Beginner Vintage Series - 20 most important vintage cards & why

[SimpleHiker]

I am looking at teaching people new to magic about vintage. I am looking at doing a web site or a series of articles basically as a Dummies Guide to Vintage. We have a lot of great primers, threads and information scattered around the community but the jump from learning magic to vintage is very large.

One easy subject to tackle is what are the broken staples of vintage. What are they and what concepts make a card broken such as mana advantage and/or card advantage. To add a little fun I wanted to list the top 20 broken vintage cards, I think pin pointing the top 20 is hard enough let alone ranking them. I will also be consulting the recent articles on SSG on current state of the B/R list.

Here is my list I would love to see your lists and opinions. Again, just a list no ranking order. The first 10 are pretty easy when you get to the last 5-7 it gets tough to pick out of the b/r and vintage staples.

1 mana drain
2 black lotus
3 ancestral recall
4 mox jet
5 mox sapphire
6 mox ruby
7 mox emerald
8 mox pearl
9 dark ritual
10 Yawgmoth's will
11 Workshop
12 time walk
13 tinker
14 Necropotence
15 Demonic Tutor
16 balance
17 strip mine
18 Memory Jar
19 Timetwister
20 Library of Alexandria

[warble]

You forget:
Mana Crypt
Sol Ring
Force of Will
Duress
(Yawgmoth's Bargain)
(Trinisphere)
(Bazaar of Baghdad)

Cutting:
Memory Jar
Strip Mine
(balance)
(timetwister)

I put () because I'm not sure how you want to rank those cards.  But excluding Force of Will, Duress and 2 broken mana sources is just wrong.

[Dante]

I think some of the cards are "broken" in different ways than others.  If your list is geared more towards "this card is broken and I will win or cause a massive swing because I played it", then things like Necro, Bargain, Yag Will, Balance, etc would make it on and probably not Duress.

If it was something like a list of the 20 most important cards (notably different from broken cards), then it would include a lot more staples like Duress, Brainstorm, the various awesome counterspells, etc.

also, however you list them, the Moxen should probably just be 1 slot on the list.

Bill

[Rico Suave]

Tolarian Academy is missing.

[Nefarias]

Along with what Dante said, there should probably be two lists: Most Broken and Most Important/Staple/Crucial whatever. Cards like Brainstorm, Duress, Force of Will, fetchlands, Wasteland, etc. are far from broken, but are also much more crucial to the format than half the cards on your list. For example, Mind's Desire is probably Top 5 in terms of broken, but sees play in less than a handful of Top 8 decks. I also agree that there are too many cards that deserve mention to warrant the Moxen taking up 5 slots.

[Draven]

I agree with Dante, I think we need to define "broken" we talk about the cards. My friend and I always have this argument. Mainly over Psychatog. He says Psychatog is "inherently broken" and I say no. Pyschatog is a mad powerful card, but the card isn't inhertly broken. It is broken in the right deck.

The point is, cards like Tolarian Acedemy, arn't broken until a deck "breaks" them. Cards like Black Lotus, Yawgs Will, Ancestrall Recall are broken in nearly every deck you put them in.

I tend to define "broken"  as Dante said it: "this card is broken and I will win or cause a massive swing because I played it."

So SimpleHiker, since you started the thread, let us know what you are looking for and I think we can better answer your questions.

PS: Nice idea of a thread. This could be a really neat discussion...

[Mixing Mike]

In no Order:

1 Black Lotus
2 Moxen/Artifact mana
3 Mana Drain
4 Dark Ritual
5 Tolarian Academy
6 Yawgmoth's Bargian
7 Yawgmoth's Will
8 Force of Will
9 Brainstorm
10 Fetchlands
11 Gifts Ungiven
12 Time Walk
13 Tinker
14 Mind's Desire
15 Demonic Tutor
16 Balance
17 Strip Mine
18 Goblin Welder
19 Mishra's Workshop
20 Ancestral Recall

How could you forget those bolded cards?

[Rico Suave]

The point is, cards like Tolarian Acedemy, arn't broken until a deck "breaks" them. Cards like Black Lotus, Yawgs Will, Ancestrall Recall are broken in nearly every deck you put them in.  

If you want to get technical, Yawgmoth's Will and Ancestral Recall are far from broken in R/G Beatz, and so they would fall under the same category as Academy in that they need a deck to break them.

It just so happens that the decks Academy is good in involve the use of all the artifact acceleration already on the list.  Yawgmoth's Will is good for the same exact reason.

[Draven]

You missed my word "nearly." Yes, you can find an example of a deck every "broken" card sucks in. Another example, when was the last time Food Chain Tinkered out a DSC? Will you tell me that makes Tinker less broken? Tolarian Acedemy is strong in decks that run alot of artifacts, but unless you can abuse it, it isn't broken, just strong.

As for Mixing Mike, we havn't operationally defined "broken" yet, so we can't say what cards should or should not be on the list. We all have to be functioning with the same definition.

[Jacob Orlove]

Cards like Brainstorm, Duress, Force of Will, fetchlands, Wasteland, etc. are far from broken

Force of Will and Brainstorm are easily in the top 5 most powerful blue cards in the format (the others are Ancestral, Tinker, and Desire, with Drain 6th). They may not cost $300, but they really are much stronger than, say, Time Walk.

Duress is tough, because it is much more metagame dependent. I wouldn't put it in the top 20. Fetchlands (and duals!) and strips are definitely insane, though. Breaking fundamental rules of the game = the card is broken. It's more than possible for a card to be both broken and an unrestricted staple.

Here's my list (no order except for the first one):

Artifact mana. There's no real point in distinguishing between lotus, moxes, and crypt, because they're all restricted, and all so fundamentally similar.
Tinker
Mind's Desire
Ancestral Recall
Force of Will
Brainstorm
Mana Drain
Yawgmoth's Will
Fetches+Duals
Waste/Strip
Ritual/Petal/Sol Ring
Tolarian Academy
Balance
Mishra's Workshop
Bazaar of Baghdad

I'll leave it at a top 15, since I don't really want to add anything to that list, and some of those are more than just 1 card.

[SimpleHiker]

I agree with Dante, I think we need to define "broken" we talk about the cards. My friend and I always have this argument. Mainly over Psychatog. He says Psychatog is "inherently broken" and I say no. Pyschatog is a mad powerful card, but the card isn't inhertly broken. It is broken in the right deck.

The point is, cards like Tolarian Acedemy, arn't broken until a deck "breaks" them. Cards like Black Lotus, Yawgs Will, Ancestrall Recall are broken in nearly every deck you put them in.

I tend to define "broken"  as Dante said it: "this card is broken and I will win or cause a massive swing because I played it."

So SimpleHiker, since you started the thread, let us know what you are looking for and I think we can better answer your questions.

PS: Nice idea of a thread. This could be a really neat discussion...

This idea came to me bored reading Star City's vintage forum. A guy asked why is Yawgmoth's Will such a good card? There were a lot of replies, a lot of people acting like jerks and a lot of half-correct answers.  But I truly think there are a lot of people playing that can identify basic concepts of why YW is so good. There are also a lot of people who have some basic understanding of vintage, and can run their mouth and to the untrained ear it sounds good but really nothing comes out but bullshit.

When typing my post I was really unhappy with any description for what cards I  was looking for. My chain of though is that if I can list some broken/powerful/staple cards then use them to demonstrate important vintage concepts such as card advantage, mana advantage, synergies  and combo it will help a new player grasp the foundations of vintage as opposed to handing them a oath deck and sending them on there way.

To be a good player foundation and theory are more important over the long run. I feel this is the failure of the "shooting stars" at the P9 events. I am not doubting the skill of these great players, but I feel they lack vintage theory and foundation. Theory, foundation, creativity and a willingness to be independent is what makes great vintage deck builders/creators/innovators stand out from good vintage players.

I think some of the cards are "broken" in different ways than others.  If your list is geared more towards "this card is broken and I will win or cause a massive swing because I played it", then things like Necro, Bargain, Yag Will, Balance, etc would make it on and probably not Duress.

If it was something like a list of the 20 most important cards (notably different from broken cards), then it would include a lot more staples like Duress, Brainstorm, the various awesome counterspells, etc.

also, however you list them, the Moxen should probably just be 1 slot on the list.

Bill

This is a great reframing of my question. I have retitled the thread thanks.  I think I am going to re-look at my list when I get a little time also. Maybe do 2 separate lists... Powerful and important

[Rico Suave]

You missed my word "nearly." Yes, you can find an example of a deck every "broken" card sucks in. Another example, when was the last time Food Chain Tinkered out a DSC? Will you tell me that makes Tinker less broken? Tolarian Acedemy is strong in decks that run alot of artifacts, but unless you can abuse it, it isn't broken, just strong. 

And Academy is broken in "nearly" every Vintage deck.  Of course you may find a few examples that are exceptions for every card, but let's be honest, Academy is broken.  It should be on the list before any other lands at the very least.

[Machinus]

For teaching new players about the game, you HAVE to differentiate between broken restricted cards and broken unrestricted ones. It is easy to see why a lot of the cards on the list are powerful, but discussing them is often pointless because they don't affect deckbuilding very much. The only deck I can remember off the top of my head that this isn't true for is long.dec, because it abused 2 cards that are now on the list but weren't at the time.

The most helpful way to get people to understand the format is to talk about UNRESTRICTED core cards that decks are built around, and that the strength and balance of the format rests on. Cards like:

Thirst for Knowledge
Goblin Welder
Bazaar of Baghdad
Mana Drain
Intuition
Mishra's Workshop
Chalice of the Void

and less powerful cards like:

Force of Will
Goblin Lackey
Null Rod
Wasteland
Dark Ritual
Standstill
Crucible of Worlds

form the basis of the format and shape the decks that define it. I'm sure there are cards I have omitted that belong there, but my point is that while the B/R provides some of the most powerful cards, you can't even build a combo deck without using unrestricted cards, and that is where a true understanding of Vintage rewards deckbuilders and players. A lot of people saw Intuition and Welder as cards that needed restriction at one time or another. Because you can play 4 of them in a deck, they are much more important and can be more powerful than a card you have no guarantee of seeing in a game.

[Xenoben187]

While this article needs to be updated to the new sets as well as the 10-proxy metagame, this is probably one of the best articles I read when I came back to magic and had no effing clue what a beast type one had become.

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/7614.html

[Yare]

I would suggest that the best way to teach someone about Vintage (who may or may not have played magic before) is to initially just watch people play competitive casual games (meaning, games that are between decks built to be competitive, but not in a tournament environment).  Trying to describe how to play magic in words without actually showing them the game is like trying to teach someone to drive a car without actually letting them see a car or how it is driven.  Once the person has a working understanding of some of the basic concepts, then perhaps you can begin to write articles concerning the important cards in vintage and whatnot.  For example, if you said, "Yawgmoth's Will is good because you can replay all of your good cards again."  This may have some meaning to the person who isn't famiilar with Vintage, but to actually see someone bring out a hellstorm of broken cards out of the graveyard in a game leaves much more of an impression.

Edit: I forgot something I meant to mention.  There should also be articles on the important unrestricted cards as well, such as Force and Brainstorm.  Just try to find a natural flow of card groups rather than trying to objectively write articles where cards exist independetly of all others.

Consequently, I think such articles should be written with such in mind.  Regarding the cards I would actually select to talk about, pretty much every "good" restricted card should at least be mentioned, although in a series of articles would be better than one huge article.  The MOST important cards should constitute the first article, such as Moxen, Black Lotus, Ancestral, Force of Will: cards that consistently show up in the best decks.  I would hold off on Workshop decks and related cards until a second article all on its own, as Workshop tends to be a horse of a different color from other decks.  While very important, mixing them in with the biggest of the big may be a mistake.

One final comment: I think it's important to point out that while some cards are very, very powerful on their own, it's the synergistic interaction between them (almost simply meaning, "a deck") that makes them especially good.  After all, Tolarian Academy is terrible without artifacts in play.

Best of luck with your project.

[Komatteru]

I'll break up my list a little differently.  Here are the cards I consider to be the 10 "most important" cards in the format (cards without which, the format as we know it would be fundamentally different and largely unrecognizable to us now).  I considered only unrestricted cards here.  We all know that the format would be outrageously different if there were no free accelerants, so I didn't consider them for this list.

Brainstorm
Fetchlands
Dual Lands
Force of Will
Mana Drain
Dark Ritual
Bazaar of Baghdad
Mishra's Workshop
Wasteland
Crucible of Worlds
Duress

Now my list of what I consider to be the 15 most objectively powerful cards in the format (in no particular order):
Mind's Desire
Yawgmoth's Will
Tinker
Ancestral Recall
Mana Drain
Necropotence
Yawgmoth's Bargain
Trinisphere
Tolarian Academy
Joblin Welder
Balance
Memory Jar (this is closest thing to a one-sided draw 7 ever printed)
Artifact Mana (lead by Black Lotus, followed by Mana Crypt, then the Moxes, etc.)
Brainstorm
Strip Mine

In particular, my top 5 most powerful cards are,
1) Yawgmoth's Will
2) Yawgmoth's Bargain
3) Necropotence
4) Mind's Desire
5) Tinker

You should never lose a game where you resolve one of those cards.