Un-restrict Necropotence?

[Anonymous]

I know there has been some discussion this past week about potential changes to the banned/restricted lists and was thinking about what I would like to see changed or at least discussed.  I read many of the posts about un-restricting many cards for the reason that they "won't hinder the environment too much without               present" and don't feel that is the most optimal way to go about things...  I would rather talk about a card which has been restricted in the past without complete consideration.  

I would like to propose an elegant discussion about un-restricting Necropotence.  It has been a long time deck archtype and produced a large number of fun decks.  Many people have argued that mishra's workshop should go back to being restricted, but I agree with the argument that other decks just need to adapt.  I feel that necropotence was restricred before people were really able to come up with a strong sustainable solution for it.  (although the sligh at the time was able to knock it around a bit... and black vise hurt as well)  The necropotence component is just another threat that needs to be dealt with, and survived for a long time without being the top deck.  Even when it was really strong, it wasn't the only deck at the top, which is what I think type I is all about: many competitive decks that each could take a tourney given a highly skilled player.  

While considering this proposal, I think it is important to keep in mind how many successful aggro decks in the type I community right now...  (of which black [sui/pox especially] is clearly a step down from - against other aggro at least)

Necropotence has a special spot in many player's hearts, and I believe that it is possible for it to co-exist peacefully in the current type I metagame.  There would be a resurgance of deckbuilding that would take place, and I dont think it would make black hands down the best color to play either.  I currently believe the current metagame to be as balanced with as many competitive decks as I can remember, and adding into the mix all the necro-decks will only further strengthen the environment.

I would love to hear the comments from everyone out there, and appreciate your opinons.

[Anonymous]

Unrestricted necro would give far too big a boost to combo decks, especially ones that already have the manabase to support it such as dragon.

Combo is at a good power level at the moment where it is strong, but not overpowering. Unrestricting necro would be a very big mistake and would probably all but force aggro completely out of the format.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply.  I think that combo would be helped by necro, but it would require a strong commitment to black.  (at BBB for necro)  

The combo decks that come to mind when black is mentioned are trix, dragon, and mask.  

Trix- If necro were to be unrestricted, then illusions would need to be restricted.  Also, black vise should be a consideration for unrestriction as well.  There would be some sort of domino effect.  (similar to the unrestriction of academy, but that is for another post)

Dragon- As long as they dont restrict tormod's crypt, ANY deck can handle this combo.  Also, swords or any other instand removal works to take away all the opponents permanents.  I see dragon as a deck that could be hated out of an environment very easily.

Mask- This would seem to be a good deck to abuse necro.  A 1cc creature is not that hard to remove, but does put a quick 2 turn clock on the game and would probably require a rules change on dreadnought if necro were to be unrestricted.  (but hey, while we are at it, might as well change all the weird rulings)


As for the comment about aggro being dead, I think that sligh would still be around, as they have been able to beat black decks for a long time (especially with black vise).  I also think that sui black would be stronger.  (2 staple aggro decks would still be around, and I am sure others could survive as well)

[MoreFling]

Didn't you ever witness when Trix was hot in 1.x and t1?

What do you want to do? Start another combo winter?

**pictures himself at a tournament**
"Hi"
"Hi, lets have some fun"
"Indeed"
"Higher roller starts?"
"Yup"
+Dices are rolled+
"Ok, I win the die-roll, I'll report the 2-1 victory."
"Yup, thanks for playing"
**back to reality**

need more arguments?\n\n

[Anonymous]

I remember the trix decks of 1.x and t1.  That is why, if you read my post carefully, I said that illusions needs to be corrected.

Something like this would work:
Illusions of Grandeur  
Cumulative upkeep: 2
When <this> comes into play, you gain 20 life.
When you lose control of <this>, you lose 20 life.
Effects that prevent or redirect damage cannot be used to counter this loss of life.

So, throwing aside the rude comment at the beginning of your post, do you have anything else insightful to add?  I am aware that with any changes to the B/R list, some decks will get better and some will get worse... but if you really love the way the environment is now, then why should we even change anything?  I mean, many people seem to want to unrestrict recall, but why even do that if you want nothing to change.  

I think that necropotence would bring back a fun archtype which was around for a long time.  In addition to being a really fun card to deckbuild around and play with, it will also provide a good entrance path for new people into vintage.  Let's face it, the cards printed in the mid 90's aren't going to last forever.  There is a finite amount of people that can play in type I with power cards, and restricting all the other competitive options because you are scared of a deck is silly.  I think that the good decks out there rightnow will be able to adapt like they have been able to forever...

Necropotence won't make any one deck "unbeatable," which is the best reason for making a card restricted.  Along with some other minor adjustments, the joys of playing with [four copies of] this card can be the magic communities once again!

[Anonymous]

So you want to errata illusions, dreadnaught, and unrestrict vise, just so you can play with 4x necro?

This is just dumb.

Necro is ridiculously broken, that's why it is restricted. It's probably in the top 5 cards that should never ever be unrestricted.

[Puschkin]

Quote (MoreFling @ Feb. 13 2003,10:49)OMFG, you should be shot and buried for suggesting this !

Morefling, once more, please settle down a bit and dont forget which Forum this is! A less drastic expression would be more appropriate.

xrizzo, it is not true that the players did not have enough time to adapt to Necro, Necro was there for years and ruled supreme for years. It was not always totally dominating but it was a mayor force all the time and limiting what control can do.
Necro has just too much potential to be abused. It may be true that the problem is not Necropotence itself instead the cards that you draw out of Necro. But thats exactly it: The cards you draw in Type I are the best that were ever printed.
Put Necro in a "normal" deck without any restricted and undercosted cards, say, in a Ice Age Block deck where the problem cards (Zuran Orb and Demonic Consultation) are banned. There it is okay since the disadvantages that Necro has weigh much more: WIthout good mana acceleration and without undercoasted cards, it just takes too long to build up an advantage, and the longer it takes, the more you will feel the lack of the discard phase.
But in Type one, where the game will be decided in 1-2 turns once the Necro hits the table, you dont feel this drawback at all.
It is okay to have a restricetd Necro showing up here and there but we dont need decks designed totally around it! Not to speak of combos. Illusions would have to be erratad and even if they did, it would just fuel another combo. It would cause other cards to be restricted, much like Academy does, and thats nothing we really want.

[Anonymous]

"Necro has just too much potential to be abused. It may be true that the problem is not Necropotence itself instead the cards that you draw out of Necro. But thats exactly it: The cards you draw in Type I are the best that were ever printed."


I see the value in that statement.  

I guess I need to view necropotence strictly as a card drawing engine.  

I guess I was advocating that a class of decks built around necro wouldnt be that bad, and that it might work again in Type I.  (because necro without illusions wasnt the ultimate deck, it was good, but not ultimate)  

I do appreciate a black deck being able to compete with blue in the card drawing aspect, but realize that this is very dangerous, and leaves the open potential for people to break necro in even more abusive ways than before.  (although trix was a pretty good one...)

Thanks for the insight.

[Matt The Great]

Puschkin's explanation made me think of a much more interesting question: would Necropotence be broken in Type Two, with no acceleration at all and weak discard and creatures? It would obvioulsy be good - Necro can't ever be truly bad - but I suspect it wouldn't be TOO good.

[Puschkin]

Especially since once you have Necor out, discarding would cause the cards to be removed, that alone would most Type II decks prevent from including Necro! Hm, interesting thought.

But do not tell the Wizards, okay?

[iceman]

Yes, while it is true that if it was reprinted it would not add much to Type 2, but what it could do to Extended would be a different issue. Imagine Reanimator, Aluren, and Angry Ghoul w/ 4 Necros. It would be the Combo Winter of Extended.

[Anonymous]

Hmm... I'm gonna have to side with Iceman (and the majority of the rest of you guys) on this one.

While Necropotence is freakin' ridiculously broken in the right t1 deck, I would tend to think that the less "explosive" environment of t2 would drastically limit any attempt to recreate a broken Necro strategy deck or some such similar work.

I have personally seen skull-head in action many times in both the "oldie days" and the current type one field, and all that I have to say about skulls is that he can make or break a game if he gets on the board early enough. I've seen plenty of crazy Necro draws against other players and myself, and I too believe that the no-joke nature of this card would make it a potentially viable force in several notable Extended decks, were it to be reprinted. (and god forbid, allowed to exist in quantities of four in each deck!)

Under no circumstances do I avocate the unrestriction of the skull-head in t1 (well....maybe under one). He's on the list for a very good reason, and I think it's safe to say that he's where he belongs for the time being.

@iceman: heh, combo winter in extended, now THAT'S a good one!  

[Anonymous]

Lets take a look real quick...

Necropotence BBB
Pay 1 life: Set aside top card of deck, and draw it during your discard step.

..I say ban it.

[Anonymous]

"Lets take a look real quick...

Necropotence BBB
Pay 1 life: Set aside top card of deck, and draw it during your discard step.

..I say ban it. "


I think that would be a little hasty.  There are many other cards in Type I with a similar power level for different colors (ancestral comes to mind) which are allowed.  (1x of)  To go down the road of completely banning a card in Type I would require significant thought and support in terms of logical reasoning.  

From the deduction above, I think neither has been done, and know of at least 10 other cards I would ban first.  (power 10 is a good start)

------

To comment on the unbanning of necro in other formats, I think that it would still find a way to be abused in anything but Type II.  The graveyard mechanincs would hurt the power level.  Without dark ritual, I dont know if the explosiveness would be nearly as effective.

[MoreFling]

Banning Necro won't be needed. It's still a bomb to get into play against control for monoblack, and I wouldn't dream of taking it away.

however, xrizzo : banning power10 is silly, it's what T1 is, a shitload of broken cards and cool archetypes, and most importantly, the wide-open field, alongside the rather unpridictable match outcomes.

I suggest, that if you dislike all these power cards, T1.5 is the format for you, although we have to convince wizards / dci to step off their policy of banning the restricted list in 1.5. We could use a few tutors there, since almost every combo deck is hated out by bannings, so it might actually give all the aggro in the format a run for their money.

Just my $0.02

[psyduck]

Quote (Guest @ Feb. 13 2003,03:51)So you want to errata illusions, dreadnaught, and unrestrict vise, just so you can play with 4x necro?

This is just dumb.

Necro is ridiculously broken, that's why it is restricted. It's probably in the top 5 cards that should never ever be unrestricted.

Necro should have never been printed. It was so powerfuly broken, its really a dumb card to have printed. What's even dumber is that they reprinted it in standard. Someone at R&D was on crack.

[CrazyCarl]

Quote (psyduck @ Feb. 14 2003,04:14)

Quote (Guest @ Feb. 13 2003,03:51)So you want to errata illusions, dreadnaught, and unrestrict vise, just so you can play with 4x necro?

This is just dumb.

Necro is ridiculously broken, that's why it is restricted. It's probably in the top 5 cards that should never ever be unrestricted.

Necro should have never been printed. It was so powerfuly broken, its really a dumb card to have printed. What's even dumber is that they reprinted it in standard. Someone at R&D was on crack.

That person probably just got hit by the famous "bus".

[Anonymous]

Oh, come on.  How well do you remember the actual circumstances in which the decision to put Necro in 5th was made.  There was nothing in the game then that it was really broken with.  It was very powerful, and won tournaments in things like Steel Necro and T1 versions of Black Summer decks, but it was a different game then.  The only 'real' combo in the game, as we understand them now was ProsBloom and it was hardly in danger of overwhelming standard (block was another matter, but Necro wasn't in block).  Necro clearly needs to be restricted now, the depth of the combo card pool virtually guarantees that it would be broken, but in 1997-1998, without Hymn to Tourach, it was a great anti-control card that made mono-black fun (unlike the Suicide decks that were just over the horizon, which were really boring, IMHO)

Just my two cents,
Leo

[Anonymous]

Oh my dear sweet diety that I pray to, where ever you are, do not let this happen!

As happy as I would be to see old bone head return.  I originally played old school necro before it was restricted, and even played it after it was restricted.  The black summer was bad, bad.  But it was nothing compared to the horror that was TRIX!!!

Trix old school with 4 necro was probably responsible for more players quitting magic than any other event.

[Anonymous]

@humanman- Necropotence already is restricted, and it is just fine where it is.

Arguments against banning: No decks can be built around it reliably, as you can only run 1, and all cheap tutors that could fetch it are also restricted. Therefore, I see no reason to ban it. In Type 1, cards that are too good are simply restricted nowdays, because the point of Type 1 is to be able to play with as many cards as possible. (The philosophy of rather having 2 cards restricted than 1 of them being banned and the other legal.)

Arguments against unrestricting: As a 4 of, it would obviously be too good in Trix (not to mention other combos), so it cannot be unrestricted either.

In conclusion, Necropotence is one of those cards that should not be expected to go anywhere anytime soon. If one wants to look for good candidates for unrestriction, there is Recall, and possibly a few other cards.

[Puschkin]

humanman, I still remember very well and wished for three consecutive years that Necro should be banned/restricted in the various formats, what they did instead was restricting/banning the cards around Necro and that even pissed me more of. At one time Wizards claimed that Necro is no problem at all and from that point on they did everything to keep that statement up. If they had more guts and just admitted that they made a mistake, it would have been banned/restriceted a lot earlier.

[Anonymous]

"however, xrizzo : banning power10 is silly, it's what T1 is, a shitload of broken cards and cool archetypes, and most importantly, the wide-open field, alongside the rather unpridictable match outcomes."


@morefling
I never suggested banning any cards.  I argued that necro is not THE most powerful card ever printed, and because T1 is about many one-of's it should at least keep its place in the restricted list.  I simply said that there would be others banned before it...
Again, please read more carefully.
I am not interested in type 1.5 and dont pay much attention to it... but you are welcome to play there.  



@the general direction of the discussion
It seems to me that many people are stating that necro should be restricted because of Trix alone, but if that were the case, then illusions could be changed or limited...  I think the real debate would need to lie in the areas of other combo decks and what necro does for them... which I hope most would agree that necro would enable more combos and thus make it unable to survive unrestricted.


I guess that the premise behind the opinions is whether you enjoy playing control or playing something else...  from what I know about the individuals who have posted about the topic (in this thread or any other) I find that many of the control players freak out when they hear of necro being unrestricted, and that many of the players who play black or combo would love to see it back.  Of course, those who didnt play back during ice age will have an opinion built less on nostalgia....

I personally have many fond memories of playing with necro decks.  They were allowed to be around for many years so the emotional attachment is strong.  After considering what could be done with the drawing power of this card, I realize that it would unbalance the environment which would be bad for vintage.

[Anonymous]

Necro is too powerful.  Imagine 4 Necro in the following decks...

Suicide Black-control and combo would die to the massive discard and distruption along with beats.

Mask-first turn rit, necro, go.  Suck down cards into a god hand, I'll just put this little L on your score card.

Trix-well, we all know what happens here....

TNT-Mono black TNT? it could just brute force draw into all the fat it could drop in one turn...

I too love necro, but it is just too powerful.

Its like if you unrestrict Black Vise, it will not be the aggro players dropping it against control, it will be combo decks that lock you down and let you die to it.

Berserk unrestricted would make TNT even more broken.  

I say restrict workshop.

[Anonymous]

@restriction of Mishra's Workshop- I do not believe that this is necessary. There was an article on this very topic on Star City Games, but after reading it, I am not convinced.

The restricted list should limit strategies that can dominate the format, and as far as I know, this is not the case with Mishra's Workshop decks. (namely TnT, Stacker2, and various Mono-Brown and Multicolor strategies) While decks that use Workshop are generally strong against mono black and other various aggressive decks, they do not unbalance the format, because they have their share of weaknesses. (Vulnerability to artifact hate; lack of disruption-- weakness to combo)

In addition, decks that use Mishra's Workshop are not too common in most metagames due to the costs of making such decks. (in addition to 4 Workshops, they nearly always need the Beta P9 artifacts)

These are the deciding factors for me. Restricting Mishra's Workshop will only accomplish the severe weakening of the innovative archetypes which run Workshop, likely making them unplayable.

[MoreFling]

xrizzo: I think you didn't read my and your own post really carefull. You mentioned you would ban the P10 before Necro, while I argued that didn't make too much sense.

Arguably, necro can be more broken then Mox if used in 4-somes. Necro is right up there with the best cards in the game, in my opinion anyway :

1-Balance
2-An. recall
3-Necro

Your entitled to feel different, and I like how you thought about posting, since it's that kind of quality that I love to see here, but I will always disagree with you I think  

[Matt The Great]

There are arguments for placing Necropotence higher than Ancestral Recall. I would put Necro at number one, personally.

In its way, Time Spiral is as powerful as Balance - not something you just randomly toss into a deck, but if unrestricted you can build hideously broken decks around it.

[j_orlove]

Personally, I think Jar was possibly the most broken card ever. But it got banned/restricted after about a week, so everyone forgets about it.

[Matt The Great]

Yeah, Jar falls in the same category as Spiral. I'm sure if Jar was in Saga and Spiral, Legacy, it would have been Spiral that was restricted after a week. In other words, I think people learned from Spiral and applied that knowledge towards Jar.

You know, I remember when I thought Strip Mine was about as broken as a card could be, and when I also thought that including one was an automatic in every deck. Oh, to be young and innocent and eagerly awaiting Mirage again...\n\n

[Puschkin]

Please keep this to the restriction/unrestriction of Necro.

I´d like to tackle the issue of xrizzo who said that it´s mostly the control players who freak out if they her "Necro".
First, they have of course a real reason in doing so since Necro wrecks them, but I guess they are not exaggerating. You imply here that they only whine about it like aggroplayers whine about Morphling and Mana Drain. This may be true of course in some cases but I think they do so rightfully.
But, more importantly, only if you have mastered the art of good control, you have really an understnading of how magic works. You have to break the game down into its very atomic pieces and you have to know what is going on in the other player´s head, which means, you need also a decent understanding of aggro and combo in order to beat it with control.
The pillar of control is how to get card advantage in al its possible ways and subtleties. What I want to say is that control players most likely understand Necropotence the best and realize its power even more than the Necroplayer himself. Its not enough to know that you basically one if it resolves while having enough life, it is the "why" that counts.

[j_orlove]

Okay: Necro should stay restricted because it provides a huge boost to any combo that can run black. Right now, that would basically be Mask, Dragon, AND Trix, but you never know what new combos could spring up, even if we get rid of those 3. After all, how many people saw Dragon coming before reading the Judgement spoiler? None. And have you read the spoiler for the next set? What about the next 20 sets? Because if Necro is still in the envoronment, one of those sets might give us a bomb that completely ruins the format (even more than in the days of Trix or Academy, for all we know).