed.  Instead of finding a way to disrupt my combo he proceeded to combo off and win before I could get another attack step.  Thoughtseize/Duress would certainly have been much better than Not of This World in that scenario.

I agree it's a narrow card.  It was initially slotted in there with the thought that the deck would do 3 things: combo as quickly as possible, protect it, and attack.  The thought was similar to something like Show+Tell in Legacy - most of their blue cards are there to dig for the combo but the FoWs protect it.

I do see your point, though.  I'll play around with dropping the 4x Not of This World for the 4th Thoughtseize and 3x Duress.  Thanks again for the feedback.



Unrelated to Not of This World, I'm also thinking of changing the 3x Sylvan Scrying and one Into the North to 4x Living Wish.  1 Depths, 1 Stage, and 1 Hexmage would be in the board (with 3 of each main).  The 4th Hexmage's slot could be Fastbond.  That would leave me with 2 Into the North in the deck which can be cut for something like Lilianas or Pithing Needles.

the thought was when you're color screwed but of course you need green to cast it anyway. The 4th depths might just be better.  Happy to tease out those little improvements. Thanks for the response.

Isn't Lightning Angel better anyway?  The one extra mana for one extra toughness isn't generally a good trade-off, but in this case it means the creature dodges both Abrupt Decay and Lightning Bolt, neither of which can be said for Mantis Rider.

I've been playing around with multiple shells for the Dark Depths combo.  

I first started out with the standard mono-black shell that included Dark Rituals, Necropotence, Bob, Liliana, MD needles and wastelands, and MD leylines and Helm.  That's a powerful shell and attacks decks from a lot of angles, surprisingly enough.  The sheer amount of MD hate is pretty impressive.  But most of it is just that - hate.  There wasn't much to accelerate into the combo, and the tutors were few and far between.  The shell also suffered from an inability to react on the stack.  Specifically, Mental Misstep is a beating.  It hits Ritual, Needle, Vamp Tutor, Sol Ring (which is very good with Stage, obviously), and Consultation.  At that point in the meta I was also running into many Repeals, which is a very clean answer to Marit Lage.  I didn't MD Not of This World because it just hurts too much with Bob, and I felt the deck needed Bob for the card draw and the plan B beatdowns.

So after the feel-bads against Repeal and Misstep I decided to play my own counter magic.  I went UB and made a combo-control shell.  4x Force, 4x Misstep, Spell Snare, Pierce, Flusterstorm, and Misdirection for counters.  4x Preordain alongside the restricted Brainstorm, Ponder, Recall, and Time Walk to dig for combo pieces.  I also included Tinker/Blightsteel and Vault/Key as extra combos.  The deck felt inherently powerful, but I don't think I was a good pilot for it.  I'm not nearly experienced enough in Vintage to adequately play a control shell.  I just don't think I know the format and threat assessment well enough yet.  This might be a good shell, I don't know, but I wasn't seeing much success with it.  I was being out-played by other blue players (I'm in the Boston area, and blue is the color of choice here) and I came to realize that the deck was 2-for-1ing itself too often with Tinker, Force, and Depths combos.  I made it based on some Doomsday lists I see where they play control until the combo turn.  Obviously the Doomsday combo itself is very complex, but I think the control shell in which it resides is also challenging to play and I bit off more than I could chew.

That experience made me think that I should just go all-in on the combo.  Green seems very good for that because of Crop Rotation, Sylvan Scrying, and Into the North.  It's funny how few people realize Dark Depths is a snow land until you put it directly into play with an Into the North.  Round out your basics with snow lands and the card feels pretty good.  It puts the land directly into play (tapped, but that hardly matters with Depths) and it dodges Misstep.  I left out Crop Rotation because of how ubiquitous Misstep and Chalice on 1 are in the format.  I built a list with 4 Depths, 2 Stage, 2 Urborg, 4 Hexmage, 4 abrup decay, 3 sylvan scrying, 4 into the north, 4 wasteland, and the leyline/helm combo main deck.  The deck isn't playing Bob so I also threw in 4x Not of This World.  In a $1k tournament this past weekend (in which I got stomped) I came to realize that unless you're in straight mono-black the leyline/helm combo should be in the side.  I've made some tweaks and I'll post my current list below.  I cut 1 Dark Depths for the 3rd Urborg, moved the 5 card Leyline/Helm combo to the side, and put in 4 Deathrite and the 2nd Night's Whisper in those 5 slots (thank you ChronoExile for the suggestions).  Going down a Dark Depths also encouraged me to cut the 4th Into the North for a 1x Life from the Loam.  The current list:

Lands: 24
4x Wasteland
4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Bayou
3x Snow-covered Swamp
1x Snow-covered forest
3x Dark Depths
3x Thespian's Stage
3x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Strip Mine

Artifacts: 4
1x Sol Ring
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Emerald

Creatures: 8
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Vampire Hexmage

Enchantment: 1
1x Sylvan Library

Instants: 10
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Demonic Consultation
4x Not of This World
4x Abrupt Decay

Sorceries: 13
1x Life from the Loam
1x Demonic Tutor
2x Night's Whisper
3x Thoughtseize
3x Into the North
3x Sylvan Scrying

Sideboard: 15
2x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Nature's Claim
3x Null Rod
1x Pernicious Deed
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Snuff Out
1x Helm of Obedience
4x Leyline of the Void

In goldfishing I really like what DRS and Loam have added.  I debated over Loam vs. Crucible of Worlds for a while, but I decided on Loam because I felt it would be harder for opponents to exile Loam than for them to blow up Crucible, and therefore Loam added a lot more resilience.  I'll be taking this out for a whirl for a little bit.  Any feedback or suggestions are very welcomed.

Hoping to be there.

You have a DCI number?!? :-p

This sounds great!  Should allow me to make it to a few more events

I'm sad to report that those of you who would have been lucky enough to get paired against me have one less free win tomorrow.  It looks like I can't make it after all

Wait, really?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milan_Lucic

makes sense re: cage over leyline/helm

re: Consultation, perhaps it can replace 1 of the 4 Expedition Maps?  They're redundant pieces in that they can both find parts of the Marit combo, and all 3 pieces are run in multiples, but Consultation has the upside of being able to find an answer card in a pinch.

I wouldn't go so far as to say "over" but in addition to has merit.  I think the mono-black Dark Times list runs it (I do), but he's also got 4x Expedition Map here which is another great tutor for the combo pieces.

Very cool idea, thanks for posting it!  I've sleeved up the Dark Times list (don't own power so a couple proxies) and have been enjoying it, but the deck as it used to exist didn't have much interaction and so was soft to early beats or force/drain/misstep decks.

One of the things I've enjoyed about the old Dark Times list is one of its alt-win cons.  It can win with Marit Lage, Hexmage and Bob beats, or with Leyline/Helm combo.  I see your list runs 3 G-Cage main.  Any thoughts to main decking 4x Leyline of the Void instead and adding one or two Helm of Obedience?  Or do you think your list doesn't need the additional win-con?

was a very fun event and it was great to meet many of the area's Vintage players.  As noted this was my first Vintage tournament and I went 2-3 in matches (my 6th round opponent conceded to me and left as he had carpool responsibilities) and 3-3 on record.  Of the 3 losses, 2 matches went to 3 games (the 0-2 was against ErtaiAdept, where I failed miserably in trying to gain any traction in either game).  So I take all that as good signs and I have a lot to learn!

thank you both very much.  Rest assured I won't be doing that, then!

I have a clarifying question, though I believe I know the answer.

Some friends and I use paper printouts on top of a real card (usually a basic land) in a sleeve for proxies.  the real card is the "backer" and paper printout has the full art and info of the card you're proxying.

According to the proxy rules these are not allowed, correct?  I ask because I personally can't tell the difference when shuffling or in card thickness but there are likely more observant people out there.  I make sure to cut the paper proxies to fit within the backer's border, which also makes sure that nothing is poking out of the sleeve.

Thanks in advance!

don't worry, you can beat up on the vintage noob with the janky list (me).

This Vintage noob plans to attend.  That's like, basically byes for any of my opponents.

Hello all,

My name's Nate.  I'm in the Boston area, which is fortunate since the Northeast has, from what I hear, a pretty strong Vintage scene.  

I'm one of the hordes of folks who played in the '90s, didn't understand the value of the cards he was playing with, left for college ('99-'03), and only picked the game back up with Innistrad.  I've done well with Standard and like many others have slowly collected staples for other formats.  My Modern staples collection is almost complete, but I'm missing playsets of 2 cards that seem like staples in Vintage, Legacy, and Modern alike - Tarmogoyf and Vendillion Clique.

I don't own any power or JtMS, and only have 1 Underground Sea, 1 Badlands, 1 Taiga, 1 Volcanic Island, 2 Bayou, 2 Scubland, and one each of Polluted Delta, Bloodstained Mire, and Wooded Foothills.  Though, as hinted at above, I have full playsets of the ZEN fetches.

So my collection is small but growing.  The good thing is that my local shop holds Vintage tournaments on Tuesdays with unlimited proxies.  I haven't attended that event yet, but plan to start shortly.

I'd like to try out a lot of archetypes to see what I like.  From there I can start collecting its staples.  Buying duals and power isn't something I'm willing to do all at once, but I'm perfectly fine building it up slowly.  I just need to know what to target before diving in.  The deck that I'm going to try first is Dark Times which, ironically, requires the smallest investment.  All I'll need are Lotus, Jet, and 4x Dark Depths - I have everything else you'd want for it.  But I've always had an affinity for black cards like Bob, Duress, Hymn, Liliana, Necropotence, and YawgWin.  So I think I'll start there.  I just finished sleeving it up, with some proxies, last night.

There's a Standard format win-a-Lotus I'm planning to attend on Saturday.  Wish me luck!