[Premium Article] Fine, Just Ban it Already

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/10071.html


I've had this one filed away for some time. 

I've carefully crafted these arguments for some time.  I started this article probably six months or so ago.  Please, no knee jerk reactions.  Thoughtful responses are good. 

Also, try to stay within the scope of the article.  I've attempted to be comprehensive so that shouldn't be too hard.  But when making points, try to address it in the context that I have already framed it.  Don't act as if I haven't tried to address your point. 

[zulander]

It says premium only for me

[Smmenen]

My bad.  I thought it wasn't for some reason.  I thought all the issue related articles were going to be non-premium. 

[Dralock]

My bad.  I thought it wasn't for some reason.  I thought all the issue related articles were going to be non-premium. 

Do you get a cut for those?

[Sean Ryan]

Steve,

The argument is solid...if you want a much wider expansion of strategic development to be the formats guiding principle.  While I admire your aspirations and enthusiasm for the development of this game we all love so much, I don't think this is the right direction.  Let me explain.

 I would venture that the percentage of players who  perceive Vintage in a similar fashion to Steve (feel free to elucidate) is rather small in comparison to those who look at the format as "competitively casual" with a heavy emphasis on collecting.  Simply put, most Vintage players don't have strategic development as their number one concern. 

 I can't speak for the masses but, personally I fall somewhere in the second category of players who fears this will set a precedent.  I would rather have to deal with the abomination of Yawg's Win then to start seeing cards getting banned in Vintage.  Vintage holds a special place in Magic.  It is the format where ANY card can be played.  This may not seem important to you but, do not underestimate what this means to many, many players and to the boys back at Wizards.  Vintage will never be like standard/limited.  If the goal is strategic development for a highly completive endowment those formats are readily available. 

I brought this topic up to Randy Buehler a few months ago and he was adamant that banning is not for Vintage.  My statements above echo much of what he said.  When the player base and the authorities that ultimately decide policy both oppose banning in Vintage, it is an uphill battle not worth fighting...even if you are right. 

I completely understand where you are coming from in the article.  I especially like your closing statement: "Instead of opening the floodgates, banning Yawggmoth's Will can serve to uphold the principals that Vintage serves." The natural conclusion is that by banning Will you will actually get to play more of your cards - what Vintage is all about - being able to play every card (besides the one that prevent you from playing many others).

I appreciated the article.  It may be one of those things that is simply a bit ahead of its time and will be revisited in the future.

Sean

[Xenoben187]

First off, damn you, I just bought an S-chinese Will off ebay today.

While I do agree, Yawgmoth's will is the most bannable card legal at the moment, I'd hate to see what our environment would look like without it.  What would happen to control?  Control Slaver could still do it's job, although, most games just end up leading to a huge will.  Oath would be fine, though the decks it was made to beat have now been made to beat it.  All of the gifts archetypes would more or less diminish, though I guess a more expensive severance belcher stack could  be made.  Landstill would be fine, but who plays that?  It seems almost as though aggro control and workshops could just dominate in the absence of this one card, is that enough of an argument to say this card is powerful enough to ban it or is it an argument enough that it may hold some balance to the format.  I really can't even imagine type one without Yawgmoth's Will.  Maybe some day it may reach a point where it has to be banned because our format has turned into the dice roll format again, but I don't think that day is today nor anytime in the near future. 

Also, it seems that while banning will would make some more cards playable, it would also make some cards alot less playable, such as gifts ungiven.

[dandan]

I'll second that.

Vintage is THE format where you can play with your cards, ALL of your cards.

We can understand why Ante cards are banned (although I recommend using Ante in Sealed Deck leagues - a lot of fun), we can understand why silly cards are banned.

At present there are many cards that we don't use because they are bad, narrow or have better alternatives. We don't use they cards not because we aren't allowed but because we don't want to.

If we start to ban cards because of Power level and effect on other cards/viability of other cards, we are on a slippery slope. Wizards have already made a 'fixed' Vintage - Legacy. Although still in its infancy, it appears to have a far wider card pool and that 'strong but not wrong' feel. Legacy is Vintage with the broken cards/cards that limit the card pool removed. However Vintage will always have a place in Magic. If we are going to use bombs, it is far more fun to throw 25 Megatonne ones than holy hand grenades. But pointing out that 26 Megatonnes is too much and excludes bows and arrows makes global nuclear destruction a dull game.

[Ape]

If we are going to use bombs, it is far more fun to throw 25 Megatonne ones than holy hand grenades. But pointing out that 25 Megatonnes is too much and excludes bows and arrows makes global nuclear destruction a dull game.

Would it be a dull game? Nobody says you have to use your bow and arrows. The point is, unban the 25 Megatonne bomb, and eventually the 20, 17 and 15 Megatonne bombs will be restricted. Ban it, and you will be able to happily throw around some of your 20', 17' and 15' bombs, because there is no need to restrict those anymore.

[JR]

Firstly, it was an excellent, well thought out article that should be commended not only for the points that were brought forth, but also because it was so obviously well documented and researched. While I think most who post on or read this board know what it feels like to be on the losing end of a massive Will, I still don't feel that it deserves to be banned.

The reasons that others have put forth are all note worthy, but I feel that most damning thing about banning Yawg will would be what it does to so many decks. while decks such as 3cc, Slaver and Gifts to some extent could survive through some extensive retooling, any sort of true combo, especially storm based combo, would die a horrid death.

I think we can all agree that the restriction of a card that makes one dominant deck work, such as Gush, is a necessary evil. I would venture to say that it is unfair (Yes, even more unfair than the actual card in question) to hose well over five or six decks irrevocably. It may be true that banning Yawg Will would open the door for unrestrictions, I fail to think of any unrestrictable cards which would help storm based combo, unless of course someone would argue Time Twister would no longer warrant restriction, which is laughable.

In short: Great article, but I tend to disagree with you on this one. Please respond and let me know your thoughts.

JR.

[Shock Wave]

.... an excellent article. I'm not sure where I stand on the issue just yet, but your arguments are very well presented and certainly difficult to refute.

[virtual]

I would hate to see Will go.  Topdecking will kind of embodies everything that Vintage is, all of the good, and all of the bad. 

Type 1 has been about abusing Will for even longer than written in your article.  "Keeper" pretty much just stalled until it "won" the game with it. 


I agree with your sentiment, but is there any other way?  A lot of resistance will be around to banning anything, and possibilities like increasing the minimum # of cards, etc might actually be just as/more healthy for vintage. 

(40 card min is in the rulebook, so 60 seems just about as arbitrary as anything else)

-Virtual

[darkchild]

T1 is about broken stuff, I pretty much won as many games with will as i has lost to it, but I feel that the bottom line is this is T1. Broken stuff happen and we should be able to play with ANY magic cards as long as it does not concern ante or physical tossing. Please keep it that way, thanks!

[racetraitor]

Now I don't have premium so I'm not gonna put forth arguments that have already been brought up, but I want to say that I wholeheartedly agree with Steve on this issue. It's kind of a frustrating thing to argue though, because you often get the "vintage is broken, play type 2 if you don't like it" style answers. That and the notion that Legacy is supposed to be a "fixed" vintage when they are worlds apart. No format with SoLoMoxenCrypt plays anything like others do. And that fundamental part of vintage is what makes Will such an abomination; you have the mana to play virtually every good spell in your graveyard (and getting good spells in it fast isn't really a hard thing to do). Will wins games on the first turn (in storm decks) and on turn 20 (in keeper). It'd have to cost 2-3 times as much to prevent the fast kills from happening.

I also have a hard time seeing the slippery slope argument. It's not like there are a cadre of cards just a notch below Will. IMO it's more like: Will > nothing > nothing > nothing > Tinker > nothing > the rest of the tier1 restricted cards. Banning Will wouldn't mean that the brokenness suddenly dissappeared from Vintage, it would be a surgical move to remove a card that's the equivalent of a blank with "I win the game unless you have a counter" written on it. That's not fun, it's just retarded. And especially when it determines matches with hundreds of dollars on the line, in a sport that tries to reward skill...

[dandan]

Lost many games when you've resolved Bargain or Desire? Probably not. There are many spells in Vinatge that say 'Game over' Can't counter a 3cc Black spell? I guess you just lost to Dragon (at Instant speed) - ban that card?

In a format where the fundamental turn has got lower and lower, isn't Lotus just as big a problem? Any good deck is going to do something brutal with the mana.

Wasn't there serious discussion about banning Academy not so long ago?

Wasn't Library the original 'I win' card?

Just as restriction requires strict criteria, we need to look beyond 'broken' and 'limiting the ability to play certain cards' if we are to give up the title of the format for ALL cards.

[Gabethebabe]

I don´t read premium, but I´d just like to say that I don´t know what is the most abused card at the moment, Will or Tinker.

I see a lot of Colossi lately.

[doylehancock]

I dont like the idea of banning.  There are too many cards that can keep Will in check.  There is a lot of GY hate and some even run it main deck.  I feel banning it is just giving up on trying to find ways to beat a will.  Crypt main owns will alot of the times (ask Atoglord he runs crypt main). 

If they do end up banning more cards I do agree with Steve that Will should be gone but I would be greatly disapointed if they did start banning cards.  I understand Steve doesnt think it will open the flood gates but I disagree.  After seeing 3sphere banned due to whinning online I am worried the flood gates will open once we start banning.

[Dozer]

Steve, an excellent article. Well written, well thought out.

But...

My point is that a world without Yawgmoth's Will would be a far more interesting world because decks would actually have to struggle to execute their strategies.

I believe that is the core argument of your reasonings because it is the only one that actually answers the question "why should we not want Yawgmoth's Will"? (For the record and in a nutshell, the other arguments are "restriction did not stop Will", "deck development focuses too much on Will" and "Will will cause more restrictions".)

The problem that I have with the argument is that I believe the banning threshold needs to be much higher than just "making the format more interesting". It is not the case that Vintage is not interesting right now, in fact it's right the opposite. There is a huge variety of successful decks (counting Fish variants), a lot of openings for metagaming and less stone-set wisdom than ever. Top 8's are not consisting of eight decks running Will with their only goal being the resolution of that spell. And there is still all that GY hate out there. Playing against a Tormod's Crypt, for example, is skill intensive even if you have Needle available.

I am not against bannings in general, when applied with extreme care and consideration. And I can definitely see the advantages of banning Will, to wit: less randomness, more diversity in strategies, and more relevance of playskill. If you don't have to fear a topdecked Yawgmoth's Will anymore, you can hold on to small advantages far better than otherwise. What's the point of winning a game in the proverbial inches when your opponent can just take one small step for a man, but a giant leap to winning?

In fact, I'd probably rejoice after a banning of Will. But I don't see it happening, because the power level of Will is not reflected in the decks that we build. Not even Gifts, which is the deck currently most focused on Will, manages to really break it. Gifts needs Will only for the Tendrils kill, but not for the Tinker kill (thanks, Recoup!). Sure, it makes it easier, but it is not needed. I call on our trusty Vintage Supercomputer Phil Stanton to show us the numbers. Is Will really the most dominating card in Vintage, and is it so abundant and so much relied on and can only be beaten by itself that it needs to be banned? Because that is the criteria I see applying for a banning:

* appearance in (almost) every deck, to the point that the decks run Black only for Will (+ DT)
* so powerful that in order to beat it, you have to run it yourself
* most decks in the format, of different varieties, rely on it for their kill, not just for support

Just making the format better is an alluring temptation, but that's just not enough to actually remove a card from Magic. And please remember that Yawgmoth's Will is not even banned in Urza Block Constructed. If a card is not powerful enough to get banned in its own Block, I don't think it should be gone from all other formats.

Dozer

[Tanadan]

Steve: is there any way for non-premium people to read this? Or is that illegal?

[cssamerican]

If we are going to use bombs, it is far more fun to throw 25 Megatonne ones than holy hand grenades. But pointing out that 25 Megatonnes is too much and excludes bows and arrows makes global nuclear destruction a dull game.

Would it be a dull game? Nobody says you have to use your bow and arrows. The point is, unban the 25 Megatonne bomb, and eventually the 20, 17 and 15 Megatonne bombs will be restricted. Ban it, and you will be able to happily throw around some of your 20', 17' and 15' bombs, because there is no need to restrict those anymore.

This idea gets thrown around a lot, ban Yawgmoth's Will or Tolarian Academy and the DCI can unrestrict X amount of cards. Unfortunately I don't believe that would happen because it takes an act of Congress to get anything unrestricted, and when a card finally does get unrestricted it isn't even playable anymore, much less broken.

This is also the reason why I am against banning. If the DCI starts banning cards it will be impossible to get things unbanned. I know this seems like a stupid argument. But I watch Trinisphere get restricted without tournament dominance due to the fact people didn't like it, and now I am seeing one of the most prominent vintage voices call for Yawgmoth's Will banning without tournament dominance. I am against any actions that aren't backed up by tournament dominance for a set amount of time, simply because the DCI's actions are so permanent.

I would rather see the DCI unrestrict cards like Regrowth, Fact or Fiction, and Entomb one at a time for a period of 90 days to see if they are still restriction worthy than to see the DCI permanently kill more cards. If the DCI took on a policy that rotated in a restricted card every 90 days to test if it is still worthy of the title, I would be much more willing to restrict or ban certain offenders because I would at least feel that there would be a chance that the card could come off that list at a later date. Not to mention this would shake the format up and create a vintage rotation, which in itself would be kinda cool.

[dandan]

Besides which, a format with two good colours may appear unbalanced but changing that to one good colour could be seem as a bad move.

[rvs]

Hooray for Steve! Could you write the same thing about Tinker please?

[Dzy]

@ 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. They didn't ban Artifact land and Disciple + Ravager in block neither, only in Type 2 because it appeared everywhere, just like in block, but they didn't want to admit they were wrong for printing cranial plating. When they had no choice they banned ravager and disciple + lands. Without broken cards around, Will isn't as insane as it is in current vintage. We all know that Will isn't as insane in decks like Sui and Rotten Fish. Some builds cut him, and I agree. The Urza block decks in the later stages look a lot like those decks. You can obviously go broken lategame, even in block, with like 3 dark rituals and returning skirge and plaguelords. But Will needs other broken cards to combine with, like lotus, recall and time walk. If they ban Will, they will be able to unrestrict other things, not sure which, but most broken spells are even more broken if you can play them ALL twice because of will.

[Carthain]

I'll second that.

Vintage is THE format where you can play with your cards, ALL of your cards.

I'm not quite sure how people can make that claim and think it sounds anything but just amusing.  Look at the poor ol' Chaos Orb.

We can understand why Ante cards are banned (although I recommend using Ante in Sealed Deck leagues - a lot of fun), we can understand why silly cards are banned.

See? You yourself show that you know that your first part is untrue.

And if they ban Yawg Will, you will also know why they did it.

If we start to ban cards because of Power level and effect on other cards/viability of other cards, we are on a slippery slope.

Except, that would be what Steve already addressed in his article (counterpoint #2 IIRC).  There is no slippery slope becasue currently no other card behaves the same way when restricted.  Restricting Yawg Will doesn't significantly reduce it's power -- but every other card restriced does behave that way.

[Godder]

Yawgmoth's Will and Bargain weren't broken in type two at the time, either. They both require lots of fast mana to be broken, hence why they're two of the most powerful cards in Vintage.

In any case, Will is awesome and all, but the day they printed Recoup was the day the restricted list died. Gifts breaks it even more, but Intuition + Recoup does most of the same things, as well.

[Dr. Sylvan]

(number of copies per Top 8 by month)
Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, O-N, D-J, Feb, Mar, Apr, M-J.
_2.3, _2.1, _4.0, _2.9, _3.3, _3.1, _3.6, _5.0, _4.6, _3.9 Tinker
_3.7, _3.1, _3.6, _3.4, _2.0, _3.6, _3.1, _4.3, _4.3, _2.9 Yawgmoth's Will (probably it's actually 3.0 due to a missing Tog list)

Without complete logs of every game played, it's impossible to know whether one thing or another is causing the wins. Steve's point is admittedly ill-timed with the Fish explosion, but I think the pressure for this has been building since forever. I wrote my first Type One article on this same topic: http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=6019

I wholeheartedly support banning Will and Tinker. I suspect that whether you agree or not depends on your vision of the format. If you have T1 in your head defined as "all the cards", you will instinctively say that banning should not happen. To me T1 is defined as the format with the Power Nine and their unique habitat, the restricted list. In this view, other cards are not sacred, and should be restricted or banned as needed to make the P9 format more tolerable. The P9 are the 800-pound gorilla of every discussion about this format. The format should be designed to enable a reasonable level of fairness to coexist with such ridiculous acceleration.

[Moridar]

Why not have someone at the Chicago SCG Type 1 have a data sheet to record the number of times YW wins you the game when playing.  You write down what you were playing and playing against and the number of times in the match YW won the game.

Wayne

[JamesPr]

Why couldn't they just errata Yawgmoth's Will to only play a set number of cards before banning it? That to me would make a whole lot more sense.

[Philatio]

 Â    I'd like to bring up something about point #3: namely that "Yawgmoth's Will is Inevitably Going to Cause More Restrictions".

I think this is all fine and good if we can someday look at the restricted list and say "Wow, look at this list - a significant number of these cards are restricted JUST because they find/interact with Yawgmoth's Will."  Maybe at THAT point, we might want to consider it.  If we decide to ban Will NOW, I think that should be the case NOW.

But is that the case now?  I can think of more cards that are restricted because of their interaction with Academy than I can with Will.  It looks like Crop Rotation, Frantic Search, Mind Over Matter, and possibly Time Spiral are on the list just because they find or untap Academy.  One of these likely deserve unrestriction as-is; I'd say another would be safe to unrestrict if Academy were banned.

But what about Will?  Sure, Demonic Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Personal Tutor, Imperial Seal, and Vampiric Tutor find it, and Wheel, Windfall, Lion's Eye Diamond and Jar have favorable interactions with it, but they are on the list of their own merit.  Could the same be true of Grim Tutor, which you expect to get restricted?  I don't think a SINGLE card on the restricted list other than Personal Tutor and Burning Wish are restricted solely for their ability to get Will (and Pernsonal Tutor is really an unknown at this point).  Personal Tutor can also get Tinker.  Burning Wish can also get Balance, Timetwister, Mind's Desire, Tinker, Time Spiral and assorted tools - even without Will, maybe some uninvented combo deck exists that would still be able to abuse 4 copies of Burning Wish.

Maybe we are approaching a "singularity" in Vintage.  In General Relativity, they call a singularity the center of a black hole - where gravity has compressed everything to a single point in space.  In Vintage, that singularity could be when the format collapses under its own weight and we're forced to play with "singular" copies of everything - ie the restricted list comprises all or nearly all playable cards.  When that happens, I wouldn't be surprised some of them are JUST there because of Yawgmoth's Will.

It's a bleak future for the format, but right now, Will doesn't have a distorting effect on our List.  I probably agree with you, but I think the time for banning lies in the future.

[Polynomial P]

Steve, I really enjoyed the article and find it fascinating that you are a supporter of banning Yawg Will when you (and your team) have found numerous ways to break it over the last few years. I've played control slaver alot recently and done quite well with it thanks to Will. Most games I dont even slaver once, but instead set up a mid-game will with so much broken stuff in the yard. I rarely even tutor for it, but instead I try to draw into it opting to tutor for recall instead most games. Will has won me games I should have lost so many times. I hope Will is not banned, but if it does get the axe I would hardly complain.

If will was banned outright, how do you think the metagame would shape up? How would you try to break the format since the card your team has repeatedly abused would no longer be available?

[Whatever Works]

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.