My Predictions for 2005

[Windfall]

As far as Trinisphere goes, if it is restricted, I might start playing Magic again.  The card makes the game not fun, and that's all there is to it.

Of course, if Trinisphere goes away, then Draw 7 and similar decks could beat Workshop decks and combo would be quite good.  Death Long can beat control, and so can old Draw7, especially with Xantid Swarms.  Without Dark Ritual, the decks could still run, but not very well.  Thus, they wouldn't be fast enough to beat Drain decks.  I agree that if Trinisphere goes, then Dark Ritual should get the axe too for the same reasons that Chrome Mox got the axe.  Wizards didn't really see any deck break Chrome Mox, but they know that mana accel in Type 1 can be pretty retarded, so they cut it.  Without Trinipshere, Ritual falls into that category.

     ~Mark B.

[Juggernaut GO]

You all need to stop bitching, sell your mana drains, and get a happy ending at a massage parlor with the money you got.  Then grow up and realize that it's only a game.  Control is boring, and always will be.  There are reasons people play control...  It's because they are lacking so much of it in their real life and think oh hey I can pretend I'm in charge of  something besides the McDonalds mop bucket and play magic the gathering cards and then be all smug and arrogant when my 12 year old opponent tries to play a spell and then I can just say NO and tap 2 blue mana and counter it but then he just goes and casts 6 more spells that turn then mind's desires for 8 and wins because he isn't a newb enough to play control... You got beat by a 12 year old, grats !  

But maybe I just hate having to wait the full 50 mins every round for it to end and I am a little biased...

[Gabethebabe]

@Zherbus: Agree with the trinisphere prediction. I´m willing to bet quite some money on it being the next card that gets the well-deserved axe.

@Juggernaut: Saying control is boring is stupid. It is less boring than aggro, less boring than prison and definitely less boring than Oath. The day that Control is too boring to play is the day I sell my cards

@Smmenen: you´re referring to T8´s as parameter for determining whether a card needs restriction or not. Maybe we should also look at the randomness factor (or luck-factor). IMHO the dieroll currently has too great an impact on the outcome of a match.

[Zherbus]

Thanks Juggernaut. You've redefined my life. I have since quit my position of shift manager at McDonalds and gone back to school. One day, I'll work on computers!

I took your suggestion about selling my Mana Drains. I had enough to go back for TWO happy endings! Thank you for showing me women, maybe one day I'll meet one that I don't have to pay and maybe even move out of my moms house and marry one. LOL, wishful thinking I know!

Anyway, you've turned my life around. I now enjoy 10 minute matches where I don't have to worry about the outcome since its out of my hands anyway. This is sure to make tournaments a lot faster so I can go out for some fresh air... maybe even work out? I heard weight lifting is really hard, but you've inspired me so much that I might just give that a try.

Forever in debt,

Zherbus

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

Thanks Juggernaut. You've redefined my life. I have since quit my position of shift manager at McDonalds and gone back to school. One day, I'll work on computers!

I took your suggestion about selling my Mana Drains. I had enough to go back for TWO happy endings! Thank you for showing me women, maybe one day I'll meet one that I don't have to pay and maybe even move out of my moms house and marry one. LOL, wishful thinking I know!

Anyway, you've turned my life around. I now enjoy 10 minute matches where I don't have to worry about the outcome since its out of my hands anyway. This is sure to make tournaments a lot faster so I can go out for some fresh air... maybe even work out? I heard weight lifting is really hard, but you've inspired me so much that I might just give that a try.

Forever in debt,

Zherbus

I guess you have to mark this as sarcasm... considering this is a magic-forum and his post, he might take you serious...

On the more serious things, the article was a good read, and I just hope your predictions will be made reality asap by the dci.

As for Trini and Ritual being boring, Trini definitly is, I don't enjoy playing either side in testing (well, non-Trinisphere openings of Stax can produce quite fun games, actually).

As for Ritual, Ritual is incredibly fun... for the player using the Rituals. I love playing DeathLong, for example. It just sucks to sit on the other side of the table, because there the game to often becomes mulling into FoW/3Sphere or watching the opponent have fun for 15mins. I don't have anything against combo, it just has to win past turn 2 so that it has to run disruption and in that way interact with the opponent. Not to mention that also increases the necessary skill-level for combo, as you now need to make perfect choices with your cards as well as the opponents.

And Workshop is not keeping combo in check. Playskill is. There are far to few players good enough with combo to win regularly, that's the only thing that keeps the format from being defined by Ritual, imo. 3Sphere just makes things more random, including matches vs combo.

As for replacements for Trinisphere in Workshop, Chalice is ready to step up to devastate combo as well as being good vs Control. It just doesn't happen to also decide the game on turn 1.

[Freelancer]

I might as well add my infinite wisdom to this fantastic thread...(in normal language: I make a couple off brainless comments and leave the 'good players' be at this fantastic thread)...

Trinisphere has to go...(oh yes I am so original) why? since there is no adequate way to answer a turn 1 trinisphere besides force of will and a workshop of your own...That is probably the thing that worries me the most, with such a large pool of cards in vintage nobody can (or ever will) find a answer that doesn't involve FOW or workshop(/tomb/city) against trinisphere without loosing 2 turns...
Besides games where its basicly FOW or die are no fun anyway...(for either side, before you ask brainlessly dropping trini turn 1 than a couple of lock components= no fun in this otherwise challenging game) So yeah I totally agree with restricting trini...

And if trini get's the axe than ritual get's to stay (hears all kinda screams around him that range from: YES  FANTASTIC to NO YOU MORON)...Now over to explaining why; IMHO it is not true that ritual based combo is everywhere as of late (in T8's that is) and without trini there are still plenty of ways to deal with combo (think sphere/chalice/fow/drain/rod even root maze to a extend) to atleast keeping it from getting dominant...But this is just the view off a low on money scrubbish player who never piloted a powered deck in real life (lol that sounds pretty bad actually) but is determined to PWN everybody in the future (far far away in the future)...

Anyway nice article, keep up the good work...
(and definetley ignore the random comments )

[Diakonov]

I'm just thinking out loud here - but is there anything inherently wrong with a T1 format without much control?  We have lots of T1 metagames without much aggro, how is not having Control inherently worse?  BTW< Control is VERY strong right now, imo and will continue to be.   Mana Drains are putting up MAD top 8 numbers and with several uber powerful decks.

I think its pretty clear that Slaver and Oath are two of the top decks, if not THE top decks to beat.

I think Steve is right here, which is why I'm torn on this issue.  A lot of people are acting as though the metagame is a heavyweight bout solely between Combo and Workshop even when Oath and Slaver have made tremendous ground.  With control decks already doing so well in this environment, what could possibly compete after the said restrictions?  Of course the metagame would adapt, but there's no guarantee that it would bring down the control decks.

I think an issue that needs to be discussed is the basis on which something should be restricted.  So far I have heard three schools of reasoning:
1. The card is becoming too frequent as a 4-of;
2. A particular deck is becoming overly dominant due to the card;
3. The randomness of being able to win without any interaction with your opponent (i.e. "win by the die-roll").

In my opinion, the most important reason would be found in #2.  Obviously the format needs to remain interesting and must have options, which is what warranted the banning of Skullclamp in Type 2.  #3 is just as important but much harder to confirm using statistics, and can quickly become a hotly debated topic.  In other words, many people will still argue that it is the responsibility of the opponent to keep the power of Trinisphere in check, whereas the opposing group claims that this is simply not possible.  As for #1...well, I don't see Brainstorm being restricted any time soon.

On this topic, I agree that Trinisphere has probably overstepped its bounds such that it is just unfair for other players to have to metagame so drastically to deal with it.  I am less sure about Dark Ritual, but Windfall makes an excellent point by mentioning that somehow Chrome Mox got the axe when it is clearly NOT of the same calibur as Dark Ritual.

For those of you who have taken a peek at the upcoming set, you will notice the "new FOW" that might have potential in controlling both Trinisphere and combo.  It would seem that R&D is trying to compensate for their actions.  Whether or not it will work...only time will tell.

[Freelancer]

@Diakonov I don't believe that the new counter will stop trini or that wizards made it with that purpose in mind:
1) not many deck run stuff with casting cost 3 or enough off them (the cards I can think off are: intuition, rebuild, COW, stax components -not relevant)
2) wizards doesn't design cards specifacly for vintage and if they did they wouldn't make such a bad answer
3) IMHO it isn't worth to dilute your maindeck in order put the new counter in (purely speculating here)
4) force is infinitley better...

That said the card is very interesting to toy around with...(although it will probably only see play in standard)...

[Revvik]

I don't believe that the new counter will stop trini or that wizards made it with that purpose in mind:
1) not many deck run stuff with casting cost 3 or enough off them (the cards I can think off are: intuition, rebuild, COW, stax components -not relevant)

...Psychatog, Cunning Wish, Thirst for Knowledge, Ophidian, Back to Basics.  Several sideboard cards like Energy Flux.  If the metagame takes the right turn, then Mono-Blue could put up an impressive showing, but right now Psychatog stands to gain quite a lot.

It's a general consensus among Type 1 players that if Trinisphere gets axed, then Dark Ritual must also be put down.  Here is where I don't see the logic in it:
Trinisphere was printed very recently, much later than the formation of $T4KS.  Combo containing four Dark Rituals is not a new idea, by any means.  So, how did Workshop Prison survive before the printing of Trinisphere?  I'm guessing Stax wasn't created expressly knowing that it would roll to combo.  Workshop Prison should still be able to win a majority of the time against combo, just the loss of Trinisphere should make it less of a brainless win.

[Windfall]

Although I do agree that playskill does limit combo to some extent, I think Trinisphere is the card that beats it most of the time.  Granted, any combo deck will be able to get out from under a Trinisphere in a few turns if the Stax player does nothing else, but how often does that happen?

I believe that Dark Ritual is a card that will have to get the axe if Trinisphere goes simply because it's inevitable that combo will begin to dominate.  Sure, it might take some time for the players to learn how to play Tendrils based decks, but it will happen.  I think Zherbus's point was that we might as well avoid an unhealthy 3-4 months of combo dominance by restricting Ritual and Trinisphere together.

Combo can beat any hoser aside from Trinisphere.  That's my experience with it.  I was never afraid of cards like Null Rod, Root Maze, Sphere of Resistance, Pyrostatic Pillar, etc.  Even Chalice of the Void was okay, because I could still play my spells!!!  That's the important thing - I need to be able to play spells and then I can win.  Trinisphere just says "No, I don't think you should play a single spell this game," so I can't ramp up storm, I can't make mana, and I can't even cast a spell to destroy the dumb glowing ball.

     ~Mark B.

[Freelancer]

@windfall Than why didn't ritual based combo decks ruled vintage before trini appeared (granted some new ones arrived like doomsday, but it's not like this is anymore broken than TPS for instance is)? Besides dark ritual has been around for ages now, but now that trini makes life real hard for combo people suddenly seem to fear that if trini gets the axe combo will rule. But this is simply not the case all stax and other decks need to do is pack more hate....since its much harder to get past a sphere and for instance a pillar or a chalice set at 1, these guys make life very hard for a combo player if they are played in multiples...But we can never know for sure if combo will rule once wizards restricts trinisphere, unless they do just that (leaving Dark Ritual unrestricted) and looking where that leads to...IMHO I rather have the chance off 3/4 months of brokeness than murdering a bunch off combo decks that didn't even proved that they where broken...(talking about really and utterly broken here)

@revvik all true...but not to many people play enough 3 manacosted spells to really use it...(excepth maybe mono-U but i still doubt that mono-U needs this spell) I still believe it's no good for vintage...but testing will show i'm sure...

[Philatio]

I think if both Trinisphere and Ritual go, you are creating a "best deck" or several best decks that revolve around Mana Drain and Intuition.  The new things people are getting with Intuition (not just AKs) make me really think of as a BLUE Demonic Tutor at instant speed that just costs 1 more.  Oh, and it sometimes doubles as a strong draw engine, or in Intuition Slaver as a win condition.  I think you have to look at getting all three, or you're really forcing the metagame in a certain direction.

     I believe it is clear to most people that Trinisphere should get the axe.  But I would give combo a few months to prove itself before you restrict ritual.  Would it really Top 8 all of the time?  Combo is notoriously difficult to play in Type 1.

     If Ritual gets it, I think Intuition should be the next domino.

[Tyrell]

I would like to just say that I agree with everyone out there that has said we should wait to see what happens after 3sphere is restricted before restricting dark ritual. During this time we will see wether or not sphere of resistance is enough to stop combo, I believe it is enough to stop belcher.

Windfall you may have no fear of each individual card but as you yourself said how often does that happen a sphere of resistance can be followed with a smokestax it still makes it difficult for combo to go off. As for being able to play spells I think you should be able to, isn't that the reason that combo had been restricted in past because it allowed you to win without any interaction from your opponet.

[Revvik]

A Generic Psychatog Maindeck (numbers vary):

1cc - 4x Brainstorm, Mystical Tutor, Ancestral Recall
2cc - 4x Accumulated Knowledge, Time Walk, 4x Mana Drain
3cc - 3x Psychatog, 2x Intuition, 3x Cunning Wish
4cc - 3x Deep Analysis
5cc - 4x Force of Will, Gush

Pretty wide range of casting costs.  I'd say an extra pitch-counter that can be ran as a three-of (2 main, one side) ups the win percentage for control versus Workshop Prison/Aggro.  It's also a bit more difficult to use Misdirection tricks against than Force of Will.

Windfall - I think I see where you're coming from on this - Not only has the entire Workshop super-archetype received a boost against combo in Trinisphere, but it is this boost that hasn't allowed anyone to fully see combo's evolution: more disruptive, and definitely harder for control to handle.  The old adage of Combo -> Aggro -> Control -> Combo doesn't apply anymore then?

[Juggernaut GO]

I think I still get more sarcasm points for my post then you do Z!

[CrazyCarl]

Thanks Juggernaut. You've redefined my life. I have since quit my position of shift manager at McDonalds and gone back to school. One day, I'll work on computers!

I took your suggestion about selling my Mana Drains. I had enough to go back for TWO happy endings! Thank you for showing me women, maybe one day I'll meet one that I don't have to pay and maybe even move out of my moms house and marry one. LOL, wishful thinking I know!

Anyway, you've turned my life around. I now enjoy 10 minute matches where I don't have to worry about the outcome since its out of my hands anyway. This is sure to make tournaments a lot faster so I can go out for some fresh air... maybe even work out? I heard weight lifting is really hard, but you've inspired me so much that I might just give that a try.

Forever in debt,

Zherbus

Steve, I hereby ask for your hand in marriage.

[Whatever Works]

I dont believe that Ritual and Trinisphere would have to be restricted together... Ritual would be much better with 3sphere gone, but that doesnt mean there are not answers to combo, but instead trinisphere was simply the best most consistent answer vs. most decks... Stax could still deal with combo by exchanging 3 spheres with the other well known spere "sphere of resistance" that vs. alot of decks like TPS is actually better because rebuild etc. costs 4... and CoTV would see increased play.

3sphere seems like a card wizards designed to punish players for running to many cheap costing cards and high number of non-basic lands... and it does exactly that so i still dont see why it needs to be restricted when it doesnt even put up good tournement results accept in 5/3, or something Kevin Cron plays.

[someNOOB]

Hi i'm new here...
This is just in regards to the "If trini goes combo will rule statements"
What makes you think that Sphere of resistance isnt enough? Esp over a dark ritual...

Ritual costs B to cast, say a crucible (just an example)
After a Sphere hits a ritual costs 1B and then crucible costs still 1 more mana for a total of 3, Whats the point in that? sphere beats ritual.

[Diakonov]

@revvik all true...but not to many people play enough 3 manacosted spells to really use it...(excepth maybe mono-U but i still doubt that mono-U needs this spell) I still believe it's no good for vintage...but testing will show i'm sure...

Both Mono-U and Tog will LOVE this card, especially so with Tog.  Although there aren't many people running these decks right now, the point is that they could see a strong revival after receiving pitch counters 5 & 6 to combat a first-turn trinisphere.  Conversely, I don't really see how this is of any use in Standard.

@ Revvik: I think that the ancient play-style wheel you're referring to is definitely out-dated.  The pure concept of aggro is just bad in Vintage, and has evolved into hybrids with other playstyles.  For example, Fish and RG Hate are good examples of Aggro/Control hybrids, much like FCG and Ravager are Aggro/Combo hybrids.  As of late, we are seeing a lot of 5/3 which could be considered Aggro/Prison.

Today, I want to say that the wheel (if you can even argue that one exists) would look more like this:

Combo > Control > Prison > Combo

[jpmeyer]

@windfall Than why didn't ritual based combo decks ruled vintage before trini appeared (granted some new ones arrived like doomsday, but it's not like this is anymore broken than TPS for instance is)? Besides dark ritual has been around for ages now, but now that trini makes life real hard for combo people suddenly seem to fear that if trini gets the axe combo will rule. But this is simply not the case all stax and other decks need to do is pack more hate....since its much harder to get past a sphere and for instance a pillar or a chalice set at 1, these guys make life very hard for a combo player if they are played in multiples...But we can never know for sure if combo will rule once wizards restricts trinisphere, unless they do just that (leaving Dark Ritual unrestricted) and looking where that leads to...IMHO I rather have the chance off 3/4 months of brokeness than murdering a bunch off combo decks that didn't even proved that they where broken...(talking about really and utterly broken here)

Tendrils of Agony didn't exist until Scourge.

[Revvik]

True, but remember that Trinisphere didn't exist until Darksteel.

This can be argued in one of two ways:

Against restricting Dark Ritual: Combo didn't dominate before Trinisphere
For restricting Dark Ritual: Combo (in it's current, storm-based form) wasn't nearly as refined in the time since it's inception and Trinisphere's printing.

I don't know, something tells me that if Combo's worst matchup is an anagram of four thousand dollars, and is next to impossible to play in a five-proxy tournament...

[combo_dude]

@windfall Than why didn't ritual based combo decks ruled vintage before trini appeared (granted some new ones arrived like doomsday, but it's not like this is anymore broken than TPS for instance is)? Besides dark ritual has been around for ages now, but now that trini makes life real hard for combo people suddenly seem to fear that if trini gets the axe combo will rule. But this is simply not the case all stax and other decks need to do is pack more hate....since its much harder to get past a sphere and for instance a pillar or a chalice set at 1, these guys make life very hard for a combo player if they are played in multiples...But we can never know for sure if combo will rule once wizards restricts trinisphere, unless they do just that (leaving Dark Ritual unrestricted) and looking where that leads to...IMHO I rather have the chance off 3/4 months of brokeness than murdering a bunch off combo decks that didn't even proved that they where broken...(talking about really and utterly broken here)

Tendrils of Agony didn't exist until Scourge.

And although it was Darksteel (not Mirrodin) that gave us Trinisphere, the 6 months between didn't see much change; the introduction of Mirrodin not only focused our attention on artifact decks involving Chalice, but Long.dec was still legal then. At that stage, most people didn't work hard on other storm combo - I imagine Smmenen may well have done, but that's because of his utter (correct) conviction that LED and/or Burning Wish were going to be restricted, and judging by his Burning Desire series, he'd spent quite some time on Long already. But for most people, who weren't too sure and who would have (most likely) spent any time devoted to combo decks perfecting their construction and play of Long, working on other storm decks seemed pointless; Long was just better.

[Smmenen]

Vintage is the best its ever been.  I'm being entirely honest when I say that it has never been more skill intensive than it is right now.

[Windfall]

Exactly - when Scourge came out, combo gained a lot in Tendrils and Desire.  Long.dec was the product of those two cards and it was so broken it led to two restrictions to stop it.

Once Long.dec died, we were busy trying to build another good combo deck, and the two that surfaced were Draw7, a very difficult deck to play, and Belcher.  Belcher came out moments before Trinisphere and Draw7 was just starting to get good when Trinisphere came out.  We didn't have a lot of time to break the combo decks.

I was at the point where I could beat control decks with risky combo decks despite Force of Will and Mana Drains.  I couldn't beat Shop though because of Trinisphere.  Play me with Spheres of Resistance and I can still win.  Play anything but Trinisphere against me and I will be able to play around them.  Trinisphere prevents me from playing answers, so it is impossible to play around it.  You have to be in the position to understand.

     ~Mark B.

[Kowal]

I don't think I could possibly disagree more.

[Komatteru]

I'm just thinking out loud here - but is there anything inherently wrong with a T1 format without much control?  We have lots of T1 metagames without much aggro, how is not having Control inherently worse?  BTW, Control is VERY strong right now, imo and will continue to be.   Mana Drains are putting up MAD top 8 numbers and with several uber powerful decks.

It's nice to see the return of Mr. Biller.  

I wonder the same thing myself.  Control was the only deck for a good number of years back in the day, when there was The Deck and a bunch of stuff that didn't beat it.  There have been numerous complaints about Crucible and Wasteland because it makes multi-color control unviable--and that's something that's been part of the format so long that it's been hard for some players to adapt to its death.  It's no big secret that many of the more experienced and well-known Vintage players greatly prefer to play Control.  In some player's eyes, control is fair while combo winning on the first or second turn is adding randomness to the format and not fair in general.  I don't find it very fair when my opponent takes my turn and uses all my own cards against me.  People complain that combo forces a lack of player interaction, but it's control that actively seeks to create that.  Control's whole idea is to control the tempo of the game and draw all the blood out of the opponent so that he can't do anything that matter or so that nothing he actually does do matters.  It just does this over the course of several turns.  It effectively seeks to have the game won at some point and turn the rest of the game into formality.  Is it really any more player interaction to have to ask your opponent if something resolves whenever you play something?

I was playing some T2 the other night and I noticed something amazing: spells resolve.  When I play something, there's a 95% chance that what I play is going to do something other go directly to my graveyard and waste mana.  To beat my opponent, I have to deal with what he has and could play, and how it affects what I've got on the table.  This is the environment that Wizards has sought to create, as most players don't like having every spell they play countered.  I've gone several games where I haven't resolved anything that matters: my first threat got Duressed/Forced, my next one Mana Drained (then my opponent drew lots and lots of cards), and then my next spell got Forced/Drained.  By the time I drew the next spell, my opponent had found an answer to that.  However, I don't really complain about and talk about how unfair that was, as it was no more unfair than trying to win the game on the second or third turn.  I don't really find that to be much interaction.  If anything, it's worse than losing to combo on the first turn.  In a game against control, it's disheartening to lose because you couldn't do anything at all, even though you tried.   You bring wave after wave and nothing does anything--it creates the image that nothing you could do mattered at all.  When you lose before you get a turn, you couldn't have done anything at all. That's actually easier on the mind than seeing victory and being tied back turn after turn.  To restate in a different light, which is generally easier on a person: waking up and finding that a loved one has died peacefully in his sleep, or watching him die to a long, drawn out battle with cancer, during which there was absolutely nothing you could physically do to aid the healing process?

While I've gotten a bit off track, my question is why is Control so ok?  No one says anything about anything when a T8 features 16-20 copies of Mana Drain, but if some Dark Rituals and Shops show up in the same numbers, people get all uppity about it and talk about how broken those cards are or how format distorting or whatever.  Why is Mana Drain an ok card?  It does essentially the same thing that Dark Ritual does: it provides mana to give a speed deck to the deck playing it so that deck can keep up with or speed past the rest of the decks in the format.  In addition, Mana Drain takes away from your opponent.  Dark Ritual does not do that.  It only gives to you.  If your answer involves "Drain hinges on your opponent playing a threat," that's irrelevant.  You can't win the game if you don't play something that makes your opponent say "Uh..."  Since most decks in the format are actively trying to win the game (there are exceptions, of course), it's pretty reasonable to assume that your opponent is going to play something of consequence in the first few turns.  Mana Drain is viewed as being utterly crucial for control decks to keep pace with the other decks in the format.  So what decks are setting that pace?  Combo, and to a lesser extent MWS decks.  Control has to keep up with combo if it wants to win.  So what happens if you take speed away from combo?  Control becomes faster and combo has a lot harder time winning.

Now, everyone says that combo might dominate if Trinisphere goes.  My question is this: why does combo beat control now?  That old axiom of combo > aggro > control > combo holds hardly any relevance in Vintage right now.  For nearly 10 years, combo has been losing to control, but now it doesn't. Why?  And don't say Tendrils and Mind's Desire were printed.  Desire is restricted, and Tendrils is merely the win condition...everything to cast that win condition and find it is stoppable.

[Triple_S]

Are you disagreeing with Stephen's or Mark's comment?

[the Luke]

JDizzle, Mana Drain is much more fair because it is very easily played around.  You can cast Duress, you can bait with spells played at end of turn, you can use Mishra's Factory and beat down.  You have many, many options.  If you have your own control elements, you can wait until you have mana enough to counter back!  Control is fair because if you play correctly, you CAN resolve your own spells.  You don't need to blindly cast spells into two untapped Islands.  This is true in many formats.  I don't understand why people think Mana Drain is in the same league as MWS/Trinisphere and Dark Ritual.

And to weigh into the argument, I agree with everything Zherbus said in his article.

-Luke

[MaxxMatt]

There are skills involved on building decks
There are skills involved on winning roll dices
There are skills involved on NOT doing errors while playing. I'm referring to "errors" not to "smart playings"
 
AT NOW, a lot of decks can do too many things in their respective first two turns to be considered as "Skills Intensive". There are use "Spikes-Of-Your-Skills" and translated themselves in pure Broken and Game-Ending plays.

Winning or losing th edice roll is equal to win AT LEAST HALF of any match against Tier1s.

On the other hand, the format is "well" balanced.
Any deck is able to produce unbalancing game situations and win. Some decks simply do this too early in the game.
On the other hand any single UNBALANCING BROKEN SITUATION have a comparable frequency.
So there aren't things that need to be cut to one.
The reverse of the medal is that the game usually isn't funny or interacting or intersting at all BECAUSE of those situations.

The "unbalancing" effects isn't on the single cards. It is in the effect that some situations can suddenly bring into play, usually too early to be considered at least "funny" or "skill intensive" and consequently "tolerable in a long term Magic The Gathering GAme Plan".

In summary.
There aren't SINGLE cards that need to got the axe.
There are an entire format that need less power ot abuse of.

------

I would like to argue another time that there aren't cards that need to be restricted, but there is a format that need to be slowed down by an "entire single shitty and funny turn".
Speakign in this way, I'm not working around your minds in order to let Control decks to be good again ( because they are just inherently powerful even now ).

My proposal came out from a precise analysis of the decks played at now.
I'm sure about the need of taking out "broken and fast" cards at least as a "1of" for each one among the predominant categories:

-Control-Combo decks.
-Combo decks.
-Prison decks.


Storm.dec have a great advantage using Dark Rituals. It is the only non restricted card that can be cut at now and that can be responsable of stupid winnings with Y Will and other fast starts

Prison.dec had Trinisphere as "proactive healing salve" for all their problems. Cutting them down to one would revamp old and good strategies while not de-powering at all the decks. Restricting MW would be stupid because MW is powerful but 4 Ancient Tombs and 4 Cityies of Traitors would be nearly equally great as MW.

If you "touch" ONLY Trinspheres and Dark Rituals with your restrictions,you would state the beginning of the reign of Control-Combo decks. They would become the decks to beat. With the difference that they would become nearly UNBEATABLE!
Control-Combo.decs have fast Intuitions and fast Mana Drains to be able to capitalize their bombs.
I would like to cut down to one at least of them in order to SLOW EACH DECK DOWN nearly equally.



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IMHO, the format can remain as it is now because none is really MORE powerful than his opponent.
No restrictions are really needed.
On the other hand, to prevent "stupid plays" we should/could/WOULD at least try to slow down the entire game-plan of the major decks. Without exceptions.

Cutting cards such as Trinisphere, RItuals, Drains and/or Intuitions would be a good starting point to revamp strategies not played at all at now ( Aggro or Non-Storm-Based-Combo or Pure-Control decks ) AND to start thinking at Vintage as a TURN 2 or TURN 3 game.

A TURN 0 Game isn't funny at all.






Zherbus you are a great and precise writer. Props to you!

[Smmenen]

JDizzle, Mana Drain is much more fair because it is very easily played around.  You can cast Duress, you can bait with spells played at end of turn, you can use Mishra's Factory and beat down.  You have many, many options.  If you have your own control elements, you can wait until you have mana enough to counter back!  Control is fair because if you play correctly, you CAN resolve your own spells.  You don't need to blindly cast spells into two untapped Islands.  This is true in many formats.  I don't understand why people think Mana Drain is in the same league as MWS/Trinisphere and Dark Ritual.

And to weigh into the argument, I agree with everything Zherbus said in his article.

-Luke

I'm willing to bet money that Trinisphere wins games when successfully resolved less of the time than Mana Drain.  If you resolve a Drain for more than 1 mana and lose, you have a bad deck.

To everyone in this thread who has said that matches are too much of a die roll - I suspect that statement comes from people who have lost.