[Premium Article] So Many Insane Plays - Unrestriction Proposals

[forests failed you]

One of the fundimental flaws of the Vintage format that people complain about is that the format tends to be too fast.  Whether individually we Vintage players agree or disagree is a completely different story--but the fact remains that the overall perception is that the format is degenerate and too fast, luck based, degenerate.  In my opinion unrestricting a card that would almost certainly speed up specific decks which are already among the best in the format seems to be a mistake.  4x Mox Diamond is the kind of thing that would certainly lead to some decks having a higher probablity of drawing 'the nuts' and winning too quickly, too early.

But how does Mox Diamond help a player draw the "nuts" any more than Mishra's Workshop, Elvish Spirit Guide, Simian Spirit Guide, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual or any number of unrestricted accellerants that do precisely what you described, but better?

Mox Diamond may not help a player draw the "nuts" more than specific cards (I would not want to go on record saying it was more powerful than Mishra's Workshop or Dark Ritual).  However, I have an strange feeling that Mox Diamond, were it to be unrestricted would probably be a more powerful four-of card than Simian Spirit Guide, Elvish Spirit Guide, or Cabal Ritual (Cabal Ritual traditionally hasn't been played as a four-of in Storm combo decks, but rather as a 1 or 2 of--although it is true some have played the full package).  The differences and similarities between Mox and Spirit Guides should be obvious--both provide you with an effect at the cost of -1 card; however, the advantage provided by the Mox continues every turn for the rest of the game.  Not to mention it counts as a permenent, and an artifact.

You make a good point--Mishra's Workshop and Dark Ritual are both more powerful cards that are not on the restricted list.  Although, I would point out that both of those cards are clearly overpowered and have had people calling for their restriction (whether iwarranted or not is argueable) for years now.

After having thought about it for a day or so I also feel that Mox Diamond would probably be much more abusive in Gush decks than it would be in Workshop or Storm.  A friend of mine top eighted 7 of 8 PTQs in the last year of old extended (when Tempest was legal) playing a Gush, Mox Diamond, Tog/Dryad deck.  Obviously, that was a different format--but it is undeniable that there is an obvious synergy between the two cards. 

Right now every artifact that costs 0 mana and makes creates mana the turn that it comes into play is on the restricted list--and with good reason.  There are already so many artifact mana accelarents in the format that I just don't see why we need to have more.  For me playing against Workshop decks or Will decks that can play 12 zero casting cost artifacts that produce mana seems redundant and obnoxious.  5 natural Moxes, Black Lotus, Lotus Petal, Mana Crypt, 4xMox Diamond.

All that the unrestriction of Mox Diamond offers the format is access to more uneeded speed and explosiveness.  4x Mox Diamond, while many of you argue that "it won't be good" enough to be format defining (or in your opinion "good enough that good decks will use them") doesn't mean that other decks won't play them to the end of having explosive, yet inconsistent openings.  Vintage is already explosive and inconsistent enough because of cards like Ancestral Recall, Black Lotus, Mishra's Workshop and Bazaar of Baghdad (two of which are also unrestricted), cards that when drawn in the opening hand lead to very high win percentages within decks that play them.  The only thing that Mox Diamond serves to do if unrestricted is speed up the format, that is to say that the only reason to play Mox Diamond is to make one's deck faster through having more mana on the first turn.  Vintage is already too fast, and all too often skill and actual game play doesn't effect the outcome of a Vintage match.  Cards like Mox Diamond--whether they would be too good, or of average power level, only encourge non-interactive goldfish type stratagies.  It is because of all these reasons that I believe that Mox Diamond would be a poor candidate for unrestriction.

On the other hand I can't belive that Enlightened Tutor is on the list.  There is really only room for one White card on the Restricted List.

[Necrologia]

If it would be amazing as a 4-of, it would be played as a 1-of.

If we go by this logic, how come we never saw a singleton gush being played?

Because Gush + Fastbond is an engine. You can chain Gushes and Merchant Scrolls together until you find Will or Walk + creature ftw. A single Gush doesn't function as an engine, and thus doesn't get played.

Mox Diamond isn't an engine, it's a simple piece of mana acceleration. There's no significant boost to your deck from playing 4 instead of 1. In fact, the opposite is true. A double Mox Diamond opening hand is absolutely terrible.

[Troy_Costisick]

Mox Diamond isn't an engine, it's a simple piece of mana acceleration. There's no significant boost to your deck from playing 4 instead of 1. In fact, the opposite is true. A double Mox Diamond opening hand is absolutely terrible.

Even worse if you mulligan into that....

-Troy

[Moxlotus]

If it would be amazing as a 4-of, it would be played as a 1-of.

If we go by this logic, how come we never saw a singleton gush being played?

Re-read what I wrote.  Or put the whole relevant quote in there.

If it would be amazing as a 4-of, it would be played as a 1-of.  While not necessarily true of "bombs" (stuff like Doomsday needs a deck built around it), I would wager it is true with fast mana

Gush needs decks built around it.  Gush needed to be able to draw into more Gushes.  Fast mana only needs 1 to be effective.  You don't see lots of decks throwing 1 Gifts in there (sure some do, but not many).  It was best in a deck built around it--just like Gush.  Fast mana doesn't need decks built around it--it is mana and is always effective.

Necrologia hit the nail on the head:

Because Gush + Fastbond is an engine. You can chain Gushes and Merchant Scrolls together until you find Will or Walk + creature ftw. A single Gush doesn't function as an engine, and thus doesn't get played.

Mox Diamond isn't an engine, it's a simple piece of mana acceleration. There's no significant boost to your deck from playing 4 instead of 1. In fact, the opposite is true. A double Mox Diamond opening hand is absolutely terrible. 

All that the unrestriction of Mox Diamond offers the format is access to more uneeded speed and explosiveness

The same could have been said for Berserk, Doomsday, Gush (which actually slowed it down), and now Grim Monolith.

[Lemnear]

This is all about to predict the impact a unrestriction or a removal of an errata would do to the metagame. I started with some studies of the environment ... I know it's kinda shortsighted to take a look on Vintage, based on experiences with several combo-decks over the last years in germany. Based on rumors I read for nearly that long, the german vintage meta is in the grip of oath, fish etc. True ... but i guess this is a development because of the fact that there a almost no proxy-tornaments. I had some thoughts spinning around my head the last night and I was wondering why LED + Burning Wish is one of the few obviously synergetic "engines" more or less fair in Legacys Burning Belcher but gained restriction in Vintage.

I can imagine that this seems kinda silly to discuss ... maybe I'm even underrated the power to cast maybe Spoils of the vault 4 Wish and finding Will in SB but I'm the opinion that wishing 4 Will or wishing for empty the warrens makes not THE big difference because both targets are able to finish the game (with protection, of course). Playing Wish especialy with breaking LED is like an all-in-move that can also loose you the game. So even in Legacy that deck nearly disapeared because of Thresh, Landstill and Fish ... to be exaxt ... it scooped to FoW, Duress, Stifle. I would thank you if anyone could show me his experiences facing them then they were unrestricted. I know that Vintages speed makes some cards more dangerous than they ever could be in Legacy but todays topic is to decide HOW dangerous they are compared to others so I agree with Grim Monolith, Dream Halls etc. but being confused about FoF. Would it bring back a deck like gifts (4 Gifts/1 Fact) just with 4 Fact/1 Gifts ... maybe ... would it make an impact (with Gushbond legal) ... don't think so. FoF would help control-decks in vintage but I can't imagine it makes an impact like Gush 9 months ago.

sry 4 my rusty english 

[AmbivalentDuck]

[

All that the unrestriction of Mox Diamond offers the format is access to more uneeded speed and explosiveness

The same could have been said for Berserk, Doomsday, Gush (which actually slowed it down), and now Grim Monolith.

Regardless, we need to look at what the cards can be used to do. 

Grim Monolith can produce tons of colorless mana in various combos.
-Metal Worker and Workshop can do so well enough without any sort of combo.

Berserk can make creatures bigger and effectively unblockable when swinging for the kill.
-Yawg Will does this better without being dead maindeck or requiring a wishboard.

Gush and Doomsday should probably NOT be unrestricted in my opinion, or at least not unrestricted together.  While it's largely gone unnoticed, I have a solid local winning streak with Doomsday.  Gush enables broken combo-control, Doomsday enables proactive combo-control.  Unrestricted Doomsday means you can 'go all in' at pretty much any time you feel doing so.  This happens to 'combo' with running proactive disruption like Duress and Thoughtseize.  Gush not only gives Doomsday access to cheap draw, it also enables free (beyond Dday itself) same-turn kills.  The deck has a reputation for being a bear to play, I haven't experienced that.  Instead I've seen it survive and flourish in a meta full of Duress, Thoughtseize, Leyline, Extirpate, Spheres, and Red Blast.  You'd think hate resistant combo would catch on faster...  Oh well, more wins for me.

I think Mox Diamond is in the same group as Gush and Doomsday.  Rather than giving the format "more uneeded speed and explosiveness," it will give a very specific subset of decks access to much needed speed, explosiveness, and color fixing.  Take a look at Vroman's 5C Fish/Control deck.  This deck would *love* to have multiple Mox Diamond:

-breaking news from bizaro world: "Mox diamond is the best mana source in this deck."
my frequent playtest opponent jacob riehm (PolynomialP) has learned to FoW turn 1 diamond. if I resolve diamond I can automaticaly cycle every other rainbow land and mox I draw w impunity.

[Smmenen]

Gush and Doomsday should probably NOT be unrestricted in my opinion, or at least not unrestricted together.  While it's largely gone unnoticed, I have a solid local winning streak with Doomsday.  Gush enables broken combo-control, Doomsday enables proactive combo-control.  Unrestricted Doomsday means you can 'go all in' at pretty much any time you feel doing so. 

Man, you are behind the times.  Both Gush and Dday are already unrestricted.  Sorry for the news.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Just split 1st with Vroman at a nine man tourney.  Here's the current list:

...3  Doomsday...3  Gush...

Yep, already knew that.  Hence playing with them for the last few months.

Unfortunately, 'should not be ____' means two things in English:
-Should not be ___ now...   Eg.  You shouldn't be at 5 life, by my count you're at 3.
-Should not be ___ in the future...  Eg.  Yawgmoth's Will should not be unrestricted.

A Doomsday deck with only singleton copies of Doomsday and Gush probably would *not* put up the results I cited.

[Smmenen]

Just split 1st with Vroman at a nine man tourney.  Here's the current list:

...3  Doomsday...3  Gush...

Yep, already knew that.  Hence playing with them for the last few months.

Unfortunately, 'should not be ____' means two things in English:
-Should not be ___ now...   Eg.  You shouldn't be at 5 life, by my count you're at 3.
-Should not be ___ in the future...  Eg.  Yawgmoth's Will should not be unrestricted.

A Doomsday deck with only singleton copies of Doomsday and Gush probably would *not* put up the results I cited.

Write a primer or a short article on it!  That sounds fascinating.   I'm sure alot of the stacks from my original Dday article still apply.  God I love that deck. I d love to see what you've come up with.

[DarkfnTemplar]

While it may be "fair" to unrestrict mox diamond on a strictly power basis, I think it should stay where it is for its total effect. What I mean by this is do you really want all of these 4 of cards in the same format? Unrestricting it would just give one deck an advantage and it wouldn't help an already healthy format.

[Smmenen]

While it may be "fair" to unrestrict mox diamond on a strictly power basis, I think it should stay where it is for its total effect. What I mean by this is do you really want all of these 4 of cards in the same format? Unrestricting it would just give one deck an advantage and it wouldn't help an already healthy format.

That's not necessarily true.

As I wrote in the article:

On the upside, I think that unrestricted Mox Diamond could make a cheap, budget-friendly control deck using Land Tax and Scroll Rack. That deck could be viable in Europe where players aren’t permitted to play proxies in many cases. In Europe, that is called "unspoilered." Mox Diamond could make unspoilered decks more competitive, at least against each other, if not against powered decks.

Mox Diamond could help a Fishy type deck that uses four days pretty easily, I think.

I should have written more about that, but turn one Mox Diamond, Land, Dark Confidant/Meddling Mage, etc with Daze means turn two land drop.

[Xman]

I had some thoughts spinning around my head the last night and I was wondering why LED + Burning Wish is one of the few obviously synergetic "engines" more or less fair in Legacys Burning Belcher but gained restriction in Vintage.

I can imagine that this seems kinda silly to discuss ... maybe I'm even underrated the power to cast maybe Spoils of the vault 4 Wish and finding Will in SB but I'm the opinion that wishing 4 Will or wishing for empty the warrens makes not THE big difference because both targets are able to finish the game (with protection, of course).

Well, it was really a lot more than that.  When they were unrestricted, LED & Burning Wish were both in the original long deck.  I think 4 Academy's was in there also.  I can't quite remember.  I am sure Steve knows.  But it was an insanely fast deck that allowed you to combo, wish for will while using multiple LED's, do it all over, and then find a Tendrils FTW.  Worked amazingly well.  If memory serves, it dominated the meta for a little while, as well as had a consistent kill before turn 3 I believe.  I played it & against it so many years ago, I can't quite remember what exactly was in it.

Back onto the topic.

Steve, with the lack of anything changing, a friend of mine floated his thoughts to me that they are most likely only updating the list once a year, making a few "big" changes, and then leaving it to see how the format plays.  It seems like this mainly because they are behind the ball on Type 1.  Look at when gifts got the Axe.  A little to late for what it did.  Then Gush came back, and completely smashed face for quite a while.  But now the meta is balancing again to Workshops vs. Gush.  Honestly, I think I agree with my friend mainly because there are so few actual tournaments, it takes time for the meta to balance itself out.

As for Mox Diamond & Grim Monolith.  I don't see any problem with them coming off the list.  Mox Diamond costs to much to play, at to high a risk in a format where card slots & land are both at a premium.  Grim Monolith most likely won't see a bunch of play.  So I agree, those two are safe.

Dream Halls.  Such a fun card.  & as fun as the card actually is, I agree it won't break Vintage.  I would love to see a Dream Halls deck.  It is a great engine for a combo.  But I don't think it will be fast enough for the meta.

And Finally FoF.  Gush is off the list.  Fof just seems like ti will be slow compared to Gush.  Both are good, but Fof just feels slower.  I think that the format has moved on in speed.  FoF, while it was good in its heyday, I am with the crowd on this.  It will come off the list, and see some play, but it is really to slow to keep up with everything else.  Yes, I understand the meta has slowed down.  But even with Gush, you are fighting for board position & card advantage from the beginning.  But with fof, you can't cast it reliably until turn 3.  But it is a very good card still, and I think it wouldn't hurt the environment to see it off the list.

[madmanmike25]

As long as Diamond functions in the same way, it can probably come off.  Vintage would probably see a deck that can actually use Loam effectively.  I can easily see a deck with Fastbond+Exploration+Gush that turns land drops into storm count though.

Grim Monolith should stay on the list imo.  If it comes off I will definitely put 4 of them in a deck and toss in some Keys.

FoF is also too risky I think.  But hey, it might let decks play with 4 Drains again.  FoF isn't reliant on Fastbond and when played with full accel and Drains might lead to some serious shenanigans.

But the bottom line is this;  Doesn't the format seem healthy enough right now?  Do we need more change so soon?

Mike

[jtm198]

Dream Halls - I can see this, people will try to play it, but it most likely will be too slow.

Mox Diamond - Hmmm... It's a 0 casting cost artifact that can produce mana the turn it comes into play, yet it takes a land out of your hand (people know its errata'd right?).  I don't see this in multiples becoming too much of a problem. How many mana producing lands to people put in decks nowadays?

Grim Monolith - Mishra's Factory & Metal Worker are far more dangerous and unrestricted.  I'm not too sure what unrestriction would do though...

Fact or Fiction - Its also much too slow.  Would bring back some Mana Drain decks.

Library of Alexandria - Has anyone thought of unrestriction & errata (making it a legendary land?)

-JTM

[Shock Wave]

Library of Alexandria - Has anyone thought of unrestriction & errata (making it a legendary land?)

I think that this would be the only way for LOA to be fair in multiples, which would essentially defeat the purpose of unrestricting it. I really think we should leave this card where it is and respect the reason it is restricted. I don't think people realize that if this card isn't dealt with immediately, you will lose the game. What makes it really ugly in multiples is that with two in play, you can draw two or more cards per turn for free (by stacking activations), without having to combo it with awful cards the way Bazaar does. Yes, LOA has lost power over the years because the format has gotten faster, but allowing it to be played in multiples will restore its power level, and then some. My $0.02.

[TopSecret]

Additionally, LoA is really strong when you play it first turn.
If you had 4 at your disposal, that would make 1st turn LoA fairly consistent.
In that way, unrestricted Library could serve as a deck's engine.

I am not knowledgeable enough to judge if that engine would be too good.
I just want to point out that LoA doesn't fall into the often cited
"Why would anyone play four when no one even plays a single copy now?" argument.