[non-premium] restricted list mechanics

[jpmeyer]

Since this is more or less an issues article, you don't need Premium to read it.  Basically, in this article I outline the types of mechanics that tend to make there way onto the restricted list.  Next week's version will look at current cards in the format that are unrestricted that also share those mechanics.

[Necrologia]

Good article, I'm looking forward to the next installment.

You did a very good job of remaining neutral, so I'm unsure if you think anything could be safely unrestricted right now. I'm pretty sure Voltaic Key would be harmless unrestricted, but I've got my doubts about most anything else currently on the B&R list.

Once again, good article.

[Machinus]

I really agree with you about LoA. I have been thinking about writing a post/article exploring, in detail, exactly what the consequences of an unrestricted library environment would be. I agree with you that it isn't automatically a 4-of, and I think that the 4-LoA deck has significant weaknesses. There are many control decks that don't run it at all. I would be very interested in whatever analysis anyone else has done on this topic.

[Rapalaman1]

I too would really like to see a post-unrestriction dream halls decklist. I can see why it'd be really broken but I would like to see what someone can come up with.

[Revvik]

I read a report on the original Standard list a while ago, and I believe it was as simple as opening with Island, Mana Vault (there were 4 allowed back then), untap and:

Island, Dream Halls.  Resolves.
Pitch Duress, Play Bargain.  Win (there was actually a lot of inconsequential typing after the Bargain resolved, but the point was moot because of what we already know about Bargain (coupled with Dream Halls, the result is almost traumatic).

However, there were a lot of problems with the environment back in that day.  

I think the true way to determine if some cards warrant unrestriction is for Wizards/DCI to actually test how a deck designed to abuse it in today's environment (whether it is a deck built around it a la Doomsday or a deck that supplements its power with a newly unrestricted card).  I don't know if they actually do this, or what their process is (just looking at tournament top 8s?  reading TMD?)

JP: This was a very interesting read, and probably a much saner way to look at the restricted list and categorize them according to function.  I look forward to the views in your next article on some of the cards seeing play today.

[Jacob Orlove]

Unrestricting Library would make control mirrors really, really dumb.

[Freelancer]

Yeah they would come down to: you have library? dang I don't and I don't have a waste either, *checks top 5 cards* nope no waste gg...

I had a dream halls deck wich searched its precious dream halls with a rector (fun deck) whenever it got dream halls into play it simply won...(bunch off cheap blue drawers combined with a bunch off overcosted draw7's made the deck quite degenerate) The only problem I could foresee is actually getting dream halls into play, although some form off a high tide deck is quite capable off doing this by turn 3...It can also run drain and stuff for protection and acceleration in other words degenerate decks, and this is just off the top off my (stupid)head...o_0

[Necrologia]

When exactly would it be better to fetch Dream Halls over Bargain? Bargain says you win, Dream Hall says the same but forces you to play bad cards maindeck.

[Moxlotus]

Good article, I'm looking forward to the next installment.

You did a very good job of remaining neutral, so I'm unsure if you think anything could be safely unrestricted right now. I'm pretty sure Voltaic Key would be harmless unrestricted, but I've got my doubts about most anything else currently on the B&R list.

Once again, good article.

Volcaic key would lead to the rise of Door to Nothingness.dec!!!!!

Anyways I thought the article was very good, especially informative to newer players.  The article will be a great base for your next one talking about possible restrictions and what categories they would fall in.

[Matt]

One thing I REALLY REALLY liked about this article was that you didn't put the footnotes way down at the bottom. When there gets to be like seven asterisks, it can be hard to tell what footnote goes with what.

Couple nitpicks:

It probably wouldn't take much effort to make a really strong Dragon build based around 4 Necros.

Actually dragon might be tough, because of Necro's discarding clause.

You can produce one mana with Key if you combo it with Sol Ring or Mana Crypt (strong!) and a massive two mana with Mana Vault or Grim Monolith.

It's actualy even less if you're trying to do this mid-combo. The fact that Key is pretty much awful on the turn you play it makes it even safer to unrestrict.

[Freelancer]

@necrologia It was essentially a fun/casual deck to cast some real big bad blue spells...It did however show the power off dream halls to me, since everytime I managed to get it into play I won...Even if the card is 2UUU it is still to good if it essentially says 'I won, you lost' when it resolves in the right deck.

So no I don't want to see dream halls unrestricted (although it would be fun for about a week:P), neither do I want to see library unrestricted because they both break two (unwritten) rules: you actually have to PAY mana for your spells, you have to PAY mana to draw card (check gush,recall)...

[Necrologia]

Minor nitpick: Dream Halls costs 3UU, Mind Over Matter costs 2UUUU.

I'm undecided about Dream Halls, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. I was just pointing out that a Rector based deck is not the greatest base for a DH deck, as Bargain is better 9 times out of 10.

Anyone who wants to see LoA get unrestricted is a shop owner and has a dozen sitting in the back room.  

EDIT: forgot an extra U

[FORCE-OF-WILL]

Accually MOM costs 2UUUU

[jpmeyer]

One thing I REALLY REALLY liked about this article was that you didn't put the footnotes way down at the bottom. When there gets to be like seven asterisks, it can be hard to tell what footnote goes with what.

Couple nitpicks:

It probably wouldn't take much effort to make a really strong Dragon build based around 4 Necros.

Actually dragon might be tough, because of Necro's discarding clause.

I figure Dragon could be something like this:

4 Bazaar of Baghdad
X lands of various colors

X artifact acceleration

4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
3-4 Worldgorger Dragon
1 kill card (Ambassador, Kumano, etc, but NOT Eternal Witness alone)

X Animate Dead
4 Dark Ritual (?)
4 Duress
4 Necropotence
4 Buried Alive/Intuition
4 Unmask/Force of Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Since both the Necro/Buried Alive/Animate Dead and the Bazaar/Animate plan assume that you're drawing a million cards, it probably shouldn't matter if you draw two of them together.  Pitch the Bazaar when you over-Necro or pitch the Necro when you Bazaar away Dragon.

8 blue cards is too low for Force of Will, but I threw this together in about 30 seconds so I hadn't considered running like Brainstorm or something as well.

[BWM]

in my opinion Gush is also a Type Black Vise...

[jpmeyer]

Because it draws into more copies of it?

[Hi-Val]

JP, in your next column I hope you address Brainstorm, not because it should be restricted, but because it follows some of the rules you outlined. And because it's the second-most common card in Vintage.

[Methuselahn]

This is the stuff that the masses want to see!  Nice article.

I love the way Goth Slaver uses it's Intuitions with things like Crucible.  Besides abusing Strip Mine with Goth Slaver, you can get away with running just one Citadel to get that Crucible/Citadel/Slaver/Welder infinite lock going.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

Over all a cool read. I enjoyed it quite a bit, even though it wasn't learning new things, it was a great in showing how to think through cards and the way they affect the game on theory basis. This article should actually help people to find new broken cards faster, even though it was simply showing which cards actually are broken....

Burning Wish
Category: Demonic Tutor
Burning Wish is a pretty situational tutor. It can only get cards from your sideboard and it can only get sorceries. The thing is, sorceries are usually given the most powerful effects. If you look at the restricted list, there are many more sorceries than instants on it and in general, the sorceries are much more powerful. ...One aspect that wasn't explored very much with Burning Wish though was the possibility of casting Yawgmoth's Will multiple times in one game. In Vintage, the general opinion was that you only need to cast Will once, because of how powerful the effect is. However, decks in Standard often cast Will multiple times in a game because their Wills were much less ambitious. They might simply Will for Dark Ritual, a land, a removal spell, and a Vampiric Tutor for another Will. It would be interesting to see a Vintage control deck using this approach, reusing just say, Fire / Ice, Mystical Tutor for Burning Wish, and Time Walk.

Actually, I did that regularly with The Shining. I cast Will turn 2-4 to reuse a Brainstorm, AK for 2 and a Tutor. I actually sometimes chained 2 Will turns one into the next, thanks to Time Walk (Like Walk, Wish->Will for Walk, some Tutor, Brainstorm. During first extra-turn draw a ton of cards and Wish for Will, next turn Will again). It was a lot of fun... well for me

Personally, the fact that a deck exists that only needs to run one land is scary enough to me that I don't want to give it even more choices among mana producers.

Having played Belcher, I can only say this: I have yet to loose a game where I succesfully cast Channel.

As for Tinker, I usually liken Tinker to a whole engine-combo-deck packed into one card. Those decks convert cards into mana into tutors/cards and back into mana and so on till they find (aka tutor for it through drawing cards) their kill-condition/combo. Tinker does both things on it's own, it gets you the mana to cast your win and searches it for you.
Btw, it's possible to cost tinker fairly, it seems. At least Transmute Artifact is quite balanced (which is why it's so hard to actually play it in t1, balanced cards are not exactly what T1-decks need) but has a high potential to be still playable

[That0neguy]

About the Dream Halls deck:

Last time before the restrictions came out I was testing the deck after Steve suggested it to be unrestricted and it seemed pretty insane ussually going off turn 3 after draining into the halls with force of will back up.  I don't have the list anymore but I remember it being pretty stupid.  Also I think I ran something like 12 counterspells in the deck (drain force counterspell).  Sway of the stars would be interesting in that deck even if it does resuffle everything.  Ill try to find the decklist or just build another since I thought of a few modifications that might make it better(I remember that I didn't use intuition for some reason).

[Kerz]

JP: Great article. One of the best assessments of the restricted list I've seen in a long time- very clear and conceise.

Also, I agree on Tinker being the most broken card on the restricted list.

[Marton]

what about mind twist then ? you said it could be unrestricted, I have yet to understand why. I guess it would fit the black vise category.

[WildWillieWonderboy]

Oh holy shit! Someone addressed the Restricted list without pissing and moaning like a little bitch!

In all seriousness, great article JP. I was thinking about what you said about the Balance cards being impossible to "cost" correctly and it sort of threw into relief the whole question about relative casting cost/ format speed and all that. So many cards are unplayable in type 1 (or any format) because of one crucial mana. So part of the problem is how slippery the slope is. To this end, it seems like cards that move the game in another direction are what's needed. More cards like Mindslaver, which caused the formation of a completely new archetype, and less cards like Glacial Ray, which are continuations on a theme (shock with set mechanic). Rather than restricting good cards because there's so much dreck, why not print different cards that are interesting to play with?

Dream Halls: Seriously, why not just ask them to make mono-blue Drain TPS? Look at me, I made Spelljack better than Force of Will!

[epeeguy]

An excellent article, and one that definitely is a good primer (for players who may not understand why certain things are restricted) to understanding why the Restricted list exists, as well as sets a good bar for why future cards should be Restricted or remain Unrestricted.

I'm looking forward to seeing what you have to say next week.

[Methuselahn]

Your assessment of Intuition and Accumulated Knowledge should prove interesting in the follow-up article.  Maybe even the oddball Merchant Scroll will make the list.

[Grand Inquisitor]

Actually, I did that regularly with The Shining. I cast Will turn 2-4 to reuse a Brainstorm, AK for 2 and a Tutor.

Yeah, I used to call them 'utility' Wills.

My record for consecutive turns with burning wish is 6.  You can do a lot more, obviously, but it's just cool to see your opponent's expression when you've taken 6 turns in a row without using some kind of loop.

Btw, the deck is called Your Mother...


Regarding the article, I created false expectations based on the title.  I hope it clicked with the uninitiated, but as is said above, there's not much new here.

[Wolven]

Hey, normally I just read about whats being said and I don't bother to post, but I have been talking to people locally about an interesting idea.

Everyone knows what between Workshop and Bazaar there is a lot of debate with regards to the B&R list. I have been thinking a lot about this and I had a relativly simple solution to the problem... why not make them, as well as Library of Alexandria, Legendary?

I can imagine that adjusting the oracle text would be somewhat monumentous but it would maybe not fix things entirly, but tone down the power level of said cards somewhat. There is still the problem of a control player having multiple Libraries, and it may still have to be restricted, but making the other lands legendary could tone down shop deck to a more reasonable level... as much as I like hard-casting Sundering Titan on turn 2.

It even can make sense from a flavour standpoint (if anyone cares). Shop could have been Mishra's personal workspace, and everyone knows there was only one legendary Library of Alexandria. With regards to Bazaar well... I'm sure I could come up with a half-assed reason, but more over I think if WoTC had the "legend" mechanic around when designing said cards, they would have been designed as legendary.

This still leaves the problem of the 3sphere+Shop opening, but in a shop mirror you have an added total of 4 wastelands, bringing you up to 9. This would increase the danger of someone being locked under their own Trinisphere.

Yet my main point is that it may be possible to tweek certain cards to keep/take them off the list. I'm not sure what people's reaction to that idea is, and maybe some people would even cry sacrilege, but it just seems like a way to fix some past mistakes without altering what the card currently does.

Well I hope to hear people's opinons are on this. Thanks.

[Smmenen]

Since this is more or less an issues article, you don't need Premium to read it.  Basically, in this article I outline the types of mechanics that tend to make there way onto the restricted list.  Next week's version will look at current cards in the format that are unrestricted that also share those mechanics.

You were completely unpersuasive about trying to box all the different cards in on the basis of saying they are restricted because of a similar mechanic.  

These made me laugh, in particular, because they are so wrong:

Fastbond
Category: Dream Halls
Gush
Category: Ancestral Recall, Black Lotus, Dream Halls
Mind over Matter
Category: Dream Halls
Necropotence and Yawgmoth's Bargain
Category: Balance
LOLOLOLOL
Time Spiral
Category: Dream Halls
LOLOOL

*sigh*

[jpmeyer]

Fastbond
Category: Dream Halls
Gush
Category: Ancestral Recall, Black Lotus, Dream Halls
Mind over Matter
Category: Dream Halls
Necropotence and Yawgmoth's Bargain
Category: Balance
LOLOLOLOL
Time Spiral
Category: Dream Halls
LOLOOL

*sigh*

Are you just being sarcastic?  I really don't understand how you can say that these statements aren't true:

Is Fastbond a combo card?
Is Gush undercosted?  Does it generate mana?  Is it a combo card?
Is Mind over Matter a combo card?
Are Necro and Bargain so powerful that it's impossible to cost them fairly?
Is Time Spiral a combo card?

[Warmonger]

Good Article, i've never seen it from this perspective.
But:
Gush is restricted because of great synergy with Stasis - in fact, unrestricted would be a basic card od prison. And no player wants to waste on hour for a game. This is also important on tournaments.
Unrestricting Gush wolud make game realy sick.

Dream Halls & MoM must be restricted as a part of broken Academy. Nobody wanted to welcome a deck similar to twister...

Fact or fiction is just a part of TPS or something similar - in strange T1 format, good draw must be squandered as much as possible. The same is true 4 Frantic Search and Desire.

In fact, there are two major types of broken cards: A part of boring combo nobody likes, and tutors which allow to reach them.
Balance is just powerful - but it does'nt change game into senseless, long kills.

The same is true for Goblin Welder - probably the most powerful creature in Magic. He puts a great Sundering titan or Platinum Angel for just nothing - he's in fact endless tinker, but needs a bit of support. I think he could be restricted. But then, metagame would be full of combo and similar or simialr to combo deck - as Oath or FCG. He just don't let this format to become crazy.