Updating the B&R List

[BouncingBeeble]

Due to a large popularity boost in type one over the past years, this format has begun to develop its own metagame, which has been actively shifting since this surge in vintage’s recognition as a sanctioned format. unrestricting of cards, and as such, it seems that it is time to re-evaluate what should be restricted and what shouldn't be.

Crop Rotation
This was a card that was restricted by association, along with Voltaic Key and Frantic Search, because of Tolarian Academy. Now that the academy archetype is dead due to faster combo decks that are more consistent thanks to the storm mechanic, this card that’s only purpose in vintage is to find the academy has no reason to be on the list any more. Referring to the common analogy that the B&R list is like a hall of fame, this card should not be here.

Verdict: Unrestrict, Academy is dead, this will not revive it.

Doomsday
A card that can only be used to set up combos involving less then five cards plus those you have in hand, at the cost of the rest of your library and half your life is simply not good enough anymore, even if you are running a full set. The most probable way this card could be abused is in trix or the rebirth of twister, however, neither deck is a degenerate addition to the metagame. Also, with many decks being able to deal nine or 10 damage to you in one turn (Hulk, TNT, Oshawa, etc.), you had best win that turn.

Verdict: Unrestrict. This is a card that will not create degeneracy and will open new doors for deckbuilding.This metagame has now become the basis for the restrictions and

There are also some other candidates for unrestriction that seem far more iffy choices.

Fork
This is currently seeing play in only sligh decks, and the only thing it is doing in that deck is copying Fireblast. The only problem with unrestricting this is that it could possibly (and quite probably) break desire decks by being able to technically make all of the restricted cards in the deck have four extra copies. While a possibility, this should by all rights stay on the list.

Verdict: While tempting, this would almost certainly make combo too good. Stay restricted

Mind over Matter
Once again, this is a card that was restricted due to the printing of Tolarian Academy, but unlike Crop Rotation, this is the card that generated the majority of the mana along side Candelabra of Tawnos. As with Fork, this is a card that could be unrestricted, but in all likeliness, would cause some kind of combo deck to (re)emmerge, but unlike Fork, the combo would be slower and clunkier, and therefore a possible addition to the metagame.

Verdict: An interesting decision, but just to be safe, let's keep it restricted.

So that's my take on the current B&R situation, feel free to discuss.

[MuzzonoAmi]

Unrestrict Fork. And Fact or Fiction. Fork gives aggro and other budget decks a boost, and at very little cost to the metagame. If any.

[jpmeyer]

Fork, Mox Diamond, Library of Alexandria, Regrowth, Braingeyser, Stroke of Genius, Voltaic Key, Earthcraft, Entomb.

[MuzzonoAmi]

I completely forgot about LoA. Thanks for reminding me.

[BouncingBeeble]

Voltaic key seems very risky and might end up getting workshop restricted (if I got a dime every time I heard someone say that). It just creates to much mana with metalworker, vault, etc. Earthcraft should never have been restricted, AoS was a fun and a budget deck that was never dominating. If you unrestrict stroke, why not geyser too? They do not seem like they would be dominating in multiple copies, although it would probabally boost mono U big time. The library had a card to hose it in the set after it was printed (strip mine), saying something of its power level. I would keep this restricted.

PS. Is their any way I can edit my poll to include other options?

[Smmenen]

Unrestrict Fork, Fact or Fiction, Entomb, Gyser, and Stroke.

Steve

[Dr. Sylvan]

Braingeyser
Doomsday
Entomb
Fork
Regrowth
Stroke of Genius
Voltaic Key

[JuJu]

Unrestrict Entomb, Earthcraft, LoA, Crop Rotation, Geyser+Stroke, DoomsDay, Mox Diamond, Chrome Mox

[Jacob Orlove]

Fork, Mox Diamond, Library of Alexandria, Regrowth, Braingeyser, Stroke of Genius, Voltaic Key, Earthcraft, Entomb.

Yes.

[mouth]

Fork, Mox Diamond, Library of Alexandria, Regrowth, Braingeyser, Stroke of Genius, Voltaic Key, Earthcraft, Entomb.

Yes.

All but Entomb.

[greedo]

I do not agree with unrestricting Library.  While people say it is too slow and there is too many wastelands I am still winning games with 1 copy.  It would be interesting finding room for a couple more though.

I think Crop Rotation should stay restricted.

The other suggestions seem fair enough.

[JACO]

Fork, Mox Diamond, Library of Alexandria, Regrowth, Braingeyser, Stroke of Genius, Voltaic Key, Earthcraft, Entomb.

Yes.

You guys are out of your mind. A few of those (Fork, Earthcraft, Entomb) are acceptable, and I would support unrestriction of, and Regrwoth and Voltaic Key I'm still on the fence about. But unrestricting Library of Alexandria and draw spells like Stroke and Braingeyser is absolutely ludicrous. For all the crying that people do about combo, this would just make matters far worse (as would fast mana in the form of Mox Diamond).

I've read all the arguments about how many control decks should drop Library, and to me, they are all BS. An active Library FLAT OUT WINS GAMES (and matches, as a result), and this is when their is only one present. Give me 4 Libraries, and I (and most other competent control players) will own your ass. It is really not that hard to get to 7 cards in hand, nor is it that hard to protect your super important lands (Teferi's Response, anyone?). The possibility of having more than one Library to abuse this goes beyond all logic. Jacob Orlove and JPMeyer, I'd like to hear some tangible evidence or a logical argument as to why you believe it should be unrestricted (I'm not neccesarily calling you out, I would just like to see a rational argument and what your take is on the matter that leads you to believe what you do).

I'm still on the fence about Fork, as well, but if they aren't going to stick to their original plan about restricting multipliers (i.e. Berserk), then I don't really have a huge problem if Fork was to be unrestricted as well. It would pretty much only be good in Combo and red-based burn decks.

[Rane]

I'm with JACO, you'd have to be insane to unrestrict LoA.  The amount of times I've seen it rode to victory... same with the Fact of Fiction.  FOFEOTYL anyone?  in copies of four it was just insane.  As for Moxes they were restricted becasue we showed that ANY mana acceleration like that can AND WILL BE abused in T1.  I don't want another month of 1st-2nd turn kills.  I'm on the boat with the rest though.  As a side note unrestricting Entomb would very likely spawn Reanimator decks in T1 again.  Even with all the graveyard hate going around for Dragon, if Reanimator had 4xEntomb then they might make a comeback to Tier-1 or Tier-2 status.  With Entomb, Buried Alive, Dark Ritual, Exhume, Reanimate, all in copies of 4, along with things like Duress... first turn Akroma's are back people.  I'd liketo see how the meta would react to reanimator being back.

[TheFram]

This analysis is contingent on the separation of the lists.

Can Definitely be Unrestricted:
Fork - will only help aggro, aggro=weaker than control even now.
Mox Diamond - requires a land commitment, therefor not a good combo card.
Earthcraft - was never broken, restricted for 1.5
Entomb - see above
Regrowth - Not that strong anymore, Y.Will is worse by far.
Voltaic Key - What got this restricted? Monolith? Time Vault? whatever it was I don't think its relevant any more. A two piece artifact combo is not that impressive.
Doomsday - never broken, just hyped IMHO.


Probably can be:
FoF - Not as broken as it was.
LoA - Cycling Land >> LoA against aggro. Would you run more than 2 md?
Stroke, Braingeyser - I would still play Scrying over these methinks.

Shouldn't be
MoMA - This was broken.
Crop Rotation - Academy is still in the format, as it Bazaar. Unrestriction of this is not justifiable until Academy is banned. 4 Rotation would make Academy viable. Making combo decks viable by unrestriction = not good.

Just my .02$
-Thefram

[Jacob Orlove]

Re: Library

If you have seven cards in hand in the late game with a control deck, you are winning. So, library is only useful in the early game, when it's not a win-more card. This means dropping the LoA before you get to drain mana. Not having UU open on turn 2 means you have to wait even longer for Mana Drain's tempo swing, and by then they've dropped more threats (using Force obviously neutralizes library). Leaving yourself open like that just doesn't work against too many top tier decks.

It's still awesome in the control matchup, but manabases are tight; you're either running a ton of colored sources, or B2B; either way, Library will be hard to integrate. It would probably see some SB play, and decks could redesign themselves to run more MD, but against the field, it's not as good as it was when they had to restrict it.

Re: Entomb
It's not that good; bazaar dragon doesn't even run 1. It would make budget mono-b or B/G builds better, though.

Re: Crop Rotation
Still broken in combo. 4 is way too many.

[BouncingBeeble]

@ JACO
Stroke and Geyser can be unrestricted due to the fact that combo now has very little mana to play with, and using it on an x spell which may or may not find you something to continue going off is just to risky.

Speaking of mana, this is why the moxen and such should be/stay restricted. By taking out the mana, you leave more cards unrestricted in the card pool.

@ TheFram and Jacob Orlove
Crop rotation was/is never used with bazaar, and no one is using sylvan scrying to find an academy so I see no reason why rotation can't be unrestricted.

[BreathWeapon]

Hmm, i'd like to see: Fact or Fiction, Brain Geyser, Stroke of Genious, Library of Alexandria, Regrowth and Fork taken of the list. Note: The day some one comes up with a broken Combo deck using Fork is the day i'll eat me Black Lotus. After the obvious choices, i'd also like to see Mox Diamond (Parfait Rules), Earthcraft, Entomb and Dooms Day unrestricted (Hermit Druid is more terrifying lol). Crop Rotation and Voltaic Key can stay restricted, just because Academy was the gayest deck EVAR, after Fish Although', it would be interesting to see what Oshawa Stompy could do with 4 Crop Rotations to tutor for not only its Draw Engine but LD and even Gaea's Cradle. Yup, that would be pretty kick ass.

[jpmeyer]

1) Sylvan Scrying costs more mana, isn't an instant, and (this is the important part) doesn't put the land into play.

2) In addition to what jor_love said, how are you going to use 4 LoA and still have room for Wasteland?  It becomes a design decision, not an auto-inclusion.  Here's why:

4 Polluted Delta
4 Library of Alexandria
3 Wasteland
3 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Strip Mine

6 SoLoMoxen (take your pick)

I ran that as the land base for Keeper and drew about 20 test hands in Apprentice with it.  The deck was able to get UU on turn 2 less than half the time (which includes using manipulation like Brainstorm and also the one hand when I went turn 1 Scepter with Mana Drain, which counts.)  In all but a few hands, a Wasteland would simply have killed the deck--and it's not like the deck can run basics anymore to get around this, either!

3) Braingeyser and Stroke of Genius are horrible.  They haven't been used since Scrying came out in control and Academy-based decks aren't as good as decks that kill with Dragon or Tendrils.  I would not unrestrict Fact or Fiction though, since control is probably the best right now and FoF is better than Skeletal Scrying and possibly better than Intuition/AK.  Tog could probably cut Intuition/AK to free up 6 slots.  3 would get filled with the remaining FoFs, 1 slot could replace some randomly shaved card, and then you could add in maybe tutors or Deep Analysis or Deed or whatever.  Strong.

4) I don't see how Entomb-based Dragon is better than normal Dragon.  What would you cut for Entomb?  I can really only think of shaving cards to do this.  I'm not afraid of Benzo either seeing how how every deck runs graveyard hate for Dragon anyway.  Not to mention the millions of copies of Force of Will and Swords to Plowshares.

5) Mox Diamond is poor in combo since they really can't run enough lands to support it.  I guess some aggro decks might play it.

6) Regrowth is only a tutor for spells that you've already cast.  I don't know when you'd want to run multiple copies of Regrowth unless you are planning to use Intuition to get restricted cards.

7) While the Doomsday deck was a joke, there were a lot of cards that we hadn't thought about when we made it, like Gustha's Scepter.  It's probably safe, though since it's more like a three card combo than a one card combo, and three card combos are fine.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Mox Diamond: More thought is required, and I think WotC would be most skeptical of this over any of the other ideas being tossed around.

Voltaic Key: This is completely frivolous and I've seen many Extended players overestimate it because they've only seen it in a context with unrestricted Monoliths. In T1, even that isn't incredible--a two-card combo to do what Workshop does by itself, woooo, scary. The purported interaction with Metalworker overlooks that a single Metalworker activation is typically enough to cast most of the artifacts available if not all. I guess someone might be worried about Metalworker-Key-Stroke if both were unrezzed, but keeping in mind that three card combos with summoning sickness are horrible, I choose not to be concerned.

Entomb: Back when Dragon was almost a fifth of T8s, I would be hesitant to toss it a bone. At present, I am underwhelmed by the threat of a graveyard tutor. There were sixty Tormod's Crypt in the forty Top 8 decks at large January tournaments. As long as people don't ignore the graveyard, Entomb is no danger.

LoA: At present I'm leaning toward interpreting LoA like I see Intuition and Merchant Scroll: it shouldn't be restricted because no modern deck can really make use of more than a couple copies anyway.

Mind Over Matter and Fact or Fiction: Too dangerous.

Geyser, Stroke, and Rotation have been expressed by others.

I say Smmememmen and JP tagteam the SCG articles. At minimum we've all agreed Fork is safe, and Voltaic Key is nearly without dispute.

[Smmenen]

Gyser and Stroke are terrible in combo becuase they are awful card economy.  For 5 mana you get three cards - with three mana you can get 7 with Wheel.  

Steve

[Jacob Orlove]

Gyser and Stroke are terrible in combo becuase they are awful card economy.  For 5 mana you get three cards - with three mana you can get 7 with Wheel.  

Steve

Even Diminishing Returns is better.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Even Diminishing Returns is better.

I just realized that grouping them with Rotation made it sound like I thought they should still be restricted, when they clearly shouldn't.

[theorigamist]

I think Entomb would a be a problem if unrestricted.  One of Dragons weaknesses is that almost every deck runs 5 Strips.  Another problem is the slight randomness of Bazaars.  They work quickly, but if your Dragons are stuck near the bottom you could spend three turns getting them in the graveyard.  I'm not sure 4 Entomb instead of/in addition to Bazaars would be better, but it would be at least as reliable and as powerful.  

There were sixty Tormod's Crypt in the forty Top 8 decks at large January tournaments. As long as people don't ignore the graveyard, Entomb is no danger.

If sideboards are all filling up with hate like that, doesn't that represent a skewed metagame?  The fact that people are preparing for Dragon doesn't mean we need to toss the Dragon player another tool.

6) Regrowth is only a tutor for spells that you've already cast.

...or spells you Bazaared away, or spells you discarded (Madness, Tog, LED, etc.).  I think there are enough things you could do with Regrowth that I would hesitate to unrestrict it.  

7) While the Doomsday deck was a joke, there were a lot of cards that we hadn't thought about when we made it, like Gustha's Scepter. It's probably safe, though since it's more like a three card combo than a one card combo, and three card combos are fine.

I don't think unrestricting Doomsday would hurt the metagame, but I don't think it will happen simply because Wizards doesn't like combo (even three card combos).  Doomsday may have been a joke, but I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to find a way to break a five card deck.

[MuzzonoAmi]

There's no reason for LoA to be restricted. As JP said, it's either the Library or Wastelands in most control decks, and I'd go with Wastelands in almost any metagame. It's useless against aggro until you've already won, and in the control mirror, it's going to get Wasted on sight or B2B/Blood Mooned into uselessness anyway, while serving as a colorless mana source until you can keep 7 in hand long enough to use it. Even now, I waste to color-screw control players before I deal with an active Library. Cutting Hulk out of Green >> stopping LoA.

If sideboards are all filling up with hate like that, doesn't that represent a skewed metagame? The fact that people are preparing for Dragon doesn't mean we need to toss the Dragon player another tool.

Don't forget that there's also a ton of other decks that Crypt is useful against as well. TnT, wMUD, etc. all use the graveyard heavily.

[Smmenen]

Gyser and Stroke are terrible in combo becuase they are awful card economy.  For 5 mana you get three cards - with three mana you can get 7 with Wheel.  

Steve

Even Diminishing Returns is better.

Very, very true.

Caution is reqiured with Restricted List policy - which means a bit of realism is needed.  Only clearly dead cards warrant unrestriction.  Gyser, Stroke, and Fork fit that bill in my opinion.  I would never unrestrict Crop Rotation and certainly not Mox Diamond.  Although, and Ironically mox Diamond is not a card that has synergy in multiples or in Combo decks at all.  I would not mind to see Entomb or Earthcraft unrestricted either but that's becuase they were restricted for 1.5 as far as I know.

Steve

[RoadTrippin]

Although it's the generally accepted theory, I don't think Entomb was restricted solely for 1.5.. and even if it were it would still certainly have made a difference if left unrestricted. I encourage anyone who cares enough to test a 4-Entomb Dragon build vs most of the top-contenders of the current metagame. You'd be surprised at the ownage. Think about it, you get:
A combo deck that can go off by turn 2 with regularity (>50%)
A combo deck that typically goes off with Force of Will/ Duress at the very least backup (or even Defense Grid)
A combo deck that can use Back to Basics to beat any matchup you could call tough
A combo deck that requires no big money cards to build (No need for Bazaar/Squee engine really"

[BreathWeapon]

Entomb is total ass in Dragon. How could it ever be better than Spoils of the Vault? The only deck that would bother to run Entomb is ReAnimator, and it would be awesome to see people run ReAnimator again.

[theorigamist]

MuzzonoAmi, you're right, Crypt is used against other things.  My point was a more general one that the fact that hate is filling sideboards does not mean the hated-against decks are safe.  It means they're getting too powerful.  I was responding to the logic somebody else used, although neither of our logics particularly applied here.

That said, I think unrestricted Entomb would make a budget Dragon possible, and might add some more consistency to powered Dragon.  But would it really be so bad to add some viable budget decks to the metagame?  I'm kind of up in the air about Entomb now.

[jpmeyer]

Bazaar of Baghdad IS the reason that Dragon works.  Without Bazaar the deck is really a three card combo where you need to get the Entomb, the Animate, AND the kill card.  Bazaar makes it a two card kill since now you just need Bazaar and Animate.

With regards to Regrowth, using discard isn't a really good example since 1) discarding any card does the same thing there and 2) you've still gotten your "use" out of the card.  Drawing one of your four Regrowths early on sucks.

[Blackest Lotus]

For sure, this is my list.

Cards I would emergency unrestrict, to prevent the DCI from looking like fools:

Mind over Matter
Earthcraft

Mind Over Matter: Academy is dead. Super Dead. I have been preaching this for some time. Storm based combo>>>>>>>>>>Academy. Its has a 5 casting cost spell with a million blue in the casting cost. It is crap. I highly doubt any deck would actually abuse this in multiples. Or even use it all at.

Earthcraft: This was never a broken card. EVER. This was a 1.5 restriction, but even then Squirrelcraft wasn't a broken deck then or now. That was just the DCI being FAR to cautious.

Cards I'm on the fence about:

Braingeyser
Stroke of Genius
Voltaic Key
Fork
Doomsday
Library of Alexandria
Entomb
Regrowth

I think all of these could be unrestricted if they are extensively tested. The ones that could easily be unrestricted are: Fork and Voltaic Key. But I am not too sure about the rest.

Cards that are being considered for unrestriction but should never be unrestricted:

Crop Rotation
Mox Diamond
Fact or Fiction

Crop Rotation: Playing with 5 Academies is pretty good. I think this would spawn some evil ass combo deck, and/or supplement existing ones. Too good.

Mox Diamond: This is fast mana, and I think some combo would come along and abuse it rather easily.

Fact or Fiction: A few weeks ago I was thinking about this card, and here is how it went.

Start odd conversation with self now.

"Fof should be unrestricted, BBS is dead! Mono Blue is ass! Seriously. Its not as broken as it once was. "

*Begins to play Hulk Smash*

"EOT unning Wish for Fof" *I reveal yawgs will, trop island, ak, tog and deep anal*

"Wow thats pretty strong, in fact if that AK was another Fof that would have made that really horribly awesome."

End conversation.

Unrestricted Fact or Fiction would make Hulk much better than it already is. It has incredible synergy with Psychatog and Yawgmoth's Will. It is also much better than Intuition/ Accumulated Knowledge drawing engine. I bet it would also see play in Keeper and Slavery, or any deck that could reasonably support it.

All in all, I am cautious about unrestricting cards with out THOROUGH testing first. I don't want to look like an idiot later.