[Article] Unrestriction

[TheFram]

Type 1 is allegedly the format where a player can play all of their cards, or at least as many as can be allowed in a balanced format. Yes, even those that were printed a really, really long time ago. This fact is clearly evidenced by the existence of a restricted list in Vintage, which is in direct contrast with the banned lists maintained in all other competitive formats. If the above is truly the raison d'être of Type 1, then wouldn't it be in the best interest of the format to have as compact a restricted list as possible? What cards (if any) can safely be removed from the Type 1 restricted list in order to achieve this goal?

Unrestriction in Vintage

The title was all Knut, I take no responsibility for whatever it may be.
Also, the seemingly random decklists interspersed through the article were originally links to Dr. Sylvans lists on PlayorDraw.com. Knut didnt want to link to PoD, so he just pasted them in.

-Thefram

[Xhad]

The fact that Doomsday is seeing no play now as a singleton also speaks for its power

That doesn't say anything about its power level, that just means it's narrow.  The card doesn't do enough by itself if you can't depend on drawing, but having a 4-of that lets you set up your entire deck and can be cast off a single Dark Ritual is a completely different story.

Doomsday's a very powerful card, it just needs the right situation to be good, and that situation doesn't come up often enough for it to be played as a "random" card in any existing deck right now.  Kind of like Dream Halls, which is absent from your list but is also never played.

Regarding Mox Diamond: This is another one where 4 may >>>>>> 1.  While it's not very good in existing modern combo, the mere possibility of running 10 Moxen may cause combo decks to add land just to support it.  Again, it's an issue of "I can't build my deck around a one-of, but I can substantially modify my deck to accomodate a 4-of, if said 4-of is good enough".  Again, this is "may" and not "would", but the possibility should have been at least addressed.

As for the rest, good show.  I'd especially like to see Voltaic Key and Fork go for the benifit of casual types.

[Smash]

Key will just give more mana to workshop decks. If they have to restrict either workshop or key, I would perfer it was key


Fork is just random, meh.

[Xhad]

Does anyone play Voltaic Key in Workshop to begin with?  With some cards you can make the argument that "If no one plays one, no one will play four", and I believe Voltaic Key is one of those cards.

I can't remember the last time I saw a Voltaic Key, even in decks with Sol Ring, Grim Monolith, Mana Vault and Mana Crypt.

[jpmeyer]

I pretty much agree with all your choices, but one thing that I find interesting that you only really touched on a little is working with the idea of power creep.  Fof is the best example here, in that while Fof probably isn't at all broken, do we need to hand Tog and Keeper another good card drawer?  They're already two of the top decks as it is.

[mrieff]

Again, it's an issue of "I can't build my deck around a one-of, but I can substantially modify my deck to accomodate a 4-of, if said 4-of is good enough".  Again, this is "may" and not "would", but the possibility should have been at least addressed.

Agreed. You should consider the fact that 4 Mox Diamond is NOT 4*1 Mox Diamond
All your choices seem valid, although Dream Halls (and possibly others) could be added as well.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Nice article Avi. I predict the March 1st announcement will include at least two unrestrictions.
--------------------------------------------
***SPEAK NOW UNTO THE TMD ORACLE***

Dream Halls (and possibly others) could be added as well.

TMD ORACLE: "The DCI has been trying unsuccessfully to keep Vintage from becoming a format dominated by combo for years. Unfortunately, since it is against our policy to ban cards in Type One, we gave up and decided to go the other route. Take your medicine and like it."

[mask]

Does anyone play Voltaic Key in Workshop to begin with?  With some cards you can make the argument that "If no one plays one, no one will play four", and I believe Voltaic Key is one of those cards.

I can't remember the last time I saw a Voltaic Key, even in decks with Sol Ring, Grim Monolith, Mana Vault and Mana Crypt.

good point, but don't forget the free spells (frantic search time spiral ect), it will bring back a stronger acedemy decks invovling keys, free spells great whales, palaichron, and key as a spounge and additional speed of faster mana, through in green for crop rotation, fastbond, and city of solitude, xantid swarms even. You could even think about throwing in the old prosbloom engie or squandred rescourse and naturual balance drawing cards to thin out you deck of lands to go off. hmm so many ways to go with this.

Key will also be insane with metal worker and voltianic construst, can combo out a win condition so much easier, decking through grind stone or whatever, through in serum powder, and you increase the chances of have the explosive hand you need.

well i just think if there is 4 of key it will be started to played again. well that is just my thoughts, i put in my two cents

[Jhaggs]

Great article Avi.  You've really been stringing together a nice string of vintage pieces for us to read.  Props.  I really enjoyed the link to Aaron Forsythe's article a year ago.  Your case for creating a separate restriction list for 1.5 is a valid one and I doubt that you'll come across any dissenters.  However, in Forsythe's article he does mention:

As it stands now, the number of sanctioned 1.5 tournaments run around the world in a given year is miniscule, and devoting effort towards making and enforcing a second list are probably not worth the trouble.

I wonder if over this past year 1.5 has grown?  I feel it is a completely unexplored format, yet it seems logical to conclude that it potentially could have a large player base among casual players.  It is unfortunate that Wizard's has decided to link "format considerations" with the amount of tournaments run.  I'm really unaware of the amount of resources needed to invest in creating a new list for 1.5...but would it really be that involved?

On a final note, it seems to be a lot easier for cards to get on the B&R list than it is take them off.  Your article pointed out several inconsistency’s (earthcraft & entomb) but for the most part, if something is "ridiculously powerful" it'll make the list.  However, the process in removing cards from the list seems to be unclear.  I wonder if there exists an unwritten amount of time that a card needs to spend in "jail".  Of the cards that were taken off the list, it would be interesting to investigate the average length of time those cards spent on the list.  I suspect that there may indeed be a required amount of time something has to stay restricted.

EDIT: By the way, "raison d'être"...does that mean "reason for being"?

[Toad]

EDIT: By the way, "raison d'être"...does that mean "reason for being"?

Yes!
French 4L

[TheFram]

@Toad
Yay for the French, making me sound cultured!


@JP:

I think that FoF was really the only one to which the "power creep" argument applied. In my mind all the other candidates were too weak to remain restricted.

[Xhad]

good point, but don't forget the free spells (frantic search time spiral ect), it will bring back a stronger acedemy decks invovling keys, free spells great whales, palaichron, and key as a spounge and additional speed of faster mana, through in green for crop rotation, fastbond, and city of solitude, xantid swarms even. You could even think about throwing in the old prosbloom engie or squandred rescourse and naturual balance drawing cards to thin out you deck of lands to go off. hmm so many ways to go with this.

I don't see how unrestricting Key makes this strategy any more viable than it already is.  All the Key itself does is let you tap a mana artifact an extra time, for two less mana than what it originally produced.

Key will also be insane with metal worker and voltianic construst, can combo out a win condition so much easier, decking through grind stone or whatever, through in serum powder, and you increase the chances of have the explosive hand you need.

Comments on Serum Powder aside, would a deck that can run 4 Ancient Tomb and 4 Mishra's Workshop (and possibly even a couple City of Traitors) really need Keys?  Unlike the construct, it doesn't allow infinite combos, and unlike the lands, it isn't guaranteed to produce mana on its own.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Key makes "broken" three-card combos--but three card combos aren't even considered over-dangerous in Standard, let alone Vintage. A two-card combo to make +2 or +3 mana (Monolith/Vault + Key) is a non-issue with one side of the "combo" restricted--why not just play the unrestricted (and blue!) Power Artifact and get infinite mana? The Key is totally safe.

Edit: Anyway, we just had our huge multi-page scuffle about this a couple of weeks ago, so I'll get off my soapbox and trust that the DCI saw Avi's explanation of the community's insight.

[TheFram]

As an aside, Ive already gotten about 4 well thought out replies from 1.5 players in my email (and 1-2 not so good ones). Mostly they validated what I thought, though one thinks that Earthcraft would be horrible for 1.5.

-The Fram

[Smash]

As an aside, Ive already gotten about 4 well thought out replies from 1.5 players in my email (and 1-2 not so good ones). Mostly they validated what I thought, though one thinks that Earthcraft would be horrible for 1.5.

-The Fram

Earthcraft was okay in 1.5.  The decks with it varied a lot. Some were straight combo, some played the aggro-combo route like food chain goblins does.

Still, I cannot see how you let there be dragon in 1.5, and not squirrelcraft. That simply blows my mind.

[MuzzonoAmi]

Another good one, Avi. I'm with you 100% on every card you named, except I'm convinced that Library should be taken off the list.

[Zelc]

"The problem with Doomsday is that the combo built around it is incredibly hard to pull off. For anyone that doesn't know, Doomsday combo decks rely on casting Doomsday and leaving Black Lotus, Lion's Eye Diamond, Regrowth, Braingeyser (or any X-spell) and a random fifth card in the library. This isn't a one-card kill though, since after casting Doomsday you also need exactly 3 cards in hand, one of which must be Timetwister, and 1G in your mana pool so you can Regrow your Timetwister. You then generate a mana loop by casting Timetwister which draws you your entire library, followed by Black Lotus (sacrifice for UUU), Lion's Eye Diamond, Regrowth on Timetwister, Timetwister, and in response you sacrifice Lion's Eye Diamond for GGG. That looks hard enough to pull off that a Doomsday deck wouldn't become too powerful."

Actually, it's a lot easier than that.  Just fetch out Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, Power Artifact, Grim Monolith, and Stroke of Genius/Braingeyser (or something like that).  Of course, if anything goes wrong (like losing your source of U mana), then you're in trouble, but I think it's a bad idea to leave such a potentially powerful card unrestricted, especially since it can easily be powered out turn 1 or 2 due to the rituals, and we'll be left with extremely easy turn 3 kills.

I disagree with the decision to unrestrict Mox Diamond, but my reasons have already been posted by many others.

Regrowth is also an interesting card.  While unrestriction may be a good idea, keep in mind that it's far better than recoup in that it can bring back non-sorceries such as Ancestral Recall or Library of Alexandria (I'll get to that later).  Additionally, Regrowth returns the spell to your hand, and you do not have to pay an extra 2 or 4 mana to use it, as you can just cast the spell the next turn.  It'd be interesting to see if it would have any impact at all on the metagame if it were unrestricted, but keep an eye on this one.

Fact or Fiction is an extremely powerful card.  At the very least, it's an instant speed Ancestral Recall for 4 (which isn't as much as you think with SoLoMoxen and Mana Drain).  However, it's not just an Ancestral Recall.  It's like an Impulse tacked on to an Ancestral Recall in that it functions as a search spell.  Need to find that spell to not die?  Cast FoF!  And God forbid you turn over an FoF and another good card.  I would keep this thing restricted, especially since blue based control doesn't need any more help.

I totally disagree with unrestricting Library of Alexandria.  All I need to do to stay true to this opinion is to look at Peasant (5 uncommons max, no rares) before LoA was effectively banned.  Four copies of this powerful land alone allowed what was a tier two deck at best (Blue/Red Control) to become a tier one force, and this was in a format where, at the time, four copies of Strip Mine was standard in every deck.  While Peasant is a great deal slower than T1 and lacks the better draw spells, the sheer power of this land is unmistakable.  Basically, this card forces all decks to win before it can just run them over with card advantage.  Such conditions could easily occur against a mediocre aggro hand or a slow control hand.  Multiple LoAs are just sick, as you can respond to one activation with another activation, and they will all resolve as they don't check your hand size on resolution.  For these reasons, Library of Alexandria should NOT be unrestricted.

[MuzzonoAmi]

If you can pull the Doomsday combo off consistently, then you more than deserve to win.

As for LoA, while you're holding back 7 to keep it active, I'll be throwing Blood Moons, Trinisphere, Winter Orbs, Pyrostatic Pillars, and Juggernauts out at you. And that's not counting all 5 of my Strip Effects that you'll want to Stifle. Card advantage doesn't win games, it improves your options, which in turn wins games. Is it an important part, no doubt, but if you can't use those cards, they're not even generating card advantage. Granted, control mirrors may turn into wars of nonbasic land attrition, but I doubt that it will warp the skill requirements any significant ammount.

[Ifflejink]

Earthcraft: Squirrelcraft was a good deck. But it never needed to get the axe. Honestly, land destruction, enchantment destruction, classic counterspells, and Goblin Sharpshooter can stop it. It doesn't go off that fast, so it can't crush most decks, and it was a good choice for a budget player. Earthcraft should be unrestricted ASAP.

Doomsday: Many have sited that no one uses it today. As previously stated, no one runs Dream Halls either. Both could bring about format-ruining combo decks, maybe even something as degenerate as Long.dec. Although useless as a one-of, it could be degenerate as a four-of.

Fork: I don't think that anyone is worrying about Ankh Sligh these days, and that's the only deck it's really useful in. Scepter is a better, unrestricted choice these days. Fork simply doen't have the power it used to.

Voltaic Key: I have yet to see a deck that could abouse this in today's meta. Sure, Slavery can make a little mana with Gilded Lotus, but that's about it. Academy took quite a few cards down with it, and this was one that truly didn't deserve restriction.

[MuzzonoAmi]

If you can pull the Doomsday combo off, then you're my own personal hero. it might set up some Twister/Storm combo, but its unlikely, due to the setup constraints.

[Matt]

Here's something I never understood: why are people so focused on the Timetwister combo? Can't it just as easily reduce your deck to, say, Power Artifact/Monolith/Stroke, or something? And all for BBB? Or some combo that only requires two cards - Time Vault/Lodestone Myr, or something. If Timetwister was the only possibly combo with Doomsday, I could see unrestricting it, but a quintuple-tutor is just begging to be broken in any number of ways.

[Raph Caron]

Am I the only one who sees the danger of unrestricted Fork in Mind's Desire.dec?

[Dr. Sylvan]

Am I the only one who sees the danger of unrestricted Fork in Mind's Desire.dec?

I think you are. Could you explain? Traditionally (a) red is not a very easy color to get double of and (b) getting 4UU and casting Mind's Desire kinda...is enough by itself, since that means you're usually getting four to six freebies.

[MuzzonoAmi]

I'm not sure if the copy would have Storm. If it does, and I think it does, then I do see that danger now. But even that should only be watch list material. Matt, I see your point too, but I'd rather see the deck do something before I keep Doomsday on the list.

[Dr. Sylvan]

I'm not sure if the copy would have Storm. If it does, and I think it does, then I do see that danger now. But even that should only be watch list material.

Sheldon sez:

Q: If I Fork a card with the storm ability, do I get the storm ability for the copy of the spell?

A: No. Storm only triggers on playing the spell. The rule specifically says "When you play this spell..." (rule 502.30a).

Matt, I see your point too, but I'd rather see the deck do something before I keep Doomsday on the list.

I would also like to see a hypothetical list. This is not a Dream Halls case where we've seen a Type Two deck win second turn. This is a deck where we're discussing hypothetical weird combos that involve resolution of multiple spells serially. I am skeptical.

[RoadTrippin]

Maybe I'm terribly wrong, but since Desire "is resolving" while storm copies are happening, if you flip up a Fork with Desire could you then copy the original desire? It would easily be out of hand right away if this is the case.

[defector]

I see little danger in fork.  Doomsday makes a nasty, but very vulnerable combo deck that relies on speed as its only solution to any answer at all.  Tormods is free to cast and already boarded for other match ups.  Earthcraft is not that powerful, dragon already replicates squirrel craft via sliver queen, to the effect of being a strong deck.  Not format defining, just strong, craft isn't enough to break type 1.  Library is tough to decide on, no one would run 4, a lot of two of's.  How has a 10th of the nine fallen so low? I've played against multiple fact or fictions, its broken as hell and if it got unretricted, I think I'd be forced to run a blue based control deck.
defector

[Smmenen]

Am I the only one who sees the danger of unrestricted Fork in Mind's Desire.dec?

Yes.

Steve

[RoadTrippin]

I see little danger in fork.  Doomsday makes a nasty, but very vulnerable combo deck that relies on speed as its only solution to any answer at all.  Tormods is free to cast and already boarded for other match ups.  Earthcraft is not that powerful, dragon already replicates squirrel craft via sliver queen, to the effect of being a strong deck.  Not format defining, just strong, craft isn't enough to break type 1.  Library is tough to decide on, no one would run 4, a lot of two of's.  How has a 10th of the nine fallen so low? I've played against multiple fact or fictions, its broken as hell and if it got unretricted, I think I'd be forced to run a blue based control deck.
defector

The way I feel about Library is this:
Bazaar is better than LoA, and is unrestricted. Bazaar would obviously not be so good restricted, but LoA would not gain much were it to be unrestricted. Decks are built around Bazaar, decks are built around card advantage and happen to use LoA.

[Smash]

Maybe I'm terribly wrong, but since Desire "is resolving" while storm copies are happening, if you flip up a Fork with Desire could you then copy the original desire? It would easily be out of hand right away if this is the case.

Yes, but it would only give you 1 more flip.

Did you even read the post next to yours with the rules?