My Predictions for 2005

[Whatever Works]

Denial isn't just a river in Egypt.

I must say that is a great quote first off...

3.5 games lost to hate
3.5 games lost to myself
2 games lost to the coin flip

Your deck did play well through FoW, and I watched different players play it for over 4 rounds as I was playing matches next to (Orlove/Sauce/Carl/Smennen) throughout the day.

The think you would agree with me when I say that Meandeck (and myself on a side note) completely screwed up when predicting the metagame. Predicting the metagame correctly has great rewards (MonoBlue at Gencon), but predicting it wrong can cause problems. Meandeck usually predicts the metagame better, but in this 1 issolated case you guys were off (which Smennen admits to rather openly on the SCG forum).

This being said you SX deck scares the hell out of me in future tournements where your team will probably change the deck to be something like switching the weakest card in the deck (sleight of hand) for most likely chain of vapor (as a guess).

[/quote]*These are Spoils gone horribly wrong, like being at 16 with 4 Tendrils and playing Spoils when its the 17th card down. Or being at 10, with 14 card left in the deck, Tendrils in hand, and going for one of the three Cabal Rituals.

If you live by spoils you die by spoils. You did have tuff luck, but then again it measures out when you spoils and you get the called card after losing only like 3 life.

I also have trouble calling it "unlucky" because the card is a reason why the deck combo's so fast. So it prevents the "unlucky" endings that can happen to other decks when they lose like opponent topdecking yawg will. (this doesnt apply to your deck, because of cards like Spoils that make you combo out so much faster that it prevents other poor occurences that slower decks fall to.)

At Waterbury I scouted what was being played pretty carfully, because when I won a round it usually took me only 10 minutes:
30% Control Slaver (conservative estimation)
25% TPS
5% (SX or Storm 10)
10% Workshop Decks (5/3 and Stax)
5% (Other combo decks Dragon/Rector donate/etc.)
5% Rogue (Rogue includes Sex.dec (PTW), Random bad decks like Sligh/dumptruck)
15% Oath
5% 4cc/Hulk/Mono Blue (other Control Decks)

Overall Hulk was just extinct. I saw only 2 4cc decks all day, and found out that 1 of them was actually dumptruck when i looked closer.

Looking at the metagame I believe that Workshop Slavery would have done extremely well, but it wasnt played. Also I think a modified tog list to beat Control Slaver would also have been strong choices.

[Nazdakka]

Well either the deck is as good as you say and there was a massive statistical anomaly, OR it isn't and you lost because you left too much work to Lady Luck. It sounds like the latter to me - the new deck sounds like one which takes an awful lot of 'good' risks which combined together add up to bad overall odds.

If (for example) you take 4 risks, each of which has a 10% chance of killing you, you've only got a 43% chance of surviving at the end. For your deck, using Spoils is a risk like that. Getting a playable opening hand is such a risk. Each draw spell you cast is an opportunity to fizzle out. Draw 7ing is a huge risk (if you use them). Opponent on the play randomly doing something broken/hateful turn 1 is a risk. Going for a turn 2 kill and losing to Workshop-3sphere is a risk.

'Normal' decks have more time to work in and less ways to self-destruct, so this sort of thing doesn't happen so often and is not so devastating if it does. All I can say is that if you live by the dice, you've got to accept dying by the dice.

[Mixing Mike]

I don't want to turn this into a CS thread, but the deck's stragity is just the best out of this metagame.  When people like ELD have been saying they fear almost no deck when playing Control Slaver, doesn't that make you think twice?

As for the combo deck, I still feel that Dark Ritual needs to be restricted.  If a card CAN make decks that are as fast as the Meandeck combo, then I don't think we really need it anymore.  Deathlong kills by turn 2, and TPS is around 3 or 4, with a few sooner ones.  

I don't think that Waterbury shows anything about Trinisphere mostly because of the lack of it's presence.  My only losses on the whole weekend (that's including day 2) were to Trinisphere decks, except one (HyperMUD, but that still even plays Workshops).  Call me a bad player, but I don't like having Trinisphere around.

[Saucemaster]

I don't want to turn this into a CS thread, but the deck's stragity is just the best out of this metagame.  When people like ELD have been saying they fear almost no deck when playing Control Slaver, doesn't that make you think twice?

The deck's stragity (<3) is one of the most reliable and solid in the metagame.  Whether that translates into "best" is a completely separate question.  I think CS has become the new "benchmark deck".  If you're testing your deck for resiliency to countermagic and non-Workshop hate, or if you're testing the power of a draw engine, or if you're testing the speed of your combo deck, etc; if you're doing any of those things, one of the very first matches you test is the Control Slaver matchup.

The question is, should THAT many people be playing Control Slaver when it's not an utterly dominating deck?  If Control Slaver was as head-and-shoulders above the rest of the decks in the format as 4-Gush GAT was during its day, for example, then it would make plenty of sense to me to just run a version of CS that was tweaked to beat the mirror.  But given that CS, while one of the top dogs in the format, isn't actually dominating the format, I don't understand why people wouldn't just switch their deck choice.  Fish has been pushed out of the SCG circuit for a while by Oath and MWS, but my God, PTW could have made a hugely triumphant return with it if he'd had it at Waterbury.  I actually played Sligh in Round Seven with a 5-1 record, one of the three non-control matchups I played in 10 rounds of play at Waterbury, and one of those three was Rector Trix, where they're actually the control deck.  Anyone care to guess how it was, exactly, that Sligh got so close to a T16 finish, before he had the horrible luck of running into his nightmare matchup?  Because he dodged the other combo decks and got to beat the hell out of CS all day long with Wastes for Volcanics and Monkeys for Moxen and REBs for Thirsts and Bolts for Welders (anyone else remember when it was Juggernaut who was the lightning rod?), etc., etc.

None of this takes away from the fact that CS is basically the new Hulk: an incredibly strong and resilient deck, difficult to hate and relatively easy to play (which is different than saying that people actually play it well, again: just like Hulk).  I'm just surprised that no one's given it the same treatment that the SCG Circuit, largely because of TSB, gave Hulk: switch up decks and start wrecking the highly predictable NE metagame.  It was a major mistake of our team to not do precisely that, because as Whatever Works said, we completely mis-forecast the metagame.

As for the combo deck, I still feel that Dark Ritual needs to be restricted.  If a card CAN make decks that are as fast as the Meandeck combo, then I don't think we really need it anymore.  Deathlong kills by turn 2, and TPS is around 3 or 4, with a few sooner ones.

I'm with you on Rit, but not because of Deathlong or TPS.  I feel fine with those decks in the format, it's a deck that kills on turn one about 2/3 of the time that I think needs the axe.  But there's probably an argument to be made that it didn't perform very well, so if it ain't broke....

Well either the deck is as good as you say and there was a massive statistical anomaly, OR it isn't and you lost because you left too much work to Lady Luck. It sounds like the latter to me - the new deck sounds like one which takes an awful lot of 'good' risks which combined together add up to bad overall odds.

There is some truth to this, though I don't agree with the statement as it stands.  The deck is vulnerable to hate and to itself; I lost to Spoils three separate times at Waterbury, though to be fair, in one of those games (the first game in the T16) I am 100% sure that I was never going to win that one anyway.  So yes, you leave a lot of work up to Lady Luck, and she liked me better than she liked my teammates at Waterbury.  I think PTW described the deck as "Magic Blackjack", because what you're really doing is just playing the odds.  The point, though, is that even though the variance in the odds will kill you, the deck is absolutely broken and the odds are GOOD.  It's Blackjack, but you're being dealt from a one-deck shoe, the dealer gives you 7/8 penetration (and doesn't THAT sound sexy), the count is positive, and the pit boss is off at a strip club somewhere (because he remembered his ID).  You're still going to lose money in these circumstances sometimes, especially when your metagame predictions are wrong (what's the corollary to that?  Forgetting the count halfway through the deck?), but in the long run you'll win a lot more than you'll lose.

On the other hand, I'm honestly not sure whether I'd play Meandeck Tendrils again, so obviously there's some significant risk.

[Phantom Tape Worm]

Well either the deck is as good as you say and there was a massive statistical anomaly, OR it isn't and you lost because you left too much work to Lady Luck. It sounds like the latter to me - the new deck sounds like one which takes an awful lot of 'good' risks which combined together add up to bad overall odds.

There is some truth to this, though I don't agree with the statement as it stands.  The deck is vulnerable to hate and to itself; I lost to Spoils three separate times at Waterbury, though to be fair, in one of those games (the first game in the T16) I am 100% sure that I was never going to win that one anyway.  So yes, you leave a lot of work up to Lady Luck, and she liked me better than she liked my teammates at Waterbury.  I think PTW described the deck as "Magic Blackjack", because what you're really doing is just playing the odds.  The point, though, is that even though the variance in the odds will kill you, the deck is absolutely broken and the odds are GOOD.  It's Blackjack, but you're being dealt from a one-deck shoe, the dealer gives you 7/8 penetration (and doesn't THAT sound sexy), the count is positive, and the pit boss is off at a strip club somewhere (because he remembered his ID).  You're still going to lose money in these circumstances sometimes, especially when your metagame predictions are wrong (what's the corollary to that?  Forgetting the count halfway through the deck?), but in the long run you'll win a lot more than you'll lose.

On the other hand, I'm honestly not sure whether I'd play Meandeck Tendrils again, so obviously there's some significant risk.

I think the term I used was "puzzle blackjack", but you certainly captured the flavor of what I meant, saucey.  After the tournament I goldfished a few hands under the coaching of smmenen and the rest of meandeck.  Turn 1 goldfish kills occur more often than not, ie. above 50% of the time. The deck is quite simply an abomination.  In fact, I refused to acknowledge any other name for the deck, in my eyes the deck's name was/is: "Meandeck Abomination", period.

I was talking to the canadians early in the tournament when we had first got wind of Meandeck Abomination.  After round 1, Hi-val made mention that it's turn 1 goldfish was up around 70%.  Obviously I thought he was exaggerating as did everyone else, I didn't think the cards existed to push it that fast.  Obviously I was wrong.

The deck pushes magic into a realm that is no longer magic.  Is there "skill" involved in that realm?  Of course.  There is skill at every point where a decision must be made.  The decision to change up the maindeck by a card or two = skill.  The decision of how to modify the sideboard for the metagame = skill.  The decision of whether to keep or to mull = skill.  The decision on how to alter your game plan based on whether you won the die roll = skill.  The decisions on what order to play out the spells in your opening hand = skill.

But, by and large, it reduces the game to a puzzle solving problem devoid of player interaction.  

The deck is truly the antithesis of a game with more than one player.

Saucey, your annalysis of Meandeck Abomination as puzzle blackjack is spot on.  But you left out one very important parallel.  In blackjack, the dealer is irrelavent.  He makes ZERO decisions.  He could be a trained chimp, or a robot, or a guy who forgets to bring his ID to the nudey bar.  The dealer shows his hand and he either has a higher number or he doesn't, and that's it.  There is no game for the dealer, there is no back and forth, there is only "let's compare our hands".   The parallel is obvious.  When playing against this deck the opponent either has an answer to "first turn BLAMMO!" or he doesn't, and the game is decided.  This is how the games will go MORE THAN 50% OF THE TIME (remember our turn 1 kill is up around 70%).

IMO this is simply unacceptable, it is a distortion of magic and should not exist.  No player should be allowed to reduce tournament level magic to this.  


Still, the deck only put one of its pilots in top 8...and it had 11 people running it.  Given the strength of the players running the deck, and the fact that it was a surprise (ie. rogue), you would expect a better showing.   But, regardless of the reason for this, I would still shoot for restriction of a number of different cards, the primary offenders being dark ritual and tendrils.  F metagame distortion.  F dominance.  Consistant turn 1 kills are not acceptable from any tournament calibur deck.

So back onto the topic of this thread, my predictions for 2005: rit and tendrils both get the axe.

[Saucemaster]

Saucey, your annalysis of Meandeck Abomination as puzzle blackjack is spot on.  But you left out one very important parallel.  In blackjack, the dealer is irrelavent.  He makes ZERO decisions.  He could be a trained chimp, or a robot, or a guy who forgets to bring his ID to the nudey bar.  The dealer shows his hand and he either has a higher number or he doesn't, and that's it.  There is no game for the dealer, there is no back and forth, there is only "let's compare our hands".   The parallel is obvious.  When playing against this deck the opponent either has an answer to "first turn BLAMMO!" or he doesn't, and the game is decided.  This is how the games will go MORE THAN 50% OF THE TIME (remember our turn 1 kill is up around 70%).

IMO this is simply unacceptable, it is a distortion of magic and should not exist.  No player should be allowed to reduce tournament level magic to this.

You're right, of course, and that's the other reason that "puzzle blackjack" is a very good name for it.  And I also agree that the deck needs the axe.  And hell, this is from a guy who LOVES blackjack.

[Whatever Works]

It's Blackjack, but you're being dealt from a one-deck shoe, the dealer gives you 7/8 penetration (and doesn't THAT sound sexy), the count is positive, and the pit boss is off at a strip club somewhere (because he remembered his ID).

Your never going to let Sauce get over this are you???

I agree 100% that breaking the fundemental first turn rule shouldnt be allowed, but in my opinion Dark Ritual should be the last possible card to go... They should start off by restricting probably Spoils of vault on princible (it was left off the list because it was initially considered to be crap), and maybe tendrils should also get restricted, because without multiple tendrils it makes it much more difficult to go as broken as fast... and by doing such you slow down turn 1 kills (if even only temporarily) without screwing up all the other combo decks in the format (that arent turn 1 kill)

[Saucemaster]

It's Blackjack, but you're being dealt from a one-deck shoe, the dealer gives you 7/8 penetration (and doesn't THAT sound sexy), the count is positive, and the pit boss is off at a strip club somewhere (because he remembered his ID).

Your never going to let Sauce get over this are you???

Actually, I wrote that.  He zinged me later on in his post.

[Jacob Orlove]

But, regardless of the reason for this, I would still shoot for restriction of a number of different cards, the primary offenders being dark ritual and tendrils. F metagame distortion. F dominance. Consistant turn 1 kills are not acceptable from any tournament calibur deck.

In my opinion, the cards to hit are Dark Ritual and Land Grant (!). Those two are the most egregious offenders in terms of enabling combo decks, especially turn 1 combo decks.

[The M.E.T.H.O.D]

Ritual is insane.... like I've always known that but the last couple of months it has cemented into my mind.  All the broken combo decks are broken because they abuse this one card.  Cabal Ritual also seems like its getting closer and closer to broken status along with land grant, but DARK RITUAL is culprit.  Im starting to believe that the card is more format defining then goblin welder and that it sucks the most player interaction away then trinisphere.  As the cardpool grows and grows, its quite evident that this card can't possibly keep a healthy growing eviroment in copies of four.

[Vegeta2711]

It's Blackjack, but you're being dealt from a one-deck shoe, the dealer gives you 7/8 penetration (and doesn't THAT sound sexy), the count is positive, and the pit boss is off at a strip club somewhere (because he remembered his ID).

Your never going to let Sauce get over this are you???

I agree 100% that breaking the fundemental first turn rule shouldnt be allowed, but in my opinion Dark Ritual should be the last possible card to go... They should start off by restricting probably Spoils of vault on princible (it was left off the list because it was initially considered to be crap), and maybe tendrils should also get restricted, because without multiple tendrils it makes it much more difficult to go as broken as fast... and by doing such you slow down turn 1 kills (if even only temporarily) without screwing up all the other combo decks in the format (that arent turn 1 kill)

This kind of logic reminds me of the DCI in dealing with Necro-Trix. You continue to leave the problem card (Ritual) because it's being used in other slightly fairer decks and the broken one. This simply doesn't work and leaves us with decks like Belcher to pick up the slack right from where it left off. It's stupid to leave the best unrestricted mana accelerator for these kinds of decks available.  In fact I'd be willing to say it wouldn't be unreasonable to go a step further and hit something like Land Grant, Spoils or Cabal Ritual. I doubt that's going to happen, but we may as well try to make combo 'fair'.

[dicemanx]

I get the feeling that there is a big danger that axing Ritual won't be enough (along with the suggestion of Land Grant). So then I wonder if perhaps banning Tendrils might be the best solution after all, and if we need to, we can hit the other problem storm cards (Brain Freeze and maybe Hunting Pack if we really have to). I'm all for being able to play with every card ever printed in T1 and all, but I'd be willing to make a big exception in this case to get rid of the heart of the problem - the mechanic.

The Storm mechanic will always be an issue in vintage, and as we get closer and closer to the so called "critical mass" for Storm combo decks then no amount of restrictions will be enough to contain such a deck. Why not just look the other way this one time, ban Tendrils and be done with it. That still leaves a slighly weakened Belcher, but there are other ways to take care of that deck if we really need to.

[Mixing Mike]

The Storm mechanic will always be an issue in vintage, and as we get closer and closer to the so called "critical mass" for Storm combo decks then no amount of restrictions will be enough to contain such a deck. Why not just look the other way this one time, ban Tendrils and be done with it.

Storm was the worst idea ever in a format that cheats mana costs so easily, and one that has so many ways to generate such large ammounts of mana so quickly.

I totally agree.  Without storm, Ritual is just an average good card for Type I, and wouldn't need restriction.

[MuzzonoAmi]

I'm totally against axing ritual, but I see what you're all saying. I'm just selfishly trying to keep budget [combo] decks viable.  But those decks are actually very good illustrations of the problem Ritual poses. I'll post the list sometime this weekend, but when you can build a deck with no Power and still have a fairly consistent, protected  turn 2 goldfish, then there is a speed/mana problem. This shouldn't be possible. And it's Ritual that is the biggest enabler for those wins.  I predict that this is the year that we start to challenge what Vintage is really about, because I see the format rapidly approaching some crises that no one had really considered before. Storm is the perfect example of this.

I can't think of anyone here foolish enough to believe that it would be difficult to build a deck to kill with Brain Freeze over Tendrils should Tendrils get restricted. The mechanic is so compatible with how Vintage combo works that  we're at a point where good combo can easily protect itself from control. Really, I've had more success with Abeyance effects than Counterspell effects in testing in just about every matchup I've run in the past 2-3 weeks. We could be headed in a completely unexplored direction.

[Whatever Works]

Banning the storm mechanic is probably the best idea i have heard in a very very long time... If you take out storm there is no combo deck thats faster then turn 3 with the acception of belcher, but then again all the storm hate will be turned to belcher hate, and then that deck will have the same fate as dragon.dec had when it was declaired the best deck post long.dec restrictions, and for those who dont remember you wouldnt be able to because dragon.dec died so quickly to sooo much hate its reign was very short lived...

Dark Ritual is such a defining card of magic... Its picture is memorable every1 knows/loves the card if they play combo or not... And if you can get around restricting a timeless card by banning the worst designed cards sinse saga, or even (worst designed cards sinse dark ritual).... you can keep the classic...

Restricting Dark Ritual wont fix the combo problem it will slow combo decks down about a turn, and that will fix the metagame for about 2 months then it will be rediscovered with some new tendrils deck...

What are the similarities with Long.dec, TPS, and SX??? not just Dark Ritual... but Storm...

[Jacob Orlove]

Nothing will ever, ever get banned in Vintage. The one defining principle of the format is that you can play with every card in the game.

If we really wanted a slower, fairer format, we'd be trying to put the following cards on the restricted list: Mishra's Workshop, Ancient Tomb, Intuition, Mana Drain, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Land Grant, maybe ESG and Trinisphere, and (I can't believe I'm typing this) possibly Brainstorm.

[Whatever Works]

Nothing will ever, ever get banned in Vintage. The one defining principle of the format is that you can play with every card in the game.

If we really wanted a slower, fairer format, we'd be trying to put the following cards on the restricted list: Mishra's Workshop, Ancient Tomb, Intuition, Mana Drain, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Land Grant, maybe ESG and Trinisphere, and (I can't believe I'm typing this) possibly Brainstorm.

I know they wont ban storm, but the more I think about it the more I like the idea...If this crap keeps on happening we will have to rename type 1 "Highlander"... Or Anand.pimp.format.dec... and that would just be awful... I would like to add possibly Spoils, and tinder wall to your list... though you did name the big 1's... though hopfully none of said cards get restricted...

[MuzzonoAmi]

This is the problem with Storm spells - banning them is against the nature of the format,  and errating them makes the ability loose one of the big things that it was designed to do - thwart countermagic. This is our 'identity crisis'.

[Komatteru]

The whole discussion of the restriction of Dark Ritual strongly reminds me of where we were 6 months ago with Crucible.  Shortly after its introduction, people were crying about Crucible and how it was ruining the format.  It was even called the new Black Vise.  Many people even believed that the card was going to need restriction.  However, right now, no one seems to complain about Crucible anymore.  Why?  People have started playing lots of basic lands so they don't get raped by recurring Wastelands.  What did this do for the format?  Many people though this was one of the awfulest things that has ever happened to the format, that mutli-color control was a thing of the past, but most people eventually came to realize that playing with a solid number of basic land is not a bad thing at all.  In fact, when you remove the temptation of playing 8 colors and limit yourself to 2 (perhaps splashing a 3rd), you greatly increase the consistency of your deck (Slaver is perhaps the most consistent deck the format--or even Magic--has seen in years), which turns out to be better anyway.  Without Crucible, would people return to playing multi-color control?  Yes, but not because it's better--only because multi-color control is a pet deck.  All of this was not something that people immediately realized at the time, but rather something that grew out of increased understanding.

Even back at the beginning of August, we had threads like this, in which the consensus was that decidedly that Crucible was going to have a distorting effect on the metagame.  Now, interstingly enough, no one ever cares to define "distorting" rigorously (as a mathematician, this bothers me greatly).  Crucible has changed the metagame, but has it "distorted" it?  This is not a question that needs to be examined in this thread, but the meaning of the word "distortion" is something that needs to be considered carefully.  Lots and lots of cards have caused some significant changes in the format--but change is not synomonous with distortion.  The format does need to keep evolving, otherwise it gets stagnant, and, because of the power level of existing cards, it takes a card of pretty significant power to change things in a recognizable manner.  Sometimes that's a new card (like Crucible), and sometimes its the rediscovery of an old card that had fallen by the wayside: Null Rod, Oath of Druids, Doomsday (sparked by its unrestriction), and most recently, Dark Ritual.

We re-examined the role of Crucible in this thread.  If you remember correctly, this thread was a really hot one.  The post count hit over 100 within a few days, and the thread was eventually closed, cleaned, and moved to the closed vintage forum.  Where do we stand now on Crucible?  I haven't heard a word about it in what seems like forever.  It really seems like Crucible has been accepted into the format and everyone has accepted that playing basic lands is not the worst thing that's ever happened.  However, lately it's been all about Dark Ritual and Trinisphere.

I directed a person in my local meta with little knowledge of but some interest in Vintage to this site.  He browsed around and described it as a bunch of people bitching about all sorts of cards should be restricted.  It seems that no matter what, we can find one or more cards that a significant group of people think should be restricted at any given point in time.  It was Crucible not too long ago, for a while, some people thought it should be Workshop, and now it's Trinisphere and Dark Ritual.  The community seems to move from one "problem card" to another without ever discovering ways of dealing with said problem card.  Look at the results from Waterbury.  There was a good amount of combo, but Slaver was by far dominant.  And there was like 4 Shop decks in the whole tournament.  What does that tell you?

I pose the following question.  4 Months ago or so, everyone (for the most part) was talking about how great the format is right now and how healthy it is--that's its fantastic that there are multiple flavors of control and combo, as well as Aggro in the form of 5/3, all able to win any given tournament.  What's happened in that time period?  Not very much.  Oath was a breakout deck of SCG II, but has failed to produce solid results in major tournaments since then, despite being played in high numbers at SCG III.  Doomsday garnished a little bit of buzz, but so far, no one has done much with that, aside from Smmenen's third place finish at SCG III.  There have not been major tournaments in the United States since SCG III, but, despite this, the format has succeeded in going from amazing to completely terrible in many people's eyes.  What in the world happened?  There's been no new cards, not much great tech discovered, and not very many new decks that would cause a huge shift in the meta.

If combo is such a problem, why do only a fraction of control decks out there run hate such as Arcane Lab for it in the sideboard?  Combo has only a few bounce spells, and most of them are directed at removing artifacts.  Counter TPS's one Chain of Vapor and see what happens.  Easier said than done, but options do exist.

I'd like to draw your attention to the following thread.  This talks about how "terrible" combo was back in at the end of July. Since then, the fundamental idea that defines control has changed only a bit (it still uses Mana Drain to power brokenness), and if anything, control has gotten better since this time (Slaver is perhaps more consistent and even better than 4CC and 'tog were in their prime over the summer), while combo's relative power level has remained the same.  In fact, something people fail to realize is that combo actually gets weaker with each set, as cards that can be abused in combo aren't too likely to see print anytime this century.  Pick up a combo deck and count the number of core cards that appear after Urza's Block, outside of the storm cards.  There's not very many of them.  Pick up Control Slaver and look at how it doesn't exist without Mirrodin: it's draw engine is there, its name sake is there, its win conditions are there.  Same goes for Shop decks--they are also heavily backboned in the Mirrodin block.  Combo, however, has its win conditions from Scourge, and everything else from pre-1998.  The other decks has the possibility of getting stronger (evolving) over time, while combo pretty much has to make do with the cards printed before 2000.  Interesting.

I am, of course, biased as hell when it comes to combo, but whatever.  I'm no more biased than the control players, and I think I might be less than that, since I did play control for years and years (but now my Mana Drains lie dormant, and haven't seen use in like over 6 months).

-JD, Combo's "other great defender"

[Covetous]

I think it's interesting to hear people talk about restricting tendrils over DR.  How well would most combo decks work with only one tendrils?  I'm sure TPS would still work just fine, but I don't think people mind a deck winning turn 3-4 most of the time.  But, how would 3-land Tendrils (call it whatever you want) work with only 1 tendrils?  How would DeathLong work?  Belcher wouldn't change, but I don't think that most people mind Belcher any more.  Why nuke a card utilized by many decks other than the major offender, when you can nip the problem in the bud by specifically axing the win condition that makes the deck busted?  I don't favor any restrictions at this time--the metagame seems balanced despite the existence of turn-1 combo decks.  But, if turn-1 storm combo becomes too prevalent and/or successful, then maybe answering the problem directly by cutting tendrils would work sufficiently to stem the tide of brokenness.  

I also wanted to point out that I find it funny to hear people saying that it's bad for combo to ignore the opponent and play like Magic Masturbation.  But, isn't that the point of combo, to make your opponent irrelevant and then shoot your load all over their face (metaphorically speaking)?  The very idea of combo is NOT to interact with the opponent--that's the entire point.  The only interaction you should have with the opponent as a combo player is to rape their hand or prevent them from stopping you (sure, that's minor interaction, but you basically don't need to care about the threats that they play).

[dicemanx]

Nothing will ever, ever get banned in Vintage. The one defining principle of the format is that you can play with every card in the game.

This can be overturned at any time in the interest of format health.

I think it's interesting to hear people talk about restricting tendrils over DR.

The proposal was to ban Tendrils. Restricting Tendrils won't have the desired effect.

The whole discussion of the restriction of Dark Ritual strongly reminds me of where we were 6 months ago with Crucible.

The problem with CoW was less clear cut than the issues we are having with Ritual. It seems to me that you actually made sufficient points in your post to explain why CoW was considered, and why there are no longer any discussions about it. CoW had *exaclty* the massive distorting effect that we had predicted a few months ago, something that was passed off as mere "adaptation". Waterbury was a perfect illustration of the fall-out - control decks these days must run a high number of fetches and basics, which limits the number of viable top tier control decks to somewhere around...2 (Control Slaver and Oath).  Your criticism of the fact that people seem to cry foul over the "flavor of the week" (CoW one day, Ritual or Trini the next) is a little short-sighted in my opinion, because there is this cascading effect that minimizes the problem one card poses but leads to entirely new problems as a consequence of that card previously running rampant in the environment.

What is curious however is that non-basic hate is at an all time low exactly because of CoW and to a lesser extent the two non-basic hate cards in the two top control decks: Blood Moon in Slaver and Back to Basics in Oath. Because there is such a push towards running so many basics, few if any decks show up with Blood Moons/B2B/CoWs which allows quite a few of us to get away with running horrible mana bases (I ran no basic lands in WGD for instance at Waterbury, and there was even a 4CC making top 16 in the event). This leads to this sort of guessing game - will a normally tier two combo or control deck (lower tier because they get absolutely hammered by Blood Moon or CoW) all of a sudden turn into a tier one powerhouse because it is a waste to devote MD/SB slots to non-basic hate when the environment is filled with CS and Oath and even basic land packing TPS?

[Saucemaster]

The problem with CoW was less clear cut than the issues we are having with Ritual.

I think this is probably the most important point.  What JDizzle didn't at all touch on in his post, is whether or not Ritual is ACTUALLY any different from CoW w/r/t calls for its restriction.  The fact that past calls for restriction have been premature or unnecessary (depending on your point of view) does not in any way imply that THIS call for restriction is premature or unnecessary.  It's the classic problem of induction.  What we're discussing here is fundamentally different from what we were all discussing with CoW, for example: should a combo deck that wins on turn one the *majority* of the time should be allowed to exist in the format?  And since Ritual is the single most important enabling card of the deck--along with Land Grant--should Ritual (and maybe Land Grant) be restricted if the answer is "No"?

As a somewhat off-topic side note, I don't think Crucible had very much to do with pushing out 4-color decks; I think it was the massive prevalence of Wastelands and other mana denial in Fish and Workshop decks.  Does CoW exacerbate this trend?  Certainly.  But I, for one, know that the reason I want 3-4 basics and 5-6 fetches in my control manabase is simply to get to an un-Wasteable UU up on turn 2, and to have a one-turn window to cast the key 3cc cards like Intuition or Thirst at least once.

EDIT: just fixing some pronouns.

[bebe]

What is curious however is that non-basic hate is at an all time low exactly because of CoW and to a lesser extent the two non-basic hate cards in the two top control decks: Blood Moon in Slaver and Back to Basics in Oath. Because there is such a push towards running so many basics, few if any decks show up with Blood Moons/B2B/CoWs which allows quite a few of us to get away with running horrible mana bases (I ran no basic lands in WGD for instance at Waterbury, and there was even a 4CC making top 16 in the event). This leads to this sort of guessing game - will a normally tier two combo or control deck (lower tier because they get absolutely hammered by Blood Moon or CoW) all of a sudden turn into a tier one powerhouse because it is a waste to devote MD/SB slots to non-basic hate when the environment is filled with CS and Oath and even basic land packing TPS?

Precisely and accurately explained. I played a highlander deck - yes a highlander - with no basic lands and an abominable mana base at our last Type 1 tournament and finished in the top eight. I lost in the top eight to a CoW/Stip - note not a wasteland - backed up by a Trinisphere. I did it as an experiment and packed the deck with numerous broken and redundant combos that took advantage of a meta with little aggro or control - outside of Slaver and Oath which can nbe hated out somewhat.


 

I directed a person in my local meta with little knowledge of but some interest in Vintage to this site. He browsed around and described it as a bunch of people bitching about all sorts of cards should be restricted. It seems that no matter what, we can find one or more cards that a significant group of people think should be restricted at any given point in time.

It this type of bitching that saved the format from a Mind's Desire running rampant and Gush making Tog unbearable. Not that I want to see anything restricted just yet.

I noticed that most of the Canadians that went down to Waterbury finished with very respectable records and each played a different arch type from Dragon to Salvagers to rogue Tinker decks to Slaver. A typical Canadian list of tournament decks. I think we spend more time up here trying to be creative.

As a final observation - Disrupting Shoal seems like it might very well vault traditional blue control decks ( with a splash ) back into the higher eschelions of decks. A control deck that stall its opponent for an extra few turns while it builds its mana base certainly must be considered a threat. We might already have an answer for Trinisphere. I would not like to see combo neutered now as it balances out the meta nicely.  I would leave DR alone.

[dicemanx]

I don't think Crucible had very much to do with pushing out 4-color decks; I think it was the massive prevalence of Wastelands and other mana denial in Fish and Workshop decks.

It's difficult to say in my opinion what lead to the steady disappearance of 4CC, but I do remember that 4CC was still a viable deck in a Wasteland heavy meta and it did have some degree of success against Fish. It seems that the disappearance of the deck coincided with three things - the steady increase in Control Slaver which ran or at least could run MD Blood Moons, the unveiling of mono-U followed by the "upgrade" to U/g Oath which re-introduced Back to Basics, and the addition of multiple CoWs to Workshop decks (5/3 and Stax primarily). It seems to me that 4CC (and even 3C Dragon) had the ability to deal with 5 Waste/Strips, but the danger that Moons/B2B/CoWs presented was simply too much. 4CC has all the tools at its disposal to fight both Workshop decks and combo (whatever CS can SB 4CC can likewise SB, but with even greater options at its disposal), and with not much Fish in the environment it becomes that guessing game with respect to non-basic hate and how likely you are to run into it at an event.

[Saucemaster]

I think you're probably right about that, dicemanx.  Certainly Crucible had something to do with it, I just think that a similar phasing out of 4cC would have occured even without the Workshop decks packing 3+ CoW.  It just happened faster and more drastically with CoW.  I also think that Fish was probably underplayed (given Tog's power at the time) and that combined with the fact that alot of other matchups were becoming just that much harder, it made 4cC an obviously inferior choice to other control decks more tuned to handle the metagame.  At any rate, we obviously agree w/r/t Ritual.