I agree, I think they made a great move in neutering long. Banning Will is absurd and wouldn't have killed long at all, just forced it to adapt slightly. I'm not so sure burning wish needed to take the hit as well but they gave a good explanation for it.
I'm surprised that they chose not to unrestrict anything though. There are many many cards that have been restricted over the years, fork and recall come to mind, that are barely playable now. Even the seemingly most powerful cards in the heydey of magic like the rack now pale in comparison to what current decks like workshop and dragon or cards like pyrostatic pillar can do. It's as if once they restrict something, they just forget about it completely. The format is a lot faster than what it was when many of these cards were first restricted.
But I'm particularly surprised at their refusal to either print more efficent artifact hosers or restrict workshop now that artifact decks are getting so abusive across the field, not just in vintage. I mean they took out Ancient Tomb in extended but left Workshop, the permanent black lotus, alone. Especially considering how many decks are rendered inviable due to thier inability to hate out the deck no matter how hard they try...
Quote Many decks are definately more viable with long now gone. But now more than ever, Workshop variants, Dragon, and to a lesser degree Mask based combo decks will make up a large part of the meta any where where people actually own power and play competitively. And these decks are so synergetic that the only way in which other decks can have a chance with them is by packing their sideboards with the appropriate hate. Thus the only decks that are even remotely viable in a competitive environment are those that pack said hate. This isn't a problem regarding Dragon and Mask as essentially every color has easy to cast cards that significantly hurt both decks. But while Mishra's Workshop unduly shuts out a lot of strategies that just don't have the brokenness to race the locks, through no fault of their own, there really isn't any way to effectively hate it out without a blue or red splash.
Until wizards decides to print artifact hate cards for all the colors or decides to restrict the permenant version of black lotus, the only viable noncombo decks are those that splash a significant amount of either blue or red. While this may not seem apparent, anyone who has played against a good workshop deck can attest to incredible amounts of mana the deck can generate in the first few turns, the raw synegetic power of the cards to be able to totally shut you out by turn two, or the futility of trying to trade with the key cards one for one.
Trading for land one for one with cards such as Wasteland or Sinkhole rarely works as there are far too many mana accelerators to be dealt with effectively, and by the time the mana denial can actually hit play, Workshop variants often had already had the key turn one or two needed to lock you out. Trading one for one with threats or by utilizing discard is often just as futile as no deck could match it's hate with the number of threats found in the deck. Current artifact based artifact hosers such as Null Rod and Chalice of the Void deal with far too few threats, and almost always deal with them too late and very poorly at that. Graveyard hard proves just as difficult as the graveyard is typically only a very minor component of the combo. The original MUD builds did very well and never once bothered to utilize their graveyards.
Even after combining all these forms of hate to make up a third of the main deck and almost all of the sideboard, the incredible challenge that decks like Chalice Black face against workshop based decks proves unconditionally just how futile the above measures are. Currently, the only cards with which workshop variants can truly be crippled and hated out are cards that can deal with multiple key artifact threats at once. These consist of Energy Flux, Artifact Mutation, and Rack and Ruin. Hurkyll's Recall and Blood Moon are also effective provided you only need to stall them temporarily. These and only these cards deal with enough threats at once to have any chance to make up for the raw synergy and power found in Workshop variants. And considering that all five cards require a red or blue splash, it becomes quite apparent why so many decks and archetypes are made unplayable by the unresticted presence of Workshop variants. And it also becomes apparent why workshop decks consistently manage to take 4 or 5 slots on almost every top 8 list even while being such a new deck, even with long around and with workshops being so rare. Four copies of a permanent black lotus is afterall no small advantage.
So if the DCI remains firm on it's refusal to restrict Mishra's Workshop, Wizards should at the very least ensure that cheap and effective artifact hate is made accessible to all the colors in the next set whether in the form of individual cards or with more effective artifact based artifact hosers. Afterall, it's not just vintage that's being deformed by artifact decks, extended suffers from the same problem and I predict standard will soon as well.
