So Many Insane Plays -- The Dark Ascension Set Review & Updated Vintage Checklist
http://www.eternal-central.com/?p=2544Vintage author Stephen Menendian takes an in-depth look at Dark Ascension with this 42 page set review. He comprehensively examines every card from Dark Ascension in his characteristically detailed style, creates lots of new decklists! In addition, Stephen updates the Ultimate Vintage Checklist, a must-have for every serious Vintage player and traders everywhere!
Excerpt:
Greetings Vintage adept! Welcome to my Dark Ascension Vintage Set Review. This will be the most comprehensive review of Dark Ascension for Vintage play available anywhere. I will carefully analyze every card in Dark Ascension for potential Vintage format applications. I will bring to bear not only my expertise, but unmatched experience in evaluating new cards for Vintage play. Not only do I have a proven track record of accurately forecasting new cards for Vintage play, my careful and detailed analysis snares cards that other reviewers overlooked or dismiss. I hope you find this set review enlightening and practical as you decide which cards you will acquire from Dark Ascension, and how you might approach the set from a deck construction perspective.
In addition, I have carefully updated the Ultimate Vintage Checklist, with Innistrad playables included and other cards that have appeared in Vintage Top 8’s since Innistrad. I have removed cards that no longer see play in Vintage. The Ultimate Vintage Checklist is intended for serious Vintage players to track their card needs and manage their collection, and provide a resource for deck construction, since each of the cards in the Checklist have been proven Vintage playable. In that role, it’s also invaluable for dealers and traders who may wish to use that resource in their transactions and to stock up on needed playables.
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Dark Ascension is very much the heir to Innistrad. Innistrad set Vintage on the crash course it is currently veering uncontrollably along. In particular, Innistrad introduced three creatures that have contributed to a more creature-centric metagame. Beyond Innistrad, the rise of Landstill as a metagame predator and the strength of Mystic Remora are two additional factors that have pushed Vintage onto a creature trajectory.
By the close of 2011, the critical question for the future of the format was whether Vintage would continue on the same course or whether creature-centric strategies would prove unsustainable, a flash in the pan footnote on the overreaction to Landstill and Mystic Remora. Powerful counter-measures like Oath of Druids seemed poised to return, and their resurgence could end the spell of Tarmogoyf & Company’s brief reign over the Vintage landscape. Cards like Time Vault seemed positioned to combat the creature infestation. Misdirection was moving in to punish overreliance on cards like Snapcaster Mage.
A month ago I predicted for early 2012 that the salience of creatures as both strategic and tactical options would continue unabated, and offered many of the cards just described, and others, as innovative tactics and strategic solutions. Dark Ascension was the missing puzzle piece.
Other than restrictions, there is no force more powerful than the introduction of new sets to disrupt the flow of metagame currents. New printings interface the entire evolving metagame system simultaneously, cajoling it into new directions and spinning out new evolutions. The overarching question for the format was whether the trend toward creatures would continue, abruptly end or taper out, and Dark Ascension would provide most important set of clues to answer that question.
Would Dark Ascension promote a course correction? Would it provide tools to answer the variety of creature threats Innistrad introduced and the metagame advanced? Or would Dark Ascension be a mixture, providing answers and new threats, stirring the metagame pot into unpredictable directions? Would it be a steady influence, abstaining from the major questions of the moment, serving mostly as a flying buttress, allowing the metagame to evolve along a natural course? Or would it accelerate the trends set forward by Innistrad and the metagame factors already mentioned?
All of these possibilities loomed, and now that Dark Ascension is before us, the answer is clear. Dark Ascension is the heir to Innistrad. Whereas Innistrad brought into Vintage a few key playables, it gently nudged the metagame system in the direction of creature-based strategies. Not only did Snapcaster Mage, Delver of Secrets, and Laboratory Maniac all see significant play, but Stony Silence provided another tool for Aggro-Control decks, and Witchbane Orb another Oath solution for Workshop Aggro decks. Innistrad was the rudder for the Titanic. Innistrad wasn’t an engine, powering the metagame forward, but it set the metagame on an ineluctable course. The speed and force of change would be decided by us.
What distinguishes Dark Ascension from Innistrad is that this set puts the foot to the pedal. The answer as to what effect Dark Ascension might have on Vintage is abundantly clear. Dark Ascension firmly accentuates…
