[Premium Article] Fine, Just Ban it Already

[Norm4eva]

Anyone who wants non-ante, non-Chaos Orb cards banned from the environment is trying to have their cake and eat it too.  You'd talk about banning Yawgmoth's Will but never any piece of P9; and it's not any one card in the SoloMox category that's broken but it's when they show up in multiples that stupid shit happens.  For all intents and purposes Moxen can be considered a 5-of card in a decklist, as most of the time anywhere between 1-3 of them are actually on color; the rest may as well tap for colorless.  Would you pick a single Mox and ban the rest given the previous statement?
Restricted cards that win you the game are part and parcel of Type 1.  Don't fix what's broken.  I hate to be a jerk but there's a format for people who don't want to work with Yawgmoth's Will. 

[dicemanx]

Eventually, all such discussions end up nonsensical. There is no way Wizards would ever reword a card to do something else entirely. Restricting Will to two cards or removing the ante clause from cards would be similar to errata'ing Ancestral to draw two cards or removing Juzam Djinn's lifeloss drawback. A card would sooner be banned than butchered.

Bram, you realize that neither Smmenen or I were serious about the suggestions? Smmenen was trying to make a point, as was I.

[glacial-blue]

Again, many cards are on the restricted list in order to keep the game playable. If the Power 9 et all were unrestricted, then Type 1 really would be about who won the dice roll, or at least something very close. The restricted list exists to keep the game fun. Remember, at its core, this is still a game, and games are about enjoyment. People have fun doing broken things, but there is a certain level of brokenness that just makes the game unfun. It's the DCI's job to maintain the "brokenness asymptote" if you will; Vintage should have the most brokenness possible, while still being a playable, fun game. At least, that's how I, and apparently many others, feel.

Right... but as i continue to say, if u had read the rest of my post, was that this is arbitrary and thus people establish rules such as the 50% rule etc... to help set a more universal standard.  This, however, isn't necessarily true as we saw with trinisphere and, even as you suggest, vintage tends to be about "fun".  This brings up the last point that i make regarding how vintage is truly about traditions.  How cards such as mana drain, dark ritual and other unnecessarily powerful cards that would, if they were recently printed be restricted, will most likely never be so due to vintage tradition.  That they hold a special place in our hearts and that that will never change.  Thus, just like a grumpy old man, vintage holds stringently onto these core cards and deems them "fun" just b/c we are used to them...

Onto a more serious note... can we all STOP TALKING ABOUT YAGMOTH'S WILL AS ACTUALLY BEING RESTRICTED.  Whether or not Will actually shall get banned is a matter for WOTC to deside and takes into the collectability, trust, and over-all some whimsical desire which previously has been expressed as unkowable variables that lead to bannings... Rather than trying to read the future and see if WOTC will do something, can we get back to the power level of the card which has been greatly neglected and is the most reasonable test for banning.  Not only will this give us a mark to determine if it SHOULD be banned *whether it will happen or not* but it can give insight for future deck builds, ways to abuse/set up certain decks, etc...  Smmenen talks about trying to design decks around yawgmoth's will and look at his success... shouldn't we all be catching on and trying to figure out if he is right or if he has missed something?

[Smmenen]

No one has really answered my question about future restrictions.  Is it sort of like a - let's just cross that bridge when we get there sort of deal?  Well, the DCI may not want 4 Grim Tutors in the format.  They have indicated that there still might be multiple restrictions before Portal is legal (although I have no idea what the person who wrote that was referring to since two cards were already restricted).  It didn't take any evidence at all for them to restrict Imperial Seal or Personal Tutor - what makes you think they will wait on Grim Tutor when it is, in my view, much stronger than Personal Tutor.  Personal Tutor is ugh

[xrizzo]

No one has really answered my question about future restrictions.  Is it sort of like a - let's just cross that bridge when we get there sort of deal?  Well, the DCI may not want 4 Grim Tutors in the format.  They have indicated that there still might be multiple restrictions before Portal is legal (although I have no idea what the person who wrote that was referring to since two cards were already restricted).  It didn't take any evidence at all for them to restrict Imperial Seal or Personal Tutor - what makes you think they will wait on Grim Tutor when it is, in my view, much stronger than Personal Tutor.  Personal Tutor is ugh

I agree about Personal Tutor.  That will be one of the handful of weakest restricted cards... 

If Grim Tutor gets restricted because all 4 are used to find Yawg, I am okay with that.  I am actually surprized it wasn't restricted the same time Portal was announced. 

[DeMarki]

Anyone who wants non-ante, non-Chaos Orb cards banned from the environment is trying to have their cake and eat it too.  You'd talk about banning Yawgmoth's Will but never any piece of P9; and it's not any one card in the SoloMox category that's broken but it's when they show up in multiples that stupid shit happens.  For all intents and purposes Moxen can be considered a 5-of card in a decklist, as most of the time anywhere between 1-3 of them are actually on color; the rest may as well tap for colorless.  Would you pick a single Mox and ban the rest given the previous statement?
Restricted cards that win you the game are part and parcel of Type 1.  Don't fix what's broken.  I hate to be a jerk but there's a format for people who don't want to work with Yawgmoth's Will.

Why on earth should WotC ban Yawgmoth's Will when other TOTALY broken cards like Black Lotus, Ancestral Recall and Time Walk remain legal? Are they stupid or something?

[Whatever Works]

No one has really answered my question about future restrictions.  Is it sort of like a - let's just cross that bridge when we get there sort of deal?  Well, the DCI may not want 4 Grim Tutors in the format.  They have indicated that there still might be multiple restrictions before Portal is legal (although I have no idea what the person who wrote that was referring to since two cards were already restricted).  It didn't take any evidence at all for them to restrict Imperial Seal or Personal Tutor - what makes you think they will wait on Grim Tutor when it is, in my view, much stronger than Personal Tutor.  Personal Tutor is ugh

I dont have a doubt in my mind that grim tutor will be restricted. Also, if it does see play it will be 1 large tournement at most. If I can replace grim tutor with rhystic tutor, and get pretty decent results it would be scary to imagine what grim tutor would do in its place, and thats with a list that I could not call optimal at all.

[verduran]

Eventually, all such discussions end up nonsensical. There is no way Wizards would ever reword a card to do something else entirely. Restricting Will to two cards or removing the ante clause from cards would be similar to errata'ing Ancestral to draw two cards or removing Juzam Djinn's lifeloss drawback. A card would sooner be banned than butchered.

Let me remind you of cards like Iridescent Drake, Palinchron and Waylay. These cards do something quite different from what it actually says on them. Yet, I don't hear anybody screaming out for the wizards to remove the errata. Another fine example: Impulse.

Now I can hear you think "these cards were errataed to become the cards Wizards intended them to be. There were some unforeseen rules interactions and tricks involved but now they are the way they should." (although not in the case of Impulse, and they could have foreseen graveyard or Oath interaction with Iridescent Drake)

This whole 'cards as they were intended to be" argument doesnt work for me. The whole game was supposed to be balanced, but that's not the way it turned out to be.

So, do I want cards to be butchered? No. I'd like to stick with the old everything goes doesnt matter if it's unfair or not principle. Unfair? If by unfair you mean too strongly dependant on luck, I suggest you move your business to Legacy or chess for that matter. If by unfair you mean like cheating, having a Will in one's deck isn't cheating, because each player can play with it.

Contract from below: why is it even banned? Let the card be legal and interact with the rules exactly as the card says. (only modify the actual general rules of the game so that a player after removing the card from his or her deck automatically loses the match because of having to few cards in his or her library, if the rules don't already work that way.)

Dexterity cards; if you're seriously considering alowing these you'd better get into some other game. Preferrably something involving throwing around objects.

[onelovemachine]

  No one has really answered my question about future restrictions.  Is it sort of like a - let's just cross that bridge when we get there sort of deal?  Well, the DCI may not want 4 Grim Tutors in the format.  They have indicated that there still might be multiple restrictions before Portal is legal (although I have no idea what the person who wrote that was referring to since two cards were already restricted).  It didn't take any evidence at all for them to restrict Imperial Seal or Personal Tutor - what makes you think they will wait on Grim Tutor when it is, in my view, much stronger than Personal Tutor.  Personal Tutor is ugh
 

I am assuming you are talking about future restrictions based on yawg will.  What about future restrictions based on workshop or mana drain?  Trinisphere is restricted because of shop.  You could almost argue that fof is restricted because of mana drain.  Regrowth is restricted because of ancestral, lotus, tinker, timewalk......   If we don't start mass bannings then cards will continue to be restricted. 

Everyone is ok with that.  Type one players accept the fact that there are certain cards that they can only play in singleton.  And I think, with as many people arguing against banning will, that everyone is ok with that card floating around in singleton as well.

[Godder]

I am assuming you are talking about future restrictions based on yawg will. What about future restrictions based on workshop or mana drain? Trinisphere is restricted because of shop. You could almost argue that fof is restricted because of mana drain. Regrowth is restricted because of ancestral, lotus, tinker, timewalk... If we don't start mass bannings then cards will continue to be restricted.

That's about the long and the short of it. While one could argue that Gifts Ungiven should be restricted because of Yawgmoth's Will, Mana Drain and other fast mana has as much to do with how awesome it is as anything else. With regards to Vintage, Gifts Ungiven is monstrous, because it gives you four different cards of your choice, in a format where most of the best cards are restricted, so that's not a problem at all. Mana Drain is one of the best ways of breaking the card (much like FoF), Will or no Will.

[dandan]

In Vintage:
1. Good tutors get restricted (indeed some 'bad' tutors get restricted too)
2. Fact or Fiction is restricted

Whether or not Gifts Ungiven gets restricted, depends far more on the above than whether or not there are 0 or 1 YawgWill's in decks with Black.

I mentioned Gifts purely to show that there is still much that can be done by restriction without the need for banning.

[Methuselahn]

No one has really answered my question about future restrictions.  Is it sort of like a - let's just cross that bridge when we get there sort of deal? 

Yes, I think that is exactly it.  In fact, I think R&D has stated in articles that they have an attitude of "Vintage can handle it."  This goes for pretty much anything they print.  If it turns out that they have to restrict something, then they do it as necessary.  The format would have to really prove that it is broken because of a restricted card in order to get something banned.  So far everyone seems happy enough not to have to ban anything.  So yea, they'll cross the bridge when and if they get to it.

[jazzykat]

Dexterity cards; if you're seriously considering alowing these you'd better get into some other game. Preferrably something involving throwing around objects.

I agree about that one. Broken is one thing, darts/bocce/horse shoe skills are another altogether.

[MuzzonoAmi]

No one has really answered my question about future restrictions.  Is it sort of like a - let's just cross that bridge when we get there sort of deal?  Well, the DCI may not want 4 Grim Tutors in the format.  They have indicated that there still might be multiple restrictions before Portal is legal (although I have no idea what the person who wrote that was referring to since two cards were already restricted).  It didn't take any evidence at all for them to restrict Imperial Seal or Personal Tutor - what makes you think they will wait on Grim Tutor when it is, in my view, much stronger than Personal Tutor.  Personal Tutor is ugh

It's fairly obvious (at least to me) that Personal Tutor is getting the axe because it's so similar to Mystical Tutor (as it was obviously intended to be), whereas Grim Tutor will have to 'prove' its brokenness, which it will probably do quickly.

As for what else might need restricted, Gifts is one option if it ever dominates, which it hasn't done to this point. If MeanDeath ever became widely played well (which is unlikely for well known reasons), Death Wish might get restricted for its Will-fetching ability, which just puts it in the same category as Burning Wish, except that Burning Wish had a home outside of combo, making the loss actually meaningful to the format beyond the one problematic deck. If something must be banned/restricted now, it should probably be Aether Vial because Fish is the deck closest to domination at this point.

[b-tings]

If something must be banned/restricted now, it should probably be Aether Vial because Fish is the deck closest to domination at this point.

I think I speak for everyone when I say: "Huh?"

Fish is and always has been a metagame deck. If it's dominating, it's because of people reacting to it poorly, not because it's overpowered or broken. Fish should never need a piece restricted.

On the other hand, you could make an argument for Chalice of the Void adding too much coinflipping to the game because of it's interaction with the play/draw decision. I'm not saying it would be a good argument, but it would certainly be better than anything you could come up with for Aether Vial.

[Komatteru]

On the other hand, you could make an argument for Chalice of the Void adding too much coinflipping to the game because of it's interaction with the play/draw decision. I'm not saying it would be a good argument, but it would certainly be better than anything you could come up with for Aether Vial.

I don't want to say anything right now or get into it quite yet, but I think you can make a big case for Chalice of the fucking Void.  I'm not just saying that because I like to play combo.  I think combo has more resiliance to Chalice than most Mana Drain decks because combo decks are designed to deal with hate.  But this is not the place to discuss this

[b-tings]

I was just hedging my bets so I didn't get flamed for suggesting Chalice be restricted. I can't say I'd be happy seeing Chalice go, but it is definately in a world of its own in terms of card function, so I would be very interested in your arguments, if only to give us some perspective on the card itself and rule-setting type cards in the same vein.

[Rico Suave]

I'm sorry, but this is just ridiculous and has gone on for far too friggin long.

The B/R list does not need to be changed right now.

Why would we need to restrict Chalice of the Void?  It is good for the format in the same way Null Rod is good.  Aether Vial is in the same boat. 

As far as Will being banned, I can only respond with this: .  And after reading this thread and the article, I am SO relieved that nobody in this thread is responsible for the maintenance of the B/R list. 

Get a grip people. 

[MuzzonoAmi]

If something must be banned/restricted now, it should probably be Aether Vial because Fish is the deck closest to domination at this point.

I think I speak for everyone when I say: "Huh?"

Fish is and always has been a metagame deck. If it's dominating, it's because of people reacting to it poorly, not because it's overpowered or broken. Fish should never need a piece restricted.

That was meant in jest, I'm sorry it wasn't taken that way. The point (which I thought the italics on 'must' indicated) was that nothing needs restricted, but if for some reason this won't end until something gets axed, I'd say Aether Vial. But that's just my opinion, since nothing is even remotely close the restriction worthy right now, much less bannination.

[Summit]

Just out of morbid curiosity I wonder what a small day two tournament at Waterbury where Will is Banned (or hell even Will and Tinker) would look like.  What would the top 8 be?  The top 16?  Would that environment be so different from our current environment?  Would we see problamatic cards emerge or cards that are currently good become horrible?  What do you think about a side tourney where Will and Tinker are banned?  That would give at least some semi solid evidence to support the for or against sides of this debate.

[Smmenen]

I'm sorry, but this is just ridiculous and has gone on for far too friggin long.

The B/R list does not need to be changed right now.

Why would we need to restrict Chalice of the Void?  It is good for the format in the same way Null Rod is good.  Aether Vial is in the same boat. 

As far as Will being banned, I can only respond with this: .  And after reading this thread and the article, I am SO relieved that nobody in this thread is responsible for the maintenance of the B/R list. 

Get a grip people. 

Perhaps I missed it in the course of this thread - but I don't remember seeing you pose serious answers to my arguments.  If you think the logic in the article is flawed or wrong, then explain why.

[Rico Suave]

I didn't think your arguments were worth responding to.  But if you insist...

(1) Restriction Has Not Sufficiently Neutered Yawgmoth's Will

This is an opinion.  What is a "sufficient" amount? 

If your argument is that "resolving it under optimal conditions will win the game" then yes I'd have to agree with that.  This argument can be said of many cards.  Otherwise I don't see much logic or much of an argument.

(2) The Development Trajectory of Vintage has Often Been a Race to Maximize Abuse of Yawgmoth's Will
The first deck to abuse Yawgmoth's Will that I witnessed in Type One was Keeper and Trix. Both decks fueled large game winning Yawgmoth's Wills. Advancements in Type One made Yawgmoth's Will more central.

Well first of all, you need a history lesson.  The original incarnation of Trix abused Necro - not Will.  Later versions of Trix abused Rector leading into Bargain - not Will.  Yes, Will happened to be present in those decks and yes, it would win a number of games even with only 1 copy.  The same could be said of every restricted card in the deck. 

Regarding GAT, it was not a problem once Gush was hit, because it didn't cast Will nearly as early or as reliably.  The fact it could cast Will on turn 3 and win is not saying that Will wins games whenever it is cast, it is saying that the deck sets up the suitable conditions for casting a game-winning Will far too early.  What does this mean?  It means that even if Will were banned, the deck would still achieve that same threshold of acceleration and card-draw and it would still win.  In other words Gush would still need to be restricted. 

The point is that the engines needed to be stopped.  Will was not the engine in any of the above cases. 

The only time when you can say Will is the engine would be in Long.  Where is that deck now?  I also don't see what banning Will would have done about the other cards, since unrestricted LED is still a huge problem. 

As for Gifts, I wouldn't make too many assumptions until after this weekend.

(3) Yawgmoth's Will is Inevitably Going to Cause More Restrictions
I think the case for banning Yawgmoth's Will is very strong once the realization is made that future restrictions will have to be made entirely or partly because of Yawgmoth's Will. The pressure is building for cards like Dark Ritual and more pressing, Grim Tutor. That pressure would evaporate with the banning of Yawgmoth's Will.

Dark Ritual doesn't need restriction.  If anything, combo decks could use a bit of help right now. 

If we ban Will, you do realize that Grim Tutor will still be restricted because of other cards it can find, right? 

I don't know what other cards are out there that would be restricted directly and solely because of Will that wouldn't otherwise be restricted if Will were banned, but by all means point them out to us. 

Overall, it baffles me why Will would need banning when people aren't even going so far as to maindeck graveyard hate.  Beating your opponent's cards is a key part of metagaming, and by banning Will it is basically saying no matter how you metagame you will still lose to Will.  I can't agree with that at all.

[Smmenen]

I didn't think your arguments were worth responding to.  But if you insist...

(1) Restriction Has Not Sufficiently Neutered Yawgmoth's Will

This is an opinion.  What is a "sufficient" amount? 

If your argument is that "resolving it under optimal conditions will win the game" then yes I'd have to agree with that.  This argument can be said of many cards.  Otherwise I don't see much logic or much of an argument.

That's becuase you missed the point of the argument.  The argument was that Yawgmoth's will is fundamentally different from every other card on the restricted list in a way that makes Restriction, as a policy tool, in effective at neutering it. 

The headings in my articles are a summation of the argument, not the argument itself.  You aren't refuting anything when you say what you said above because its all patently true but has nohting to do with what I actually said in the article.

(2) The Development Trajectory of Vintage has Often Been a Race to Maximize Abuse of Yawgmoth's Will
The first deck to abuse Yawgmoth's Will that I witnessed in Type One was Keeper and Trix. Both decks fueled large game winning Yawgmoth's Wills. Advancements in Type One made Yawgmoth's Will more central.

Well first of all, you need a history lesson.  The original incarnation of Trix abused Necro - not Will.  Later versions of Trix abused Rector leading into Bargain - not Will.  Yes, Will happened to be present in those decks and yes, it would win a number of games even with only 1 copy.  The same could be said of every restricted card in the deck.

Wow, thanks fo the "history lesson."  It seems it is actually you who need the history lesson.

The trix decks that abused Necro were featured in the Invitational and that summer all of the Trix components were restricted with the unbanning of Channel and Twist.  They restricted Necro and Consult in the same swift move becuase of Trix.

The Rector Trix decks came along MUCH MUCH later - in 2003.  Max Joseph (westredale) at Neutral Ground along with people like Eric Wilkenson first broke that list when Therapy was printed on the Pargons list and the still secret meandeck list.

I could have been more specific, but since I was talking KEEPER era, I thought it should have been clear that I was referring to Kai Budde's Trix deck that he went 3-0 in the T1 portion of the Invitational that year.  His deck was the first deck I saw in Vintage that was focused around Will.  If you don't know what deck I'm talking about, you have to understand, people who played Vintage at the time - like me - had very little data at all to go on.  so we used shit like the Invitational as a guideline.  I even played Kai's trix deck, along with a few other people, in the second Tournament of Champions Tournament on Bdominia. 

Regarding GAT, it was not a problem once Gush was hit, because it didn't cast Will nearly as early or as reliably.  The fact it could cast Will on turn 3 and win is not saying that Will wins games whenever it is cast, it is saying that the deck sets up the suitable conditions for casting a game-winning Will far too early.  What does this mean?  It means that even if Will were banned, the deck would still achieve that same threshold of acceleration and card-draw and it would still win.  In other words Gush would still need to be restricted. 

Wow.  No wonder you didn't like my article.  You didn't understand it at all!  When I talk about "GroAtog" - I'm not talking about whatever trash somoene is trying to pass of as GroAtog today.  When I use the word GroAtog I'm talking about a Four Gush deck.  OBVIOUSLY the deck wasn't a problem with Gush got hit.  You missed the whole point of this section.  I was talking about how development is about abusing will interlaced with restrictions that hit cards made overly powerful by will AND the more important point that abusing will is such a good strategy that it by itself drives development.

The point is that the engines needed to be stopped.  Will was not the engine in any of the above cases. 

Wow ignorance really is bliss.
http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/index.php?topic=11321.0

Look at the date of that thread.  It was basically a day or two after the deck popped up in the top 8 of the Dulmen and I made major changes.  As you can tell, there were alot of debates about how to build it correclty that eventually broadened into a debate about whether to add another color.  I won the day on many of those debates in regards to what people eventually played in top8s.  think I'm qualified to speak about GroAtog when i say that it was a Will deck.  Gush is pretty good - but without Will, gush is much weaker. That was what Fetchlands made possible.  they made it possible to play with black blue AND green on a gro mana base.  This wasn't possible before. 

Fetchlands made it possible to play Yawg Will in a four gush Gro deck = awesome deck.  Without Will, it can only get so far - but it can't just go bonkers since there are only 4 Gushes in the deck and an Ancestral to use.  You need to actually go the hard way and just beat in with Tog and Dryad and Berserk using Gush instead of going absolutely combotastic with Fastbond and Will.  The cantrip engine and the Gush draw stream made it possibly to find Will and abuse it since Gush with Will generated YOU mana.  Take Will out of GroAtog and you have a much, much weaker deck.  Look at my GroAtog list.  Look how I referred to Will.

(3) Yawgmoth's Will is Inevitably Going to Cause More Restrictions
I think the case for banning Yawgmoth's Will is very strong once the realization is made that future restrictions will have to be made entirely or partly because of Yawgmoth's Will. The pressure is building for cards like Dark Ritual and more pressing, Grim Tutor. That pressure would evaporate with the banning of Yawgmoth's Will.

Dark Ritual doesn't need restriction.  If anything, combo decks could use a bit of help right now. 

If we ban Will, you do realize that Grim Tutor will still be restricted because of other cards it can find, right? 

Such as?  Do tell.

Overall, it baffles me why Will would need banning when people aren't even going so far as to maindeck graveyard hate.  Beating your opponent's cards is a key part of metagaming, and by banning Will it is basically saying no matter how you metagame you will still lose to Will.  I can't agree with that at all.

I guess it is too much to ask that people actually respond to arguments I present - oh well. 

The key reason I think it should be banned is becuase it IS the dominant strategy in Vintage and is not affected by the policy of restriction.

Let's say your the Federal Reserve.  You control Interest Rates - that's basically your only policy to affect the economy.  You do this by controling the money supply.  The vast majority of the time, control over the interest rates is a very effective policy.  So is restriction.

The problem is that it doesn't work in the case of will for the reasons I mentioned in my article.  That's really the fundamental problem.  It WORKs in the case of Tinker.  Unrestricted Tinker would be ludicrious - restricted Tinker does win random games on turn one and two - but so does Mind's Desire.  The difference between Will and all the other cards is that Will becomes the final solution.  What was the last mana drain mirror that you saw that wasn't as a practical matter concluded with a Yawg Will?  I saw Kevin Cron get mindslavered, but the reason he lost was because he topdecked Brainstorm which saw Yawg Will which Rich played - so that still counts Kevin had Pithing Needle in play naming Welder, so that was the last Slave Rich was going to get. 

I think Yawg Will is an abomination and it sullies the format.

But you have to keep in mind, I am incredibly tough when it comes to restrictions.  I faught hard for lots of unrestrictions (remember Berserk and my letter?  And I argued for some time for Fork and others).  I also faught to keep 3sphere unrestricted.  And I also thought it was a good idea to let portal in.  I think we SHOULD be able to play with all of our cards.  And I think if a card doesn't deserve restriction, it should be unrestricted.  And I also think that the standard for restriction should be objective and very high. 

So when you think about all of that - it's like I'm Goldwater calling for Nixon to resign.  I'm on the side of people who say we should be able to play with all of our cards but I'm taking the principled stance.   

[Rico Suave]

That's becuase you missed the point of the argument.  The argument was that Yawgmoth's will is fundamentally different from every other card on the restricted list in a way that makes Restriction, as a policy tool, in effective at neutering it. 

Just because you think Will isn't sufficiently neutered does not mean that is the truth.  This is an opinion.

The problem is you present no arguements other than "Me, myself, and I think Will should be banned."  You may think Kai Trix was all about Will, but tell me how powerful Will is when that deck doesn't resolve Necro beforehand (the answer is not very).  How good is Will in GAT without Gush?  Not nearly. 

Don't get me wrong, the card is still strong.  But this format even without Will would still need to have Gush restricted.  And Necro would still be restricted even if we banned Will.  To say Will is the engine of either deck though is just ludicrous.  If Will was the engine where are those decks now?  They still have their Will...

The key reason I think it should be banned is becuase it IS the dominant strategy in Vintage and is not affected by the policy of restriction.

Then why are its numbers decreasing in tournament settings?  If the metagame can fight it back, it doesn't need to be banned.

What was the last mana drain mirror that you saw that wasn't as a practical matter concluded with a Yawg Will?

The same could be said of Mindslaving the opponent.  Should we ban that too?

[Matt]

The key reason I think it should be banned is becuase it IS the dominant strategy in Vintage and is not affected by the policy of restriction.

If the format is really as centered on Will as you say, then you should be able to concoct a winning strategy based off denying the opponent's Will. If Will is THE card that decides games, Extract should be a very good card.

I think Yawg Will is an abomination and it sullies the format.

The battle over whether this format would allow abominations was fought and won by the pro-abomination forces long, long ago. I don't think Vintage has been free of abominable cards since Scourge came out. You're awfully late to this party.

[MuzzonoAmi]

Steve - all your arguments basically boil down to two points:

1. Yawgmoth's Will is a late game card, so restriction does not significantly reduce its power.

The same can be said of Balance. All a good player needs is to resolve one good Balance to win a game, or create nigh-unrecoverable swing, but you won't see many turn 1 Balances.

2. Yawgmoth's Will is the optimal win condition in Mana Drain decks.

This would almost be valid criteria for banning if Drain decks were crushing the format beneath them like it was 1997. But they aren't. It's not hard to argue that Will is the best way for these decks to win, but since the decks themselves are often outcompeted by other decks (and by extension, other win conditions) it becomes difficult to say that Will is the best win condition in the format, let alone a win condition so warping and dominant that it needs to be banned.

This point also applies to combo decks, but that's tangential at this point because even though combo decks as a whole are very powerful, they suck right now, so their Wills aren't doing a whole lot.

[yespuhyren]

1. Yawgmoth's Will is a late game card, so restriction does not significantly reduce its power.

I'm confused. It is restricted already, its power has been reduced.

IF your saying that 4 wills makes no difference from 1 will, then I feel that you are wrong, as combo would gladly play at least 2 or 3, if not 4.

[Roxas]

I'm confused. It is restricted already, its power has been reduced.

IF your saying that 4 wills makes no difference from 1 will, then I feel that you are wrong, as combo would gladly play at least 2 or 3, if not 4.

Wrong.  I can't think of a single deck that would want four copies of Yawgmoth's Will; possibly three in some combo decks, and two or fewer in anything else.  Decks do not want to see Will in their opening hands, as it is pretty worthless if there's nothing in your graveyard.  Naturally, Will is powerful when you have lots of single-use artifact mana and/or draw/tutor in the graveyard, which will tend to be after seeing quite a bit more than one's opening hand.  In the process of fulfilling these conditions, the odds of finding either Will or a way to tutor for it are very well in your favor.  Running fewer or only one actually makes a Will more powerful, since you will likely have more in your graveyard to cast by the time you find it.

Thus, since most decks wouldn't run more than two copies of Will anyway, restriction does not significantly reduce its power. 

[kl0wn]

I was going to stay out of this, but I feel the need to spew my diarrhea of the keyboard:

The key reason I think it should be banned is becuase it IS the dominant strategy in Vintage and is not affected by the policy of restriction.

You're wrong.

Yawgmoth's Will is not THE dominant strategy in Vintage. Will is YOUR dominant strategy in Vintage. The dominant strategy in Vintage is EFFICIENCY, either to use fast mana to cast inefficient spells (thereby making them efficient) or to use the most inherently efficient spells available. For the record, by "efficient" I mean low mana cost, big effect. Think Balance.

You're also right.

Restricting Will has very little impact on the power of the card. And it's totally IRRELEVENT. The DCI could easily unrestrict it and we'd see little impact, if any. Why? Because you don't want to see multiples. You also don't want to see the card in your opening hand. Furthermore, subsequent Wills get substantially weaker. So yeah, restricting it doesn't make a difference.

The card is also only good in comparison to the other cards in your graveyard and/or the amount of mana available. So it's conditional too. What really REALLY makes the card good is the presence of Ancestral, Walk, Lotus and LED.  So I say we just ban those four and unrestrict Will.

I mean, c'mon...if it's so easy to get those cards in the graveyard so quickly in order to abuse them early enough in the game to make it THAT unfair, we should just get rid of them. Afterall, they're causing cards to be restricted that don't need to be. Cards like Yawgmoth's Will.

[Machinus]

Actually when it was type 2 legal, suicide decks ran 3 wills and 4 rituals, and that mana production and threat recursion was very strong. Obviously suicide decks suck in vintage, but I think a combo deck with 3 wills could easily generate more mana, more storm, and much more quickly than contemporary combo decks.

It is wrong to say that will is stronger since you can only play 1. The will that you happen to cast is bigger because you know you can only cast it once and you save all your spells for it. If will were unrestricted, it would be used for smaller effects earlier in the game. Even if you dont play lotus walk ancestral off it is still a damn good card, and in combo decks it is ridiculous since you get all the mana acceleration out of the yard. Restricted, it is uber powerful because everyone saves it until it is as fat as possible. Unrestricted, however, you wouldn't have to save it, and you could use it multiple times per game, getting perhaps only a little mana and 2-3 spells off it. That is still broken as fuck and the card would be monstrous unrestricted.