[Premium Article] Fine, Just Ban it Already

[Revvik]

The only counterargument I could come up with is "It can't be the best card ever, it doesn't even come in foil!"
I think it'd be incredibly interesting to see a format without it.  Gifts players would have to find four cards to trump an opponent's upper hand instead of trying to come up with a way to flashback Yawgmoth's Will.

[Whatever Works]

The only counterargument I could come up with is "It can't be the best card ever, it doesn't even come in foil!"
I think it'd be incredibly interesting to see a format without it.  Gifts players would have to find four cards to trump an opponent's upper hand instead of trying to come up with a way to flashback Yawgmoth's Will.

Umm... Howabout just flashback tinker??? I like the foil arguement though... Not bad for clearly not thinking very hard about the weaknesses of the card.

I dont see how ANYONE could say the format would be more "interesting" by banning the most exciting card in type 1. thats like saying, "Lets make longer control mirror matchups, and less broken plays..." To me I dont see how that makes the format more interesting? Perhaps games might go a bit longer, a few more minor play decisions here and there, but you cant tell me that taking the biggest game changing card in the game makes the game less interesting... Maybe less eventful, but not less interesting.

[Smmenen]

Your article was good but it fell short in mentioning any of the reasons it shouldnt be restricted (then again thats what politicians/lawyers etc. do and odviously you passed the bar exam didnt you?).

Your arguement fell short on these levels for me:

1.) How can this card be banned when its not even played in 50% of the decks in the format. To ban a card I would expect it to be in EVERY deck (or almost every deck). Hell, when I saw the title I thought you were talking about tinker... Tinker is now run in everything even Fish!

2.) Yawgmoth's Will is a late game card. Its almost useless early game, and its often brainstormed away. The card is a finisher (as you made very clear), but regardless its situational at best (but when it does resolve with a greaveyard the fireworks that it creates often blind people).

3.) How can you ban a card that can be made almost completely irrelevent by a 0 casting cost artifact in Tormod's Crypt, or other cards such as Phyrexian Furnace, Coffin Purge, etc... In Short the card is incredibly easy to hate out...

4.) Yawgmoth's Will takes strategy... I hate to here people say that its a lucksack card, and that it is always amazing. I couldnt disagree more. I have trouble wanting to ban a card that takes patience, strategy, dilligence, and clever scemeing to playing to its full potential. The best example would be Brassman (andy probasco) who will spend TURNS setting up a yawgmoth's will, and preparing it so that it will resolve, and when it resolves it will be effective. Its much more strategic then tinker that any random newb can drop 1st turn for collosus into GG... I have lost alot more games to a first turn tinker vs. a player worse then myself then to a yawgmoth's will vs. a player worse then myself? Why? because If you outplay your oponent then typically you can prevent them from getting yawgmoth's will set up, or you can force them to play to a pace that lets them draw less cards, and ultimetly affect there graveyard size, or ability to resolve yawgmoth's will. While a 10 year old can go crypt/land/tinker/DSC...FoW...GG? ya...
You did a good job argueing why it should/could be banned, but with proper play by good players the strength of the card can be cut... Though it does say alot when a player can say... "Sometimes Will just happens..." as he scoops up his cards after its cast...

I dont think either cards should be banned but I just dont think that there is a strong ennough case for Yawgmoth's Will (even though you did put a solid one up) there are just to many wholes that exist for the arguement to stay afloat.

I'm not trying to be mean, but none of the points you raised is relevant.  Statistics are relevant for restrictions, not bannings. The fact that Yawg Will is a late game card is precisely the reason that restriction isn't effective.  And your example with brassman astonishes.  I have been abusing Will longer than anyone I can imagine.  GroAtog?  Long?  I built the strongest variants of both decks pre-restriction.  You can look through the mana drain archives if you don't believe me. Those were Will decks.  Goth Slaver and Tog were also Wll decks as is Gifts. 

Yawgmoth's Will doesn't take strategy - IT IS A strategy - and that is my primary problem with it.  It substitues strategy in Vintage since you can execute your strategy by proxy through will. 

Please, Kyle, read my article again.  Becuase it is pretty obvious that you either skimmed it or didn't fully grasp the points.  If you had, you would not have argued that the fact that Will is a mid-late game card is a reason it shouldn't be banned.  That is a reason why it SHOULD be banned - or at least a reason why restriction isn't effective as a policy device in the case of will.  I also went over much of this in the SCG forums. 

[SimpleHiker]

I think it is a well written article BUT misses some important points...

1- Banning Yawgmoth's Will (or Tinker) will cause less (current/future) restrictions.
Here your making the LARGE assumption that the DCI in ontop of vintage power levels and card interactions. They have been very slow to make change to the B/R lists. I highly doubt that banning a card or two would have the desired effect on the B/R List. DCI support and knowledge about the format just is not there.

2- Metagame
Yawgomoth's will can be hated. The meta game can make adjustments if the card becomes over powered. The meta game has not come close to making adjustments for yawgomoth's will, the meta game has been making adjustments for the much more annoying Tinker -> DSC.

Remove from the game hate:
cranial extraction
jester’s cap
extract

Graveyard Hate:
Tormod’s Crypt
Coffin Purge
Planar Void
Phyrexian Furnace

Counter Hate:
Meddling Mage
counter spell creatures
hard counters

Casting Hate:
Arcane Laboratory
Trinisphere
Sphere of Resistance
Nether Void
Pyrostatic Pillar

3- Over estimate the power of Yawgmoth's Will
Yes, I agree it is the most powerful card in the game. I disagree that it due to power level it needs to be banned. Will alone can not win games. It can not be used until there is something to abused in the grave yard and it can be hated. Your examples on the SSG forum of Meandeath is just poor. Meandeath has failed to flourish and gain even half of the dominance it was hyped to have. There for it is a very poor example of the power of YW.


My biggest hope now is that the powers that be at the DCI do not see the article of one player on a soap box as good or logical reason to mess with vintage.

[Whatever Works]

@ Smennen

I didnt explain the late game issue ennough, and I see where my post doesnt make sense. My arguement was that because it is a late game card it allows the opponent more time to prepare against it, and more time to play cards that can effectively nuetralize the whole "Yawgmoth's Will Strategy".

I was trying to contrast that to tinker (the card I find more viable for banning though I still am against it), because of the fact that unlike yawgmoth's will... Tinker doesnt need a strategy, it doesnt need to be thought out, or set up... Any idiot can go first turn tinker collosus and win... The key to the last sentence was 1st turn... With Tinker it is good any time... Late game tinker... Early game...Doesnt matter (realatively speaking)... I was trying to touch on the point that as amazing as yawgmoth's will is it still can be neutralized, or to go with what you said... Its "strategy" can be neutralized by something as simple as 1 maindeck tormod's Crypt in Rich Shay's control slaver deck. Sure that didnt stop Yawgmoth's will completely, but when it hit play it made the oponent reinvent his strategy effectively...

About Yawgmoth's Will in relation to Andy Probasco... I am not taking anything away from you. I am sure you have casted more crazy Yawgmoth's will then anybody. I just used Andy because he lives relatively close to me, he is a very good player, and because I lost 2 games to him almost entirely because of yawgmoth's will 2 weeks ago costing me over $200. I met you at Gencon last year, and I didnt watch you play deathlong (though that counter thing you had was awsome), but instead saw you swing with 4 ophidians and say "I will Oppertunity Myself for 4 cards"... 

[cssamerican]

Statistics are relevant for restrictions, not bannings.

How can you possibly defend this statement? That is like saying evidence is required for a life sentence, but not for the death penalty. It makes absolutely no sense!

Statistics are the only evidence we have in Vintage to prove if a card is committing a crime. Therefore, you need statistics to back up any claims of a card from being too powerfull for the format to handle before you should be allowed to remove a card from the game.

Like I said in my previous post, DCI actions take too long to change if a mistake has been made or if the conditions of the game change in such a way that the card is no longer that great of a threat. For this reason you NEED statistical evidence for a card to be restricted or banned before I would be willing to support any actions by the DCI, especially in the case of banning a card.

The fact that Yawg Will is a late game card is precisely the reason that restriction isn't effective.

Please don't give me that non-sense that restricting Yawgmoth's Will wasn’t effective cause that is utter BS. Long played 4 Yawgmoth's Wills that cost {B} and Deathlong plays 4 Yawgmoth's Wills that cost {B}{B}. Therefore, I think we could easily say that running 4 Yawgmoth's Wills that cost would simply dominate the format. So, by looking at this logic I fail to see how restricting Yawgmoth's Will wasn’t effective, and until a deck can dominate the format because it is running ONE Yawgmoth's Will I see no reason to ban it.

[Lunk]

Not that I feel particularly strongly one way or another here, but many of the counter arguments people are offering are ridiculous.

-"Tinker is just as much of a threat."
Wrong.  Tinker essentially gets you a 3 turn clock, doesn't give you insurmountable card advantage during those turns to protect it, and you can play an answer in the form of bounce, STP, etc at any point during those 3 turns.  Oh yeah, and if it gets countered, you're down a mana source.  If your opponent successfully resolves a Will, you'll be lucky to last 3 turns, and if you do you'll probably be fighting through several Ancestrals worth of card advantage, a couple of Time Walk turns, etc.

-"Will isn't good on its own, it needs other cards to be broken, and therefore shouldn't be banned."
This would be a great point... if you were only allowed to put one card in your deck.  It would also be a good point if Will was only broken with 1 or 2 specific restricted cards.  However, it's insane with pretty much anything that adds mana or says "draw" on it.

-"Removing Will would take us from a 2-color format to a 1-color format."
Possibly, but the other argument is that it might actually open up more colors.  Without the threat of a topdecked Will, players might feel more comfortable straying away from blue and the safety of Force of Will, making the format more open, rather than less.

-"You can hate it out."
Show me a card that you can't bring in hate against.  Wasteland exists, does that mean Tolarian Academy should be unrestricted (I know we're talking about banning, not restriction, but there's no other example of banning that I can provide since I started seriously playing T1)?

-"Banning it would hurt budget aggro players."
When was the last time Sui-Black was viable?  Even so, I think if you run a Sui v. Gifts match up, the Sui player is a lot better off when neither player has Will than when both do.

-"It doesn't come in foil."
Foils are goofy anyway! :-p

I also read through the SCG thread, so I could be mixing up some of the arguments, but I think most or all of these points were offered here as well.

Now that I think about it, I'd probably agree whole-heartedly with Steve (at least from what I've seen discussed here, I don't have premium access) if I hadn't just about finished up a semi-casual Witness/Oath build. 

[JACO]

Steve, that was a very well written article. However, I have to disagree about the banning of Will, because for one thing, I don't think any (non-ante) cards should be banned (including Chaos Orb and Falling Star).

In your article, the relevant points of your argument are basically as follows:
Point 1) [card X] is not neutered by restriction
Point 2) deckbuilding in Type 1 has often been a race to abuse [card X]
Point 4) [card X] skips strategy or replaces it

The problem with this is that you could specifically apply these claims to a number of cards in Vintage right now. If you take a step back and just look at those claims, and then insert a few different cards wherever [card X] appears, you will see what I'm talking about. Don't argue with this as soon as you read it. Just think about it for an hour or so.

Cards like Tinker, Ancestral Recall, Black Lotus, Yawgmoth's Bargain, and even Necropotence all can arguably fit this criteria that you have set forth.

Frankly, there is no need to ban Yawgmoth's Will, or Tinker, or anything else for that matter. The argument should simply be, 'has restriction been effective?' I truly believe that it has, and Vintage is balanced enough to be at a point where pretty much every competitive deck attempts to do something gross as early as possible, or disrupt their opponent enough to prevent them from doing something totally gross. If your deck doesn't do one of those two things, then it's probably not going to be tournament worthy.

[Liam-K]

My knee-jerk reaction is to point out that decks built to abuse it (tps, gifts et al) are not on any sort of discernable rampage.

If you're going to claim a card is so centric to a format that its effects are distorting, you're going to have to show me evidence that you're forced to either play a deck that is built solely to abuse Will or a deck that solely hates Will.  This simply doesn't seem to be true.  No deck with a primary objective of "find Will and go broken" is kicking the teeth of everything else in.

More importantly, decks that DO use Will as a part of a degenerate gameplan and are deemed unfair enough to have a piece restricted have something in common.  There is an engine piece to remove.  This indicates that Will is incapable of winning a game in a vaccuum.  Go ahead and play land-crypt-yawgwill if you don't believe me, there is (obviously) a setup involved.  If Will is a deck's goal (as you argue is so prevailant that the card needs to be axed) it's the enabling cards that determine if the deck is good at playing a winning Will or bad at it.  This is why Gro lost Gush, why Long lost LED, why if Gifts has to go, it'll be Gifts eating it.  Because Yawgwill is NOT a strategy.  There has to be a setup strategy, and since a strategy that is purely set up Yawgwill and win is NOT dominating the format, why is this an issue?

Will is a card you can rip off the top and win, provided the right game conditions.  This is a fantastically un-unique property in vintage.  That is what people mean when they say "vintage is broken, deal with it."  They mean that just because you're outplaying your opponent, you can't be sure they won't suddenly gain a crushing advantage.  Will isn't doing this so much it skews the format, so banning it is not neccecary.

[kl0wn]

My knee-jerk reaction is to point out that decks built to abuse it (tps, gifts et al) are not on any sort of discernable rampage.

If you're going to claim a card is so centric to a format that its effects are distorting, you're going to have to show me evidence that you're forced to either play a deck that is built solely to abuse Will or a deck that solely hates Will.  This simply doesn't seem to be true.  No deck with a primary objective of "find Will and go broken" is kicking the teeth of everything else in.

More importantly, decks that DO use Will as a part of a degenerate gameplan and are deemed unfair enough to have a piece restricted have something in common.  There is an engine piece to remove.  This indicates that Will is incapable of winning a game in a vaccuum.  Go ahead and play land-crypt-yawgwill if you don't believe me, there is (obviously) a setup involved.  If Will is a deck's goal (as you argue is so prevailant that the card needs to be axed) it's the enabling cards that determine if the deck is good at playing a winning Will or bad at it.  This is why Gro lost Gush, why Long lost LED, why if Gifts has to go, it'll be Gifts eating it.  Because Yawgwill is NOT a strategy.  There has to be a setup strategy, and since a strategy that is purely set up Yawgwill and win is NOT dominating the format, why is this an issue?

Will is a card you can rip off the top and win, provided the right game conditions.  This is a fantastically un-unique property in vintage.  That is what people mean when they say "vintage is broken, deal with it."  They mean that just because you're outplaying your opponent, you can't be sure they won't suddenly gain a crushing advantage.  Will isn't doing this so much it skews the format, so banning it is not neccecary.

Give this man a SEE-GAAARR!!

I didn't read the article, and don't suggest that I do since I don't have Premium (nor do I really want it). And while you're not suggesting I read the article, forgive me for rehashing anything already stated. But that's what you get for not making the article available to us unwashed masses.

The fact remains that Will is only broken relative to the cards in your graveyard and the amount of manas you have available. If you've seen all Ancestral, Walk, Lotus, etc.. in the game you're casting Will, chances are that you're going to win regardless. If you've only seen one of those, excluding Lotus, then you're casting Regrowth for 2B, except you have to cast that spell on your turn and can't just save it for later. If you've seen none and it's like turn 4 or so and you have a little acceleration, then you're recasting like 2 or 3 Brainstorms which, while very good, is not quite ban-worthy. I won't get into more analogies.

My point is that in order for Will to be truly game-breaking and disgusting (ie: effects beyond Regrowth, Restock, Recall and friends), you need to have a specific few cards in your graveyard, which essentially makes Will the necesarry component of a 4+ card combo that wins you the game. The thing that makes Will better than every 4-card combo is that it does not require you to resolve each different part.

With the exception of getting lucky and peeling them off the top of your deck, the only ways of assembling this 4-card combo are Gifts and to a lesser extent, Intuition. Before even CONSIDERING banning Will, the Will enablers should be restricted. You're going straight from A to C here whilst skipping B altogether.

Granted, with enough mana and the right cards, Yawgmoth's Will just wins the game, but then again...so does Fireball.

Actually, if you put Fireball in a deck with Gifts, Recoup and Channel, we might have grounds for banning that one too. Or maybe just Channel. Oh man...then you could run ESG and Swarm and just wreck house.

BANNINATE FIREBALL!!1!!11!

[xthexpunisherx]

Actually, if you put Fireball in a deck with Gifts, Recoup and Channel, we might have grounds for banning that one too. Or maybe just Channel. Oh man...then you could run ESG and Swarm and just wreck house.

BANNINATE FIREBALL!!1!!11!

QFT

[Revvik]

kl0wn, thank you.  I now know what I'm playing at StarCity Chicago.

[Whatever Works]

Actually, if you put Fireball in a deck with Gifts, Recoup and Channel, we might have grounds for banning that one too. Or maybe just Channel. Oh man...then you could run ESG and Swarm and just wreck house.

BANNINATE FIREBALL!!1!!11!

OMG I am so shoving a combo similar to that into 2-land belcher!!! Your a genious! And 1 of the funniest people I have met in my life!

[doylehancock]

My knee-jerk reaction is to point out that decks built to abuse it (tps, gifts et al) are not on any sort of discernable rampage.

If you're going to claim a card is so centric to a format that its effects are distorting, you're going to have to show me evidence that you're forced to either play a deck that is built solely to abuse Will or a deck that solely hates Will.  This simply doesn't seem to be true.  No deck with a primary objective of "find Will and go broken" is kicking the teeth of everything else in.

More importantly, decks that DO use Will as a part of a degenerate gameplan and are deemed unfair enough to have a piece restricted have something in common.  There is an engine piece to remove.  This indicates that Will is incapable of winning a game in a vaccuum.  Go ahead and play land-crypt-yawgwill if you don't believe me, there is (obviously) a setup involved.  If Will is a deck's goal (as you argue is so prevailant that the card needs to be axed) it's the enabling cards that determine if the deck is good at playing a winning Will or bad at it.  This is why Gro lost Gush, why Long lost LED, why if Gifts has to go, it'll be Gifts eating it.  Because Yawgwill is NOT a strategy.  There has to be a setup strategy, and since a strategy that is purely set up Yawgwill and win is NOT dominating the format, why is this an issue?

Will is a card you can rip off the top and win, provided the right game conditions.  This is a fantastically un-unique property in vintage.  That is what people mean when they say "vintage is broken, deal with it."  They mean that just because you're outplaying your opponent, you can't be sure they won't suddenly gain a crushing advantage.  Will isn't doing this so much it skews the format, so banning it is not neccecary.

this has to be one of the best responses in these forums I have ever seen.

I agree with everything you said.

[kl0wn]

kl0wn, thank you.  I now know what I'm playing at StarCity Chicago.

If you do, you have to call it "kl0wnballs". Or "The Fiery Scrotum of Doom!!". Or something cool that references nutsackery.

But try not to run Will in it, 'cuz that would defeat the purpose.

If you want some more bad ideas (and I of course mean "bad" in the shake-your-booty sense) from my stash of super-secret tech, feel free to PM me.

[Anusien]

First off, we've had this discussion before, so your failure to pre-empt my arguments disturbs and frightens me.

1)[/B] You give no idea what a world after Yawgmoth's Will would look like.  You have to realize that you kill all combo except for Dragon.  Just flat-out, Doomsday is virtually dead, TPS is virtually dead, DeathLong is DEAD.  Mana Drain control would dominate in a way that I can't believe you'd advocate, since you are the one who says that if Ritual gets restricted, so should Mana Drain.

2)[/B] We have the format you want - it's called Legacy, and as I have put more hours into Legacy than all but a handful of people in the entire world, I can say this.  Take your arguments to its logical conclusion.  Ban Yawgmoth's Will, and unrestrict the cards that strictly abuse it.  Burning Wish comes off, LED might come off.  The only significant different from that format and Legacy would be the random 1 ofs: Tinker, Demonic Tutor, Necropotence and Yawgmoth's Bargain, and some Draw7s.  That's practically it.  You claim you've started to get into Legacy.  If you really had started exploring the format, you'd know this.[/B]  You don't even have to play the format to know it; myself and others have expressed similar sentiments.

3)[/B] Dr. Sylvan smacks you down.  When less than or about 50% of the decks in the format DON'T play a card, it doesn't go on any pedastel.  Decks like Fish and even the original Oath lists have T8ed and even won tournaments without Yawgmoth's Will.  And has been pointed out here, those decks run Tinker[/B].  What's more, your only answer to the Floodgates argument is this: http://www.starcitygames.com/images/article/07192005menendian2.jpg. A little bit of creative photoshopping and cards like Tinker could easily join it on the banned list.  You claim that "It can stand alone in contradistinction guarding vigilantly against the claim that someone someday might put forward that some lesser devil should join it on the banned list. A simple comparison to Yawgmoth's Will will reveal the folly of such a claim.".  You are so very obviously wrong![/B].  Look at the response on this thread.  Let's say they ban Yawg Will.  The number of people dissenting, or calling for other cards to be banned means that there is no way you can claim that Yawgmoth's Will is the only ban-worthy card[/B].

4)[/B] I have argued before, and you have failed to refute, that for the most part, Yawgmoth's Will ends games in favor of the player who was already ahead.  Sure, there are games where I topdeck Will or a card to find Will and steal the game from you.  How many other cards could I have drawn?  Balance, Ancestral and Walk for a few.  However, in a control matchup, I have to work to resolve Will.  I need to have more and better cards in hand than you, to be able to out-counter you, in order to win with Will.  What happens more often than just randomly Will and Win, is that Will is a much easier and faster path to winning than using my other win path.

5)[/B] Claim: "(2) The Development Trajectory of Vintage has Often Been a Race to Maximize Abuse of Yawgmoth's Will".  That seems like a very flawed statement to me.  Just as often as decks come about to abuse Yawgmoth's Will, there are metagame/tempo decks, decks that get Yawgmoth's Will as a matter of happenstance (DOA OAth), and there are even decks that could run Yawgmoth's Will and choose not to.  What about decks like Gifts.  Is it meant to abuse Yawgmoth's Will?  What about when you Gifts for four tutors.  Sure, one of them is going to get YawgWill, but it could just as easily get Tinker->Colossus.  Stephen, don't forget that your Gifts list also abuses Ancestral.  Does that mean that Ancestral is ban-worthhy?  What about the evolution of Mana Drain, and decks attempt to maximize abuse of Mana Drain?

[moxpearl]

Nicely written article, and I couldn't agree more.  I loved the Yawgmoth's Marathon picture.  The part that resonated most with me was your section (4) that the format would be far more interesting and the card constaints deck design unnecessarily.  Of course, that part of your argument is quite subjective, and I can see many on the forum disagree, but personally speaking it's unbelieveably frustrating to overcome an opponent's Ancestral, Time Walk, and Demonic Tutor, only to see all three replayed a turn later.  Tinker-Colossus is next in line, and to be honest, I wouldn't mind a banning of Tinker.  But that's for another day...

Short of playing Fish, it's frustrating trying to build a creative deck only to eventually realize you need to fit in Yawgmoth's will and Tinker, and alas, you're back with the same deck you wanted to disassemble.   Don't get me wrong, I enjoy playing the card, but I'd also enjoy playing Contract from Below.  It's not the "Best Card Ever,"  it's Wizard's Greatest Mistake.  Again, thanks for the article.

[onelovemachine]

Here is the simple, gross, hated and yet undeniable fact of the matter:  type one is a flawed concept. 

I'm going to give everyone a breather to absorb that statement before I move on.....


Type one is the unfair, broken, stupid and yet oh-so-interesting culmination of a hundred, maybe a thousand, really unbalanced effects and ideas.  It is a flawed concept because it makes the play more draw dependent than it should be for a game with such depth of strategy.  Magic in general, but type one with a passion desires to break its own rules, and type one does so with such utter efficiency that the only thing keeping one broken, stupid and poorly balanced card in check is another broken, stupid and poorly balanced card.  Yawgmoth's will is not type one's problem, everything else is. 

How many times have you had a keepable opening hand including black lotus and lost?  I was asked that question once by Brian Demars.  I didn't know what to tell him because I honestly had never thought about it before.  Since that question I have been keeping track.  In tournament play I have had lotus in a keepable opening hand 4 times since then, and in testing 9 (test more than tournament play obviously) and I have NEVER lost once.  Not one goddamn time.  Yawgmoth's will doesn't do that.  Black lotus breaks so many more rules as a one of than will ever would be able to.  In my opinion mana crypt is a better card than yawgmoth's will and force of will definitely is.  The game is turn based and type one is all about black lotus. 

Each player is designed to have one mana resource per turn.  Nothing is free in a balanced format especially not three mana of any color or one mana of a certain color every turn.  The only way yawgwill influences that rule is when it re-uses time walk.  Why not ban timewalk?  Or ancestral?  Or moxes and lotus.  Honestly, the fastest way to get cards off the restricted list is to ban 5 moxes, lotus, mana crypt and petal.  You can have your one vault, sol ring and led because all of those cards are inbued with some form of drawback making them at least SOMEWHAT fair on some basic level.  At least you have to have a land in your opening hand to play mana vault.  Land go, land timewalk is almost no different than playing a cantripping-birds of paradise.  Land mox walk is absurd and gives one player a fabulous edge starting on turn one.  I could write few hundred more arguments just like this one if I really wanted to.

Topdeck yawgwill this, topdeck yawgwill that.  The number of times I have ever topdecked will in draw-go mode with my opponent is less than ten, maybe I am horribly unlucky but that is what it is.  Setup or not will wins no more games than ancestral recall or black lotus.  An early resolved ancestral can create an absolutely impossible to recover from situation just like a late game yawgwill.  The difference is recall only theoretically kills you and yawgwill often actually reduces your life total to zero.  If will didn't have the stupid cards to feed off that it does in this format it would still be a fantastic card.  Yawgwill WAS too good in type two.  There was a deck based around it that got gold bordred and signed. 

We as type one players need to realize that our beloved interesting format can only ever be so competitive.  As long as we are breaking the rules on the scale of current type one, the format will always be so flawed that it can never be a professional deal.  If yawgmoth's will gets banned, type one will still continue to suffer from the problems yawgmoth's will created.  The cards we all love to play with are too good, and that is why they are designated type one only material. 

Onelovemachine Said:

If yawgmoth's will gets banned, type one will still continue to suffer from the problems yawgmoth's will created. 

The first card banned from type one should be black lotus.

[Vegeta2711]

As I said on the SCG thread.

Why I want the best fast mana producers banned, a 2 minute article by me.

(1) Restriction Has Not Sufficiently Neutered the SoLoMoxen

A massive majority of decks try to abuse these fast mana accelerants and almost every deck has since the beginning of Vintage.

(2) The Development Trajectory of Vintage has Often Been a Race to Maximize Abuse of the SoLoMoxen.

Fast mana allows broken things to happen. It's one of the main reasons why insanely degenerate decks exist.

(3) Decks abusing the SoLoMoxen are inevitably going to cause more restrictions.

Yep.

[onelovemachine]

I knew i missed something:

-"Tinker is just as much of a threat."
Wrong.  Tinker essentially gets you a 3 turn clock, doesn't give you insurmountable card advantage during those turns to protect it, and you can play an answer in the form of bounce, STP, etc at any point during those 3 turns.

WRONG.  Actually, DSC is a three turn clock that can be swordsed, tinker is not.  Tinker flat wins you the game.  Ever been mindslavered? How bout sundering titaned?  Tinker up Platz much?  Ever not die to a fish player without removal?  Tinker up trinisphere, karn or smokestack evar?  When my opponent tinkers, I have BIG problems especially if it somehow resolves.  Tinker is a turn one threat in a non-storm combo deck.  Will is not.

[Smmenen]

@ Smennen

I didnt explain the late game issue ennough, and I see where my post doesnt make sense. My arguement was that because it is a late game card it allows the opponent more time to prepare against it, and more time to play cards that can effectively nuetralize the whole "Yawgmoth's Will Strategy".

I was trying to contrast that to tinker (the card I find more viable for banning though I still am against it), because of the fact that unlike yawgmoth's will... Tinker doesnt need a strategy, it doesnt need to be thought out, or set up... Any idiot can go first turn tinker collosus and win... The key to the last sentence was 1st turn... With Tinker it is good any time... Late game tinker... Early game...Doesnt matter (realatively speaking)... I was trying to touch on the point that as amazing as yawgmoth's will is it still can be neutralized, or to go with what you said... Its "strategy" can be neutralized by something as simple as 1 maindeck tormod's Crypt in Rich Shay's control slaver deck. Sure that didnt stop Yawgmoth's will completely, but when it hit play it made the oponent reinvent his strategy effectively...

The same could be said of a million other carsd that have been restricted.  LED and Burning Wish should not have been restricted becuase of FOW and Chalice of hte void - both free.  Trinisphere shouldn't have been restricted becuase of Rack and Ruin, etc. etc.  That argument doesn't work people.  And you've all missed the difference between restriction and banning.  I was the one who first used tourament data to support restrition when I wrote why restricting Gush was the right thing to do in 2003.  The bottom line is that you restrict upon a different set of criteria than you ban  Don't think I haven't thought this through. 

I'm going to reply fully to every comment made here when I finish taking the bar exam next Thursday.  Keep the comments coming.   It might even warrant a follow up article addressing each and every single point fully.  

Despite writing as clearly as I possibly can, it is pretty clear that quite a few people here simply don't understand the arguments I was making.  I'm not sure how I could have been clearer, but I'll try again....

[onelovemachine]

If and when you do, Steve, Please reply to my post.  I am uber-curious on your thoughts.

[mongrel12]

Despite writing as clearly as I possibly can, it is pretty clear that quite a few people here simply don't understand the arguments I was making.  I'm not sure how I could have been clearer, but I'll try again....

This is probably due to the fact that it was premium, and that many who have something to say do not necessarily have premium.

[b-tings]

Please, Kyle, read my article again.  Becuase it is pretty obvious that you either skimmed it or didn't fully grasp the points.  If you had, you would not have argued that the fact that Will is a mid-late game card is a reason it shouldn't be banned.  That is a reason why it SHOULD be banned - or at least a reason why restriction isn't effective as a policy device in the case of will.

You've managed to hit the biggest hole in your argument without knowing it, Steve. Restriction may well not be effective as a policy device in the case of Will, and I'd say you argue that pretty well. What you do not show is a demonstrable link between the ineffectiveness of restriction and the need for bannings.

As a parallel, take Rector Trix or Rector Tendrills. In both cases, restriction was a terrible policy device to deal with Yawgmoth's Bargain (I'm not going to insult anyone's intelligence by explaining why). Although I didn't play or think at a particularly high level during that time period, I would venture a guess that Bargain ended the game with about the same alacrity as Will. Obviously, since I can't speak in firm terms, this is a pretty weak parallel, but it does serve a purpose: to illustrate that restriction being ineffective is not enough criteria for a card to banned, even a card that ends games like Will inarguably does. Which brings us back to the distortion criteria that Steve has dismissed precisely by bringing up this ineffectiveness.

In short, don't just demonstrate the ineffectiveness of restriction, demonstrate that the ineffectiveness of restriction is enough of a detriment to the game to warrant banning. I think that's what a lot of people are having trouble seeing, and you're going to have to meet them on some middle ground, because a lot of players are going to need more than a small improvement to the game to see that sacred cow of a non-ante, non-dexterity card slaughtered.

[dandan]

Here is the only relevant point to this whole discussion:-

If you want a card banned, the burden of proof is on the accuser.

You deny statistics are relevant despite agreeing with their use in determining restriction. The first and most obvious test of whether or not action is needed against a specific card fails to back you up so you ignore it and deny its relevancy.

You deny the slippery slope theory. However, you agreed that restriction should be on the basis of a set of clearly-defined principles, surely it follows that banning should also be on the basis of a set of clearly-defined principles. How do you define these principles?
Caster almost always wins games if spell is cast and resolves? I think Will is not alone in that club.
Allows reuse of restricted cards? I think Will is not alone in that club.
Can generate massive card advantage? I think Will is not alone in that club.
Can generate massive mana advantage? I think Will is not alone in that club.
(Because of Will's interaction with other cards, it is safe to say that it usually generates card advantage and mana advantage. In exactly the same way, Lotus and Tinker will net us card advantage and/or mana advantage)

I remember a few years ago, there were calls for Morphling to be restricted because it won games. YawgWill wins games too. It is easier to win a game with Will than it is using superman but it is folly to ignore the fact that they need to be set up. Will needs cards in the graveyard and ideally mana there too. Yes , decks can achieve that on turn one occasionally. If I have played Recall, Walk, Lotus and Stripmine, the YawgWill that nails you isn't the only reason you just lost. If I have cast a 4cc spell which you fail to counter, having allowed me the luxury of getting to 4 mana and then you let me cast another spell which allows me to cast YawgWill, you will lose - and deservedly. You seem to drift between denial of the fact that YawgWill needs a setup and acknowledging it by calling YawgWill a late game card - which you somehow think makes it more deserving of being banned.

Related to the set-up, if YawgWill is such a problem, why not restrict some of its partners in crime Dark Ritual and Gifts Ungiven? (for now, I'll not give an opinion on the question of restriction of other cards) Surely Will is more of a problem in a format with Ritual and Gifts than it would be in one without them (Recoup wouldn't exactly be great). This is a fundamental question - should Vintage be controlled using restrictions and only if restrictions cannot succeed should we use bannings or should vintage be controlled using a combination of bannings and restrictions? If you say the former, I can't believe that you think that we have done all we can to lessen the effect of Will using restrictions. If you say the later, then it is hard to deny the slippery slope as any cards that if banned would allow unrestrictions would have to be considered as banning targets. Ban Academy? Only in the brave new world of bannings to 'free up' card and deck choice.

Finally, I don't think anyone has pointed out Legacy to say "If you don't agree with me, go play another format". It has (repeatedly) been mentioned as an example of where you are heading when you start to ban cards due to high power level. Once you start to cut the brokenness out of Vintage, you will need to keep cutting. It is a fundamentally broken format but for some reason has its own balance (no-pun intended).

[Smmenen]

No one with a half a brain ever called for Morphling's restriction.  I admit to slipping up once and suggesting that FOW should be restricted in 2000 in one solitary Bdominia post  but I quickly retracted that view. 

Will respond fully next week.

[dandan]

I mentioned Morphling because it is easy to blame the card that beats you rather than the cards that allow you to set up, find and cast that card. Crazy calls for restrictions led to the call for logical rules for restriction. I think we need to either define the format as one without bans unless restrictions fail or have define rules for when a card gets banned.

[glacial-blue]

ok... although i do not have premium and am not smmenen i will try to answer a lot of the questions floating around there...

1.  First off... a lot of people are complaining that 50% of the decks don't carry yawgwin and as such the card does not warrant banning.  However, this is wrong for several reasons.
  A.  The format is too diverse.  It's not about finding THE card or THE BEST deck.  With the large card pool to draw from utilizing such a diverse array of abilities, decks tend to find ways to break different cards.  Whiles this does inherently lead to a few decks that are inherently more powerful than outhers, it does in no ways mean that there is a "best deck".  Instead, whenever prepping for a tournament people look for ways to beat the most popular deck or to make that deck more resilient.  At some point what ends up resulting are decks that hate out deck a, which hate out deck b, which hate out deck c, which ironically hates out deck a.  All of these decks will probably be represented at a tournament, but vintage is about playing the numbers... ie playing the deck that is most likely to see hate and that hates out the most popular decks which, a lot of the time, use yawgwin.  Thus, hate decks such as fish often don't use yawgwin b/c it is anti-thetical to their strategy.
  B.  It is too hard to run a yawgwin deck at a major tournament for THAT long of a time period IF yawgwin is the primary strategy.  I don't feel like pulling up all of the posts/articles about it, but remember that even some of the most avid combo players say that decks such as deathlong take too much energy to effectively play during 8 rounds *not counting elims*...  thus, yawgwin tends to be used more as an enhancer rather than the primary strategy *more on this later*
  C.  As was noted earlier, yawgwin is useless in a void... it requires OTHER cards to make it useful.  This generally means fast mana acceleration (such as moxes and black lotus) and/or cheap draw spells (such as ancestral recall, brainstorm, and for some, timetwister and time walk)  Because of this, yawgwin really becomes a card that is best utilized when people have multiple $300+ cards which most people cannot afford.  This is why yawgwin didn't make such a splash in urza block etc...

2.  As to the post by Liam-K from about his "knee Jerkin reaction" where issues as to yawgwin strategy came into question...
  A.  Sorry if i misinterpreted something but... it seems to me... that if you are having to ban enablers, on a consistent basis b/c combo decks designed around yawgwin keep on breaking them... then maybe yawgwin is the most powerful card out there since even tolarian academy kinda cooled down after all of the restrictions it led to... idk just a thought...
  B.  More importantly, however, you miss the part about Yawgwin being its own strategy.  You discuss how cards such as LED can and should be banned to stop powerful decks such as Long.dec.  However, you miss the reality that even w/o a deck being focused upon it the way deathlong.dec does yawgwin is still insanely powerful.  Let me put it this way... technically in a void, every card, by itself, is useless... black lotus is only good if you can use its mana... time walk only good if that extra turn will do something worthwhile, etc...  All cards technically need supporting cards, and in vintage, the "good" decks besides fish tend to use the most broken cards available.    So instead of looking at a cards power ability singularly, you must think of it more wholistically... To illustrate this, think of ancestral recall...  for U you get 3 cards and, even if they are just land (assuming you don't need them), you still count yourself ahead b/c you no longer have to draw those cards *ie the reason why fetchlands are nice*...  Because of this, your goldfishishing is increased by 3 turns for that particular game b/c you ignore three useless cards.  Now in any single game, this happens on both sides with players either casting lots of draw to rifle through their deck for a single bomb to hose the opponent or casting lots of fishie's to be annoying or any number of game strategies...  Decks that tend to use yawgwin are the former (unless specifically designed to break the card) in which decks tend to have gameplans focused upon executing a few particular cards for the win. these decks attempt to gain a ton of card advantage.  Because these are specifically the elements that yawgwin take advantage of... ie the ability to access lots of draw, huge bombs, or lots of mana acceleration, yawgwin drastically incerases the goldfish of that deck by reusing all of the spent cards.
  C.  Finally, onto the gifts speil and how gifts would be restricted over yawgwin... First of all NO KIDDING... currently WOC isn't banning cards so that is the obvious answer.  Second, gifts is an inherently powerful card that is broken in other decks, like tps, and restructed a few such as Belcher.  Even if yawgwin was banned, gifts still may get restricted due to the power of tinker/colossus and belcher/severance which only lessons its power by a bit...

3.  As to all of you who are saying that statistics are necessary for determining restrictions *not just % of usage, but the actual concept behind stats*
  A.  Irrelevant... look at trinisphere... WOC seems to find metagame health to be a driving factor and whether it looks to statistics or to public opinion as in the case of trinisphere it is solely about the distortion factor which i believe smmenen clearly addresses in his article.
  B.  This is a unique situation.  Statistics apply for restriction because of the accessibility of the card beforehand.  With 4 ofs as well as all of the tutors, the metagame can see the true impact of a card upon the environment as decks are more easily created around specific cards.  However, when looking at cards such as yawgwin, which does have decks like deathlong, realize that it requires 4 ofs aka death wish to make it viable.  This stated, look to other decks which merely use yawgwin such as CS...  this deck still uses yawgwin, but in a much different way which makes it very distorting.  Remember, vintage is very much about playing the numbers.  Therefore, decks, such as CS which tend to try and gain huge card advantage, increase their goldfish and win % dramatically by using yawgwin b/c they are likely to see yawgwin due to all of their draw which, then amplifies the goldfish rate by replaying everything...  as such the distortion is still seen and felt...  This applied to all of the decks that do include yawgin give reason as to why stats are incomplete when analyzing the need for a banning.

4.  Tinker more ban-worthy
  A.  Just as a caveat i don't think tinker is being used to its full potential... personally i think that tinker/colossus *which is the most common play* is very weak except for the reality that vintage doesn't care about the combat step b/c youf deck tries to goldfish faster than aggro is is aggro.  while i do feel that it is the correct play in certain decks such as gifts or fish, tinker/jar is much more devastating once people catch on.  anyways...
  B.  Tinker is a worse card.  First, tinker is a two card combo whilst yawgwin is one.  Second, Tinker easier to hate out... while everyone can name a ton of graveyard hate that will DESTROY yawgwin, look at fundamental purposes first and you'll see what i mean... Most decks pack multiple ways to win or ways to deal with hate in order to make them resilient.  Tinker often is that multiple win condition becoming the second out with colossus when needed.  In this way, tinker is alone to absorb any stp's etc... that are headed its way... in contrast, yawgwin is merely an amplifier.  It takes w/e strategy that a particular deck is using and has all of the resiliency of that deck to either replay *b/c it was initially countered* or to further that strategy.  Thus yawgwin has an entire deck's support whilst tinker tends to be on its own most of the time except for a few counters in hand.  third, tinker is card disadvantage whilst yawgwin isn't.  While this usually doesn't matter b/c w/e card you get tends to be outweigh that, in the off-chance that tinker is countered etc... you are out of luck.
  C.  Tinker's strat is worse.  Decks that often work the best are the ones with a ton of synergy.  In this way the entire deck is utilized toward one goal and nothing is wasted.  Tinker breaks that synergy by piling in another card that has no relevance and forcing the deck to form around that card for a few turns.  In contrast, yawgwin just reinforces a mechanism that is meant to work together and fulfill the fundamental purpose which you found to be so powerful in the first place meriting the deck's use.

p.s. I'm apologize to anyone if i referenced your argument and didn't put a post link etc but i'm new to this forum and still have to figure it out...

[Dozer]

Did you play in that block? Will was ridiculous with dark ritual but most of all with Memory Jar and Academy. They banned Jar and Academy in no time, so will wasn't as broken in block anymore.

Yes, I did play during Urza Block. And quite obviously, Will was less broken than the other cards that are on the current banned list for Urza Blck Constructed, otherwise it should be the first item on that list. The fact that Will doesn't work in a vacuum is not a point for its banning, as you say, but rather a point against it. If it only works (as many others have noted, too) with proper support and is vulnerable to a lot of hate, I don't see any hard evidence that Will should be banned.

I guess the real question is: Is just making the format less random, more diverse and more interesting worth banning a card? I don't think so, especially because of what cssamerican brought up. Bannings are nigh irreversible, even with contrary evidence available (Mind Twist was unbanned in... what? 1997?). Bannings and restrictions don't happen just to shake up the format a little, but for very specific reasons (which are still largely untransparent to us). Also, we don't know yet that Vintage without Will would actually be more diverse, since (someone already said it) combo decks take one huge hit and Drain-decks might proliferate like there was no tomorrow.

One other problem remains, though, namely that in spite of the lack of hard evidence, there is a lot of soft evidence. Everyone in this thread has agreed that Will can steal games. Nobody has refuted the point that a format without Will would allow playskill to shine more than it does now. We all know that Will has enourmous power behind it. I can even imagine a Vintage format without Will to be much more fun, diverse and interesting than now. But restrictions and bannings in particular are not there for improving the format, but for fixing it when necessary.

Is it necessary right now? I don't think so.

Dozer

[Anusien]

1.  First off... a lot of people are complaining that 50% of the decks don't carry yawgwin and as such the card does not warrant banning.  However, this is wrong for several reasons.
  A.  The format is too diverse.  It's not about finding THE card or THE BEST deck.  With the large card pool to draw from utilizing such a diverse array of abilities, decks tend to find ways to break different cards.  Whiles this does inherently lead to a few decks that are inherently more powerful than outhers, it does in no ways mean that there is a "best deck".  Instead, whenever prepping for a tournament people look for ways to beat the most popular deck or to make that deck more resilient.  At some point what ends up resulting are decks that hate out deck a, which hate out deck b, which hate out deck c, which ironically hates out deck a.  All of these decks will probably be represented at a tournament, but vintage is about playing the numbers... ie playing the deck that is most likely to see hate and that hates out the most popular decks which, a lot of the time, use yawgwin.  Thus, hate decks such as fish often don't use yawgwin b/c it is anti-thetical to their strategy.

This is a flawed argument, for the reasons Dandan gives earlier.  If you want a card banned, you need to establish clear and good criteria for banning, and have the argumentation being over the criteria.  Saying that Yawgmoth's Will is a bomb but not played in hate decks, in my opinion and that of others, is a criteria for not banning.  Dr. Sylvan says that about 50% of decks play Yawgmoth's Will.  If that means that 50% of deck strategies are effective without Yawg Win, you don't drop the ban-hammer.

B.  It is too hard to run a yawgwin deck at a major tournament for THAT long of a time period IF yawgwin is the primary strategy.  I don't feel like pulling up all of the posts/articles about it, but remember that even some of the most avid combo players say that decks such as deathlong take too much energy to effectively play during 8 rounds *not counting elims*...  thus, yawgwin tends to be used more as an enhancer rather than the primary strategy *more on this later*

If you're right then that means that playskill is automatically a limiting factor on the brokenness of Yawgmoth's Will, giving more credibility to the people that argue against a ban.  However, you're taking quotes about DeathLong out of context.  Goth Slaver is not nearly as intense as DeathLong in the similar situations, and Goth Slaver is, by all accounts, a Yawgmoth's Will deck.  (Explanation: Goth Slaver takes the necessarily playskill to play properly, but lets you split it out over several turns, and some of your plays are no-brainers anyway).

C.  As was noted earlier, yawgwin is useless in a void... it requires OTHER cards to make it useful.  This generally means fast mana acceleration (such as moxes and black lotus) and/or cheap draw spells (such as ancestral recall, brainstorm, and for some, timetwister and time walk)  Because of this, yawgwin really becomes a card that is best utilized when people have multiple $300+ cards which most people cannot afford.  This is why yawgwin didn't make such a splash in urza block etc...

First off, Timetwister doesn't go well together with Yawgmoth's Will.  Your argument here seems to be, "Only powered players can play with Yawgmoth's Will for full effectiveness."  This is mitigated by proxy tournaments, but regardless, take WTF.  People like Kowal have already established the viability of a splash in order to improve the deck (JOrlove splashed white in the board for Ray, Kowal splashed white maindeck for Meddling Mages).  That deck runs Brainstorm, Ancestral, Walk and Brainstorm.  It could easily splash black for Yawgmoth's Will, but it doesn't.

2.  As to the post by Liam-K from about his "knee Jerkin reaction" where issues as to yawgwin strategy came into question...
A.  Sorry if i misinterpreted something but... it seems to me... that if you are having to ban enablers, on a consistent basis b/c combo decks designed around yawgwin keep on breaking them... then maybe yawgwin is the most powerful card out there since even tolarian academy kinda cooled down after all of the restrictions it led to... idk just a thought...

I argued earlier that the Legacy banned list proves that Yawg Will is the culprit.  The argument is whether it's a ban worthy culprit.  Notice, however, that Academy is still a bomb.

B.  More importantly, however, you miss the part about Yawgwin being its own strategy.  You discuss how cards such as LED can and should be banned to stop powerful decks such as Long.dec.  However, you miss the reality that even w/o a deck being focused upon it the way deathlong.dec does yawgwin is still insanely powerful.  Let me put it this way... technically in a void, every card, by itself, is useless... black lotus is only good if you can use its mana... time walk only good if that extra turn will do something worthwhile, etc...  All cards technically need supporting cards, and in vintage, the "good" decks besides fish tend to use the most broken cards available.    So instead of looking at a cards power ability singularly, you must think of it more wholistically... To illustrate this, think of ancestral recall...  for U you get 3 cards and, even if they are just land (assuming you don't need them), you still count yourself ahead b/c you no longer have to draw those cards *ie the reason why fetchlands are nice*...  Because of this, your goldfishishing is increased by 3 turns for that particular game b/c you ignore three useless cards.  Now in any single game, this happens on both sides with players either casting lots of draw to rifle through their deck for a single bomb to hose the opponent or casting lots of fishie's to be annoying or any number of game strategies...  Decks that tend to use yawgwin are the former (unless specifically designed to break the card) in which decks tend to have gameplans focused upon executing a few particular cards for the win. these decks attempt to gain a ton of card advantage.  Because these are specifically the elements that yawgwin take advantage of... ie the ability to access lots of draw, huge bombs, or lots of mana acceleration, yawgwin drastically incerases the goldfish of that deck by reusing all of the spent cards.

Yes, we all know Yawgmoth's Will is a bomb; Smmenen's argument is that Yawgmoth's Will is so powerful, the inevitable best strategy is the one that abuses Yawgmoth's Will the best, and Vintage decks are trying to achieve this.  Decks like Fish and some builds of Stax, for example, prove this inevitably false.  It's more true that the strength of Yawgmoth's Will is only the strength of cards you are replaying.  This is why it's such a bomb in a deck like Gifts, where the entire deck is broken.  It's why Intuition + Yawgmoth's Will is the central strategy of Goth Slaver.  At best, you're at odds with arguments Smmene is making, at worst you're simply just saying "Yawgmoth's Will is good".

C.  Finally, onto the gifts speil and how gifts would be restricted over yawgwin... First of all NO KIDDING... currently WOC isn't banning cards so that is the obvious answer.  Second, gifts is an inherently powerful card that is broken in other decks, like tps, and restructed a few such as Belcher.  Even if yawgwin was banned, gifts still may get restricted due to the power of tinker/colossus and belcher/severance which only lessons its power by a bit...

So?

3.  As to all of you who are saying that statistics are necessary for determining restrictions *not just % of usage, but the actual concept behind stats*
  A.  Irrelevant... look at trinisphere... WOC seems to find metagame health to be a driving factor and whether it looks to statistics or to public opinion as in the case of trinisphere it is solely about the distortion factor which i believe smmenen clearly addresses in his article.

The analogy can be made to Ravager in Standard; regardless of how broken or unbroken 3sphere is, it was having a negative effect on the general wellbeing of the format.  However, good criteria for a ban have yet to be set out.  We can't say, "Wizards of the Coast uses X, Y and Z to determine when a ban is necessary because you don't know."

B.  This is a unique situation.  Statistics apply for restriction because of the accessibility of the card beforehand.  With 4 ofs as well as all of the tutors, the metagame can see the true impact of a card upon the environment as decks are more easily created around specific cards.  However, when looking at cards such as yawgwin, which does have decks like deathlong, realize that it requires 4 ofs aka death wish to make it viable.  This stated, look to other decks which merely use yawgwin such as CS...  this deck still uses yawgwin, but in a much different way which makes it very distorting.  Remember, vintage is very much about playing the numbers.  Therefore, decks, such as CS which tend to try and gain huge card advantage, increase their goldfish and win % dramatically by using yawgwin b/c they are likely to see yawgwin due to all of their draw which, then amplifies the goldfish rate by replaying everything...  as such the distortion is still seen and felt...  This applied to all of the decks that do include yawgin give reason as to why stats are incomplete when analyzing the need for a banning.

Your arguments here actually manage to make negative sense.  You say, "Statistics apply and are good when they help me, but they're incomplete when they work against me."  Yes, CS uses Yawgmoth's Will and abuses it with Thirst and Deep/AK + Intuition.  It's also nasty with 4 maindeck tutors, plus like 3 tutors to find those tutors.  The viability or unviability of those decks have less to do with Yawgmoth's Will, than the strategy used to find and abuse Yawg Will.

4.  Tinker more ban-worthy
  A.  Just as a caveat i don't think tinker is being used to its full potential... personally i think that tinker/colossus *which is the most common play* is very weak except for the reality that vintage doesn't care about the combat step b/c youf deck tries to goldfish faster than aggro is is aggro.  while i do feel that it is the correct play in certain decks such as gifts or fish, tinker/jar is much more devastating once people catch on.  anyways...

So, you're saying is Tinker is more broken than we already know?  And you say Tinker is not worse?  Don't forget you can also Tinker out Platz, 7/10, Pentabus, Memory Jar, Mindslaver and even cards like Trinisphere or JESTER'S CAP!! if you need to.  JDizzle has even won by Tinkering out a Mox Jet.

B.  Tinker is a worse card.  First, tinker is a two card combo whilst yawgwin is one.  Second, Tinker easier to hate out... while everyone can name a ton of graveyard hate that will DESTROY yawgwin, look at fundamental purposes first and you'll see what i mean... Most decks pack multiple ways to win or ways to deal with hate in order to make them resilient.  Tinker often is that multiple win condition becoming the second out with colossus when needed.  In this way, tinker is alone to absorb any stp's etc... that are headed its way... in contrast, yawgwin is merely an amplifier.  It takes w/e strategy that a particular deck is using and has all of the resiliency of that deck to either replay *b/c it was initially countered* or to further that strategy.  Thus yawgwin has an entire deck's support whilst tinker tends to be on its own most of the time except for a few counters in hand.  third, tinker is card disadvantage whilst yawgwin isn't.  While this usually doesn't matter b/c w/e card you get tends to be outweigh that, in the off-chance that tinker is countered etc... you are out of luck.

So Tinker is a win condition and Yawgmoth's Will is a win condition?  You say Tinker is easier to hate out, but there is an overwhelming trend to play Phyrexian Furnaces main, while the majority of decks are becoming increasingly unable to deal with Darksteel Colossus.  Don't forget that Tinker can also win right away with Goblin Charbelcher in a way that is virtually immune to the current hate being used.  Tinker is a two-card combo, but the second piece is played in like a 10-of with cards that are good on their own (SoLoMoxCrypt).
Getting a Yawgmoth's Will countered is much worse than getting a Tinker countered, especially seeing as how Smmenen argues that YawgWill is quickly becoming the de facto win condition of most decks.

C.  Tinker's strat is worse.  Decks that often work the best are the ones with a ton of synergy.  In this way the entire deck is utilized toward one goal and nothing is wasted.  Tinker breaks that synergy by piling in another card that has no relevance and forcing the deck to form around that card for a few turns.  In contrast, yawgwin just reinforces a mechanism that is meant to work together and fulfill the fundamental purpose which you found to be so powerful in the first place meriting the deck's use.

This is assuming that you're just randomly throwing in Tinker + DSC.  However, look at decks that are aiming to set up powerful artifacts (CS) or winning with your Tinker targets anyway (Gifts/SSB).  However, even so, if you can randomly throw in two cards that are un-synergistic with your deck AND WIN WITH IT, doesn't that say something about the power of that combination (WTF throwing in Tinker/Colossus can work).  Especially because Tinker is on-color for all the good decks in the format.