[SCG Article] "The Year in Preview" by Ben Bleiwei

[Negator]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=8644

Ben Bleiweiss wrote:

Prediction #6: Three cards will be restricted in Vintage by December 1st, 2005.
These three cards are Mishra's Workshop, Dark Ritual, and Bazaar of Baghdad. With the increased level of competition and increased visibility and density of Vintage tournaments over the coming year (including the nine Power 9 Tournaments hosted by our own StarCityGames.com - shameless plug!), the remaining broken, unrestricted cards in Vintage will float to the top of the stack and will be the targets of restriction. The three most powerful, unrestricted cards right now are Workshop, Ritual and Bazaar. I'm not going to go into the details here, as much to say that Workshop and Bazaar were banned in Legacy (which banned many cards that were being watched for restriction in Vintage) and that Dark Ritual has been banned across other formats in the past for being a combo enabler - one which has been and will continue to be exploited in Vintage.

He didn't speak about Mana Drain in his prediction...

Thoughts

[magus888]

Why would they restrict Bazaar of Baghdad now? I know it's a broken card, but it's only seeing play in Madness and Dragon. Dragon is currently horrible! Madness is underplayed, and has been hurt badly enough with the restriction of LED. Is Bazaar of Baghdad played enough to warrant restriction?

[Negator]

Why would they restrict Bazaar of Baghdad now?

First, this prediction is for December 1st, not for now. I think that he wants to create a sort of balance. If Mishra's Workshop and Dark Ritual is restricted, Bob.dec would become dominant, so he wants to restrict it too. The thing that I don't understand is, that he forgot Mana Drain in his prediction...

[magus888]

I don't think Mana Drain will be restricted. It's one of those vital cards like Force of Will that holds Vintage together.

[Negator]

I don't think Mana Drain will be restricted.

Me too. I just said that is analysis is illogical if he doesn't speak about Mana Drain. Nothing needs restriction IMO.

[MaxxMatt]

Restricting those cards would only translate itself with an unstoppable power of all the decks that packs Intuitions.

Only control decks would benefit of the restrictions of those three cards and we had OTHER totally unbalanced decks that are all the blue based aggro-control or control-combo actual Tier1s.

I don't know WHY AT NOW they would restrict anyone of the cards that we are playing in out Vintage tourneys.

If is "UNBALANCED SPEED & BROKENESS" the words that R&D wouldn't hear spoken, I'M SURE THAT the restrictions should be based only on a subjective purpose: SLOWING the entire format of a SINGLE turn.

There are cards that can be cut to deny brokeness without denying the parity between almost any archetypes.

Cards to Restrict to slow down the format of a single shitty turn and to leave the decks that we are seeing now nearly untouched.

"Aggro-like.dec": Trinisphere
"Control-like.dec": Intuition
"Combo-like.dec": Dark Ritual


Decks like Atog, Oath, C-Slavery and any other monster would be slowed up a bit without losing too much from cutting 1 or 2 intuitions form the maindeck. Mirror matches would be more interesting and without any need of a "first-turn-intuition-plus-fow-back-up" in order to win it.

Decks like Welder.dec, MUD or Stax-like.build would come back on using different cards to break different matchups instead of only one.

Decks like any Storm.dec would have an harder time on comboing out the opponent.




In my brief analysis I leave out any other existent card, because while the three cards that I elected to be restricted,  AREN'T the CORE of ANY NEW AND INTERESTING AND SKILL INTENSIVE strategies or decks played at now ( IMHO, they are completely replaceable with other different and unused cards ) , they made the ENTIRE FORMAT "stupid".

In T1, STUPID things happen
In T1, BROKEN things happen


The first phrase should be avoided at some times.
Unrestricted Intuitions, Trinispheres and Dark Rituals HARDLY are going to keep this purpose away from the game




Maxx

[Razvan]

Quite honestly, Ben does this about twice a month, in a clockwork fashion. Everytime, in every random article he writes, there's a section on how Mishra Workshop, plus whatever he considers the flavor of the month of Vintage, should be restricted (with Dark Ritual being in on his list on consecutive months now). Rarely is there logic or sensible reasoning presented in these arguments...

At some point, I think the discussion was if Ben is helping or hurting T1. I think, at this point, with such random jabs, the answer is obvious.

The only question left is how seriously anyone is taking it (I think I am taking it a bit too serious myself here)... and the answer better be "little to none".

[Bronx]

Dragon is currently horrible!

What are you talking about? Dragon is an excellent metagame choice at the moment. It has an excellent Stax/Workshop matchup, as long as its built right. What scares me is all of the horrible builds I've seen. Let the right person get behind the deck, and it will soar.

We've had a similar discussion to this in the Vintage forum. While he may write for Star City Games, he isn't an authoritative Vintage paragon. So consider your source.

[jpmeyer]

I've never really understood why Mana Drain would need to be restricted along with those cards.

[Anders Noer]

Dragon is currently horrible!

What are you talking about? Dragon is an excellent metagame choice at the moment. It has an excellent Stax/Workshop matchup, as long as its built right. What scares me is all of the horrible builds I've seen. Let the right person get behind the deck, and it will soar.

We've had a similar discussion to this in the Vintage forum. While he may write for Star City Games, he isn't an authoritative Vintage paragon. So consider your source.

I also, would like to hear magus888's opinions on why dragon is a bad choice right now... Out of curiosity more than anything really.

I'm not saying either of you are right. I just want arguments on the table.
I think dragon has an ok Stax matchup if kept at 2 colors (U/B based), and TPS should be alright too i think, since you're faster. Control is always a bitch, but dragon can be tuned to pack a lot of disruption/add alternative threats like Verdants.. Again: Why is dragon such a bad choice right now ?

[Revvik]

Paranoia?  A deep-seated fear of Control taking over a metagame with a weaker combo & prison/aggro element?  Apparently, some of the higher-ups in WotC R&D believe that Mana Drain makes control broken, when in reality, true control rarely exists.

Either that, or it's an "only fair" policy - Restrict a Prison element (in reality, destroying prison as we know it), Restrict a Combo element, well... the control player hasn't lost anything dear to him lately...

In reality, Mana Drain isn't as broken as anything else mentioned (and as a result, hasn't seen 150-180 dollar price tags).  It's not on the power level of Workshops or Bazaars, probably not even Dark Ritual, but it is in no way replaceable by Counterspell.

Of course, this should be taken with a grain of salt, as I'm someone who doesn't feel that Workshop, or even Trinisphere, needs restriction (and for the record, I don't play either).

[xrizzo]

In reality, Mana Drain isn't as broken as anything else mentioned (and as a result, hasn't seen 150-180 dollar price tags).  It's not on the power level of Workshops or Bazaars, probably not even Dark Ritual, but it is in no way replaceable by Counterspell.

Mana Drain is an uncommon.  I don't have the numbers in front of me, but the number of existing mana drains compared to mishra's workshops is staggering.  (similar ratio for bazaar)

[normalbrains]

i just recently finished my goal of a pimped out, fully powered pimped out black bordered suicide black deck (i know) and if they restrict dark ritual im going to be pissed off.

[Hi-Val]

i just recently finished my goal of a pimped out, fully powered pimped out black bordered suicide black deck (i know) and if they restrict dark ritual im going to be pissed off.

Yeah, if that happened, your deck would be terrible!

Oh...

[normalbrains]

not to mention the loss in value of my workshops and bazaars. this will really suck.  get rid of brainstorm or some common stuff- leave my collection be!

[normalbrains]

Yeah, if that happened, your deck would be terrible!

Oh...

hey sui was a powerhouse when i started.

[M]

How can a card's banned status in Legacy be an argument for restriction in Vintage (Workshop and Bazaar), but at the same time another card's non-banned status in Legacy (Dark Ritual) is not an argument for its continued non-restriction in Vintage? Anyway, none of those arguments make much sense because Legacy banning is a totally unique concept. In Legacy cards can actually be banned for being too expensive, something that can't happen in Vintage or other formats.

And what exactly is wrong with being a combo enabler?

[magus888]

Anders Noer, I'm sorry I ripped on Dragon, but I havn't seen the deck on any top 8 lists. In local tournys I see dragon get owned by control and distrupted by people's sideboards. Dragon is vulnerable to counters, swords, and graveyard hate.

[Komatteru]

And what exactly is wrong with being a combo enabler?

Combo causes cancer.  It also causes problems for opponents, who often develop anxiety disorders after spending each turn wondering if it will be their last.

All I have to say is I hope he's not right on #6.  The other ones all seem pretty reasonable.

[xaos]

In reality, Mana Drain isn't as broken as anything else mentioned (and as a result, hasn't seen 150-180 dollar price tags).

 

Not to nitpick, but the physical copies of Mana Drain available are far greater than either Bazaar or Workshop, due to the Italian copies.  On the other hand, I seem to believe that more people are working on getting their set of Drains than those people getting Bazaar and Workshop, but maybe that's because I live in New England   .

I don't see Mana Drain as so broken that it warrants restriction.  I honestly don't think heavy-control decks could recover from its loss, and to keep it viable, it needs to stay.

Mishra's Workshop *could* be restricted... I believe that the other two semi-similar cards available(City of Traitors, Ancient Tomb) may prove to be strong enough to keep it at least a viable choice, just setting the clock back a bit.

Bazaar of Baghdad does more totally broken things, but decks packing it really aren't everywhere, so I'd say leave it until stronger information is available.  The restriction of this, also, would pretty much neuter the decks that require it (such as Dragon and Madness). There simply isn't a card available that can reasonably replace its effect, and as such we'd most likely drop these decks entirely to the bottom brackets.

Dark Ritual is a reasonable thing to restrict.  Combo's kill would most likely be pushed back a turn or two, but would still be totally possible to achieve.


All in all, if any of these four cards seems to appear in more top 8s after restricting one or more of the others, I'd look back at the whole of them again, and try and decide if they all need to be there to balance the others out.  Who's to say that any one of them could not be just too powerful in a field without the other three? There's a lot of understanding to do, but the most accurate results can only really be found after seeing relevant top 8s after such kinds of restrictions occur. .

[Juggernaut GO]

Workshop bazaar and ritual will never be restricted, this guy just writes random stuff in his articles and they have no meaning to anyone with any sense.  The metagame as of right now is just about as balanced as I've ever seen it in the past year.  This is in the NE though where type 1 typically has more participants then in other areas.  Will be nice to see what the makeup of the field will be at the waterbury tournament, I'm willing to be there will be a smaller % of workshop based decks then in september, and combo will gain % similar to what people stopped playing workshop.  As always, the amount of little girly control players will remain about the same.

[OptimusDeutz]

Workshop bazaar and ritual will never be restricted, this guy just writes random stuff in his articles and they have no meaning to anyone with any sense.  The metagame as of right now is just about as balanced as I've ever seen it in the past year.

Never say never. One author making claims that are not backed up to your liking does not produce a bad arguement overall. There are voices coming out of the woodwork all over the place to restrict workshop specifically.

Workshop was UN-restricted right before 400+ artifacts were printed in Mirrodin block. The addition of those 400+ artifacts DRASTICALLY changes the effects of a card designed to make artifacts faster. I'm sure we can all agree that the Vintage Magic world was different before Mirrodin came around. As a result it is entirely possible that if the right people think that this new world we live in is broken... that they will try to fix it.

Stephen

[Tash]

not to mention the loss in value of my workshops and bazaars. this will really suck.  get rid of brainstorm or some common stuff- leave my collection be!

Sorry 'bout your luck buddy, that's how it always goes. A player picks up a players set of good cards and then they restrict it.

And get rid of Brainstorm? Please, brainstorm is the poor mans ancestral recall, if they got rid of that then you would be screwing over a lot of people. And besides there are better unrestricted card drawers out there.

[Shock Wave]

Dragon is vulnerable to counters

Awesome. What deck, pray tell, is not vulnerable to counters? Scragnoth.dec ?

[Guardian]

I'm tired of people complaining how the value of their cards would go down if it was restricted again. This is not a good argument as you don't even want to listen to reason.
Fact:
- Powerful artifacts were printed in Mirrodin block.
- Dark Ritual is a very good combo enabler.
- The best combo kill card is black (Tendrils).
- If Workshop go, Dark Ritual has to goo too and vice versa.

But then, would control come back to the top? The balance is very difficult to find out. Right now, T1 is all about a very strong play in only one turn, so we'll have to wait.

[Revvik]

But then you must realize, Workshop doesn't have to go.  I realize that in the old Academy days, banning combo pieces and such but not touching the Academy was a mistake.  This is not one of those cases.

Unfortunately though, I hear from just about every person I've talked to (including Workshop owners) that the Shop will get the axe by the end of the year.  Sad, because most of my really fun games in the past month or two have been against decks packing Mishra's Workshop.

On a different, more relevant note: I really don't believe threads like this are necessary - Ben Bleweiss seems too far off base to be making judgment calls like this.  Star City, the Mana Drain, and even MagictheGathering.com have all had a talented group of writers focused on different aspects of the Magic: the Gathering game.  Ben Bleweiss (though he is a talented writer with a steady fan base and developed style) is not someone I would refer to as a "Vintage authority."  His article was an interesting piece of opinion, and though enjoyable, should be taken about as seriously as a piece written by me with the title "Why I think Lotus Petal Should be Banned."