[Free Article] Vintage 3.0: The Silver Age

[JACO]

My latest article on MTG Salvation is up as of last Friday morning/afternoon. I was traveling to the CT tournament for a great time and have been unable to post the link here until now.

http://mtgsalvation.com/846-vintage-30-the-silver-age.html

When looking back at the development of decks, the printing of new sets, and the Banned/Restricted List changes handed down by the DCI, Vintage breaks down into 3 main categories for me:
Vintage 1.0 - 2001 and before
Vintage 2.0 - 2001 to 2008
Vintage 3.0 - 2008 and beyond

If the past half-dozen years have truly been the "Golden Age of Vintage," the most recent restrictions by the DCI will be moving us to the "Silver Age of Vintage." With the restriction of deck staples like Brainstorm and Ponder, and the elimination of Flash and Gushbond as viable strategies, we will see the metagame initially stunted and take a step backwards, and then move in some different directions going forward.

My early take on a couple of cards, decks, and more. Let me know what you liked, what you didn't, and what you'd like to see in coming articles. I'm leaning towards featuring a couple of decks like Grim Long, BHWW Tendrils, as well as a Counter-Top variation in future articles.

[Ufactor]

Good reads!  This is definitely a well-educated guess at what the environment will look like.  The best part of the article is the Trinket-Paint deck - what a contender!

Your chronology, however, is a little off.  2001 isn't a benchmark for any reason.  As someone who has been following Type One since The Vice Age and playing since the last days of Beyond Dominia (RIP), I remember it like this:

Vintage 1.0 - Alpha to Urza's Saga

Vintage 2.0 - Urza's Saga to Scourge

Vintage 3.0 - Sourge to 06/01/2007

Vintage 4.0 - 06/01/2007 to present

The reasoning.. decks changed dramatically when various cards from Urza's Saga were printed (Yawgmoth's Will), and changed dramatically, again, when all those cards were restricted.  Decks changed again with the printing of storm cards, followed up with Mirrodin block and the restriction of Burning Wish.  Finally, we've seen crazy things happen within the last year of errata, unrestrictions, unrestrictions, and printings.

[Xman]

It was a good read.  Extremely well thought out & presented.  I personally like your Goth-Slaver list a lot.  How much testing did it actually get, and how good are it's matchups vs. the projected field?

I think Vintage will be better in the long term and it will be interesting to see what completely new decks appear over the next few months that are going to be designed to beat the old rehashes.