[Premium Article] Dear Santa Rosewater...

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/15109.html

Christmastime, mistletoe and wine. Children frolicking in the snow, presents piled under the tree, chestnuts roasting on an open fire… and begging letters sent by children to a jolly old guy dressed in red. Today, Stephen send his own Dear Santa letter to Mark Ho-Ho-Rosewater, listing his ten Vintage Wishes. So, has Stephen been naughty or nice?

[hauntedechos]

ROFL Steve, you're a funny guy man.

cheers
Haunted.

[v4ino]

Steve,

Great article, Vintage truly needs articles like this to further itself and become the game it can be as opposed to other authors writing that only Flash or GAT should be played because they are strategically superior. Here is some feedback regarding some of your points.

10. I completely agree, I have felt very strongly about this as it would make for more Tier 2 decks and not make any of the Tier 1 deck more powerful. Vroman has been the only other person who has felt equally strong about this – unrestricting Mox Diamond will increase the power of White and Green via Land Tax, Life from the Loam and Tithe (probally other things which I'm not mentioning such as W. Wayfairer). I would be cautious about using the unrestricted in Legacy comparison, cards that interact with Y. Will such as LED and Lotus Petal are fine for Legacy but have no place in Vintage (Steve I know you know this, you perhaps should of mentioned this to your public as part of being a responsible writer).

8. R&D did give a good reason for its banning aside the stall aspect. Due to the size of play areas in tournaments to start a new game and preserve it’s state is very hard – example: was I in my first or second main phase when I cast it, what was tapped, ect. In addition I seen player almost attack another at SCG Boston simply because of this card, It really brought up allot of negative emotions in all of the opponents who had to face the deck (I couldn't care less about the card and encourage stupid strategies).

7. A much bigger fish to fry is to unrestict E. Tutor! P. Tutor will only encourage blue decks that will require minimal skill to pilot(IE: Tinker.dec) where E. Tutor with Mox Diamond being unrestricted (Ideally in the same announcement) will put the White mage back on the map (not really but we can hope), maybe it can perform as well as Mono Red or Black. Unrestrict P. Tutor eventually, however I see it more as a shake-up card as you mentioned with FOF.

4. R&D has been doing a much better job of this than years past especially non-blue playables. The color wheel has slightly been correcting itself, one card at a time. I would add not to auto build deck such as Ichorid though, it just seemed blatant to me.

1. I am not sure that I would rush to do this either, while flash was handled - having too many degenerate combo decks will make it progressively harder for aggro control to meta correctly (then we’ll all have to hear Feinstein complain). How many deck have Null Rod (or P. Needle) and Leyline of the Void available to stave off all that is thrown at them? Dealing with Dragon and Flash is not too bad for example because there is collateral damage from the same hate cards.

I would like to add this, while I was very against Gifts being restricted, it seems to be the best move as more decks seem possible and the environment has grown as a result.

[diopter]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/15109.html

Christmastime, mistletoe and wine. Children frolicking in the snow, presents piled under the tree, chestnuts roasting on an open fire… and begging letters sent by children to a jolly old guy dressed in red. Today, Stephen send his own Dear Santa letter to Mark Ho-Ho-Rosewater, listing his ten Vintage Wishes. So, has Stephen been naughty or nice?

Steve,

Great point about Gush decks. The fact that Gush brought attacking (and blocking!) back into Vintage is amazing. And yet, people are still unhappy about it. Could you theorize on what makes people unhappy about Gush?

[yespuhyren]

While I hate the principle of everyone picking up GAT again, I'm also happy they are.  I fully support it simply because I can play the one deck I've been tweaking and that got me into T1 in 2003 or so, Workshop Aggro.

[Chaos Lord 21]

Excellent article Steve; I enjoyed it and your work continues to be one of the best reasons to get Star City Premium. I agree with the majority of your points: specifically unban Shaharazaad. As you said it goes against the principle of being able to play any non-ante, non-dexterity card in Vintage, and if problematic should be restricted.  Also regarding Time Vault, Mark Gottlieb's inconsistent and agenda-driven issueing of errata is a dangerous precedent to set. As far as your suggestions for unrestriction, they seem reasonable and one cannot argue with your track record on such topics.
  My only major disagreement is on the mana burn topic. I do like its small albeit important effect on the game, whether being a form of balancing the power of big mana accelerants (Rituals/Workshops/Drains,etc.), or acting as another (admittedly rare) strategic level of life total management/manipulation. Just even yesterday I found myself strategically mana-burning in an LLL draft, waiting for my opp to replay his Arbiter of Knollridge I had just bounced; or recently in a Master Ed. draft trying to maximize my Mirror Universe's impact. Other cards such as Pulse of the Fields and Pulse of the Forge reward proper utilization of this rule, and despite mana burn not being relevant for the majority of games, I believe the ones it does affect it does so in a positive way. I also disagree that it is a nonintuitive rule.

   Keep up the great work!

[LotusHead]

I agree with the majority of your points: specifically unban Shaharazaad. As you said it goes against the principle of being able to play any non-ante, non-dexterity card in Vintage, and if problematic should be restricted.  Also regarding Time Vault, Mark Gottlieb's inconsistent and agenda-driven issueing of errata is a dangerous precedent to set.

I don't have premium, but I heartily agree that Shaharazaad should be Not-Banned.  Restricted? maybe. Unristricted? Wasn't broken before.  An actual problem should arize before cards get banned in f-ing Vintage.  (The Chaos Orb/Falling Star thing I support grudgingly, but I support it.  I have a deaf opponent occasionally, and I would hate to have to play a "hearing English Matters" kinda card (say, an Unhinged style card).  So those two get the ax.  Shaharazad? Sigh. 

Time Vault. I was hurt with it's erratabanning, but now read Time Vault as it's current oracle wording states, and the "untap if you simply want to" ability seems weird now.  Weird.  Still, Time Vault errata banning did erase one of my favorite decks off the map so I'm still hurt.

[Methuselahn]

Pretty good stuff.

I'm wary of WotC trying to make vintage playables though.  I guess I'd rather just have happy accidents.  It's not like they have the time or inclination to actually test potential vintage playables, so, any designs are pretty much guessing.  Seems scary.  Maybe.

[Yare]

I'm wary of WotC trying to make vintage playables though.  I guess I'd rather just have happy accidents.  It's not like they have the time or inclination to actually test potential vintage playables, so, any designs are pretty much guessing.  Seems scary.  Maybe.

I don't have premium.

I too tend to lean in this manner, in that I kind of like Vintage to evolve "naturally" rather than "artificially".  I guess I just feel like the evolution of the Vintage cardpool should be slow rather than rushed.  That, and one of the cool things about Vintage is that once you buy in, you're pretty much in for good; designing new cards for the format foils this.  Yeah, it's only $20 or so here or there (though, see: Toughtseize and Tarmogoyf), but I kind of like the ability to just proxy the new stuff I don't have (that might fall out of favor in a few months) and move on after that.

I mean, I guess you can design cards for Vintage, but why?  Although, I suspect that answer is in the article...

[feyd]

number one: What is wrong with R&D's reasoning?  Yah...I'm all for a parent figure looking over my shoulder (drips with sarcasm...).  But parents are there for a reason.  You think that any of you are different than me? <.<  You know what's better for magic than the next guy?  Years of training you say?  These guys at R&D have a brain just like anyone else.  You'd be stupid to unrestrict moxes..any mox!  degenerate mana production at your finger tips in vintage=no fun for everyone!!!
number two: who wants to play a subgame of magic anyways?  Like time isn't called enough in vintage tournament rounds.  Play with sharazadd incasual games.  Leave it to R&D to f'up the magic secondary market...not cool people like you and I :>

     R&D are parental units.  I am not saying they are absolute but they never give you bad advice (except that one time with braineyser>.< )  These people know pretty well what makes vintage (and eternal formats, and T2/1/X) degenerate.  Retarded tutors (demonic,vampiric,mystical), retarded mana (moxes, crypt,lotus, vault), and games within games within games.    Merchant scroll can't find you pyroclasm, mystical can't find you hulk...these guys have a pretty good bead on things.  I hear T2 runs people like a grand every two years...yah...I'm Happy with vintage as it is right now.  And I am almost certain mommy and daddy (R and D respectively) will continue to make the right moves.
Roll those dice baby!

[Moxlotus]

First, I'm not exactly sure what you are saying.

second

You'd be stupid to unrestrict moxes..any mox!  degenerate mana production at your finger tips in vintage=no fun for everyone!!!
 

How is mox Diamond degenerate mana?  How would that thing be abused in Vintage?  If you could actually respond to Steve's points rather than making statements that he already addressed it would be beneficial to your point.

number two: who wants to play a subgame of magic anyways?  Like time isn't called enough in vintage tournament rounds.

As was already pointed out, the option to concede exists.  WW for 10 damage is hardly broken in Type 1--as was stated in the article.

These people know pretty well what makes vintage (and eternal formats, and T2/1/X) degenerate

True, but don't you think the players do too?  Remember that Dream Halls is still on the restricted list because it might be too degenerate in R&D's mind.

[Troy_Costisick]

True, but don't you think the players do too?  Remember that Dream Halls is still on the restricted list because it might be too degenerate in R&D's mind.

Hopefully, RnD can see that Sphere of Resitance, Thorn of Amethyst, Trinisphere, and Gaddok Teague can negate Dream Halls' effect.  It would make a scary new Long Deck if it were unrestricted.

Peace,

-Troy

[zeus-online]

Dream halls? Scary? What are you talking about? Any deck using it would most likely be really suboptimal...Here's why:
The cards you really want to cast with halls costs so much mana that they're useless without it...Thus you have a deck full of cards which you can't really cast.
Dream halls cost 5 mana which means that it's going to slower then all other combo decks, and most likely a bunch of control decks aswell...Getting 3UU turn 1/2 is difficult.

Don't get me wrong Dream halls is immensely powerful, but it's rather slow by vintage standards and the deck itself is flawed....Sure it was a beating in the long forgotten T2 environment it dominated, but this isn't type2.

The type2 dream halls deck usually won by turn 3/4 which was faster then the beatdown decks, sure vintage dream halls might speed that up a bit, but i'm pretty sure it would be too slow and clunky, especially in a world of FoW's, wastelands, spheres and duress-effects. It's just plain better to use will, necropotence and a number of other restricted cards.

There's atleast 5 cards on the T1 restrict list that could probably come off without anyone noticing.

/Zeus

post-edit: In my opinion these cards could come off: Burning wish, Chrome mox, Dream halls, Enlightened tutor, Mox diamond, Grim monolith, Personal tutor and Time spiral. I could explain it all, but i'm pretty sure it's prohibited to have discussions regarding the restrict list...(Mods feel free to delete this post)