[Premium Article] Fine, Just Ban it Already

[Summit]

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

What is your "sufficient" amount?  Does it need to be as conditional as say necro is now?  or as strong but not stronger than Black Lotus?

I agree with you that Will is so good that even only one copy is too much but that is because of what the card does.  The fundamental rule in the game that Will breaks upon resolving it.  The problem with your argument against is that we all want to know how far you believe it needs to be "restricted". Because of the fundamental rule that it breaks the only way to completely eliminate what it does is to ban it but my question I pose for all of the proponents of Bannination is this:
Does the fundamental rule breaking ability that a resolved Yawgmoth's Will really warp the format to the point that the decks in our format are strictly of 2 kinds? (Those being ones that MUST resolve a Will in order to win and Those that stop that Will in order to win).

I believe that no, that is not the case.  Sure it is abused (its SOOOO easy to abuse) but not the extent in every game that it justifies Bannination.
If the fundamental rule wasn't so annoying like other rules that are broken by powerful cards (free spells, free mana, cheap draw) it wouldn't have such a big red target marked on it. Not to mention in most circles a silver border and a golden cracked egg!

To some players there are other cards that break fundamental rules that are even more annoying than Yawg Win.  Think about how rule breaking these cards are:

Mana Drain (counter and free mana)
Workshop (3 lands (mana) in one turn and unlike Lotus doesn't go away)
Balance (Land destruction, Mind Twist, wrath of god all for 1W)

Now I would argue that these cards are just as annoying to the format as Will but the difference is that Will can end a game the minute its played by enabling all the cards in your yard but these spells only setup huge game swings.  So is it the level of game swing that we need to measure against for Bannination?  If so then Tinker unlike what you have suggested would fit this criteria.

And also, as has been said IT IS THE dominant strategy in Vintage and is not affected by restriction.  I believe that it is A dominant strategy not THE dominant one, and isn't format warping due to Vintage's extreme take on the efficient use of every possible broken card that helps create huge game swings.

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

I disagree that the Development of Vintage has been to Maximize the abuse of Will but I do agree that Advancements in Vintage have made Will more central.

I counter that development wasn't strictly "what can I put together with Will in order to abuse its ability" but instead "what can I build into my deck that will allow Will to help me win in a stalemate or topdeck situation."  Eventually it has become a central part of decks, but I believe that is only through the trial and error that has been vintage deck building.  I would counter that Will is a great addition to a powerful deck, not a powerful deck that needs great additions.  The same is said about every card on the restricted list except the P9 (OK maybe not Twister) where in the P9 are a great deck waiting for great additions. (0k so I cheated by using 9 cards to compare to 1 but realistically I think Wills fundamental rule that it breaks can be directly matched to all the P9 cards and still the P9 because they are used together are a better corner stone to a deck than Will is.

(3) Yawgmoth's Will is Inevitably Going to Cause More Restrictions.

I can't disagree with you on this one but as JP said:

Speaking purely hypothetically, to me the only situation I can see where you would need to ban a card because no restrictions can possibly work would be if the far and away "best deck" were a combo deck (what turn it kills is irrelevant) which consists of 4 Gemstone Mine, 4 City of Brass, 4 Brainstorm, 4 Force of Will, and 44 unique restricted cards

So in conclusion I agree with you on the fact that even one copy of Will is powerful, but then again only one copy of Lotus is powerful.  I also agree that the fundamental rule that Will breaks is greater than any other card that currently exists, but I contend that it is so conditional on how your deck is built that the format is not warped to an unhealthy extent (at this point) by Will and anti Will decks. I also agree that the game swing provided by Wills fundamental rule breaking is the strongest in a single turn but that in itself cannot win games without other game swinging cards.  I disagree that the Development of Vintage has been to Maximize the abuse of Will but I do agree that Advancements in Vintage have made Will more central to deck construction.  Is it fair that we allow Will to be as central to deck construction as we allow the P9 and even Mana Drain and Workshop to be central to deck construction?  I believe yes as long as the environment is still healthy - Which it is!  Lastly, I give you that Yawgmoth's Will is Inevitably Going to Cause More Restrictions.  But is this really a comparable problem to the P9?  the P9 themselves will inevitably cause more restrictions so I don't really see your point other than saying that cards will be restricted based upon previous cards creation (thus is the problem with a format where nothing rotates out...you will inevitably find problematic card interactions).  Essentially your arguments are correct, but I believe they are not timely.  When the format is so warped that the only solution to repair it is to Ban Will then I believe your arguments will ring true to all ears.  Until then everyone is just going to say your "opinion" is not a fair argument.  when the time comes your opinion will be seen as fact because everyone will share it.

[Dralock]

I am sorry, this post is going to be short, because my point goes right to the root of the argument.

I do not see the point of banning will. The format as it stands gives people the ability to play without will and still win (see waterbury, SCG Rochester, and all other tournaments with top8 decks that did NOT include yawgs will.)

The only question that is relevant when thinking of banning a card is:

Do you either have to play with it or against it to win?

I believe that the history of will does not matter, neither does its power as a bomb in a deck. The only thing that is relevant, is if will is such a threat to everyone that you have to dedicate maindeck slots to preventing it in order to survive.

Is will going to be in just about every deck that has black, of course. Are people going to splash black for will and will alone? No, they are going to take demonic tutor and possibly even vampiric tutor in the splash as well. Does this mean that without will people would still be splashing black? Most likely not. Contradiction? Not really.

Can you build an entire deck around will and expect to win? Well, with new tutors that are coming out that give you card advantage anyway, yes, I do believe that you can build an entire deck reliant on will alone. But how has this changed anything in maindeck or sideboarding slots for decks that do not incorporate will in to its gameplan?

Dragon, slaver (non-goth), reanimator (scrubby, but definitely abusive), threshold, sex.dec and a host of others that will eventually show up at a tournament. Will is a minor roll in these decks, as they all abuse the grave anyway. So hate has to be taken in to account for each of these, even if will isn't considered.

So we all run Tormod's Crypt, phyrexian furnace, coffin purge, etc. I believe we would be running these cards anyway, so will is not really changing the card selection when creating a deck that does not use it as far as maindeck or sideboard slots go.

Will this change after this weekend? Possibly. I think the issue will need to be addressed come Sunday when the results are in and we can see what a metagamed field with a deck that abuses will to the extreme (gifts) enters heavy play.

summary: Will is a bomb. So what?

[Smmenen]

I promised two weeks ago that I'd respond to all of the comments in this thread.  But I'm not sure what the utility of that is.

This thread has had some decent articulate posts, but it also has had too many emotional and rude posts (Rico's for instance was fairly dismissive without good reason) and many more simply irrational.  I misfired in terms of timing.  I said that I had been working on this for six months, but the truth is that I started this article last summer when I was writing a comprehensive analysis of the restricted list that I later abandoned and kept this snippit in which later became the full article.

I'm sure that in the future the time will be ripe to make this argument again, but for now it does nothing but just make people angry.  It seems like the great weight of opinion is against me and it doesn't make matters easier that only premium members can read my articles (I have NO idea why the issues article is premium - I still haven't found out). 

I beleive that I can continue to articulate a strong, coherent and logical position behind restricting will, but I'm not sure that anyone, including myself, can engage in a debate here that is entirely rational-based and not at all bringing in emotions and opinions on the matter.  I'll raise this again when the time is ripe, and I promise to answer the counter-arguments that people have brought up here. 

Before I wrote this article I spent some time in IRC a couple of months ago soliciting counterarguments to my arguments so that I could preemptively rebut them.  I think I was pretty effective at rebutting some of them and so they weren't raised, but there are some new ones to fill the breach.  Since isn't really a pressing issue and since there are so many other matters to talk about at the moment and write about, I'lll move this to the backburner until the point when there isn't much going on or the issue comes to the fore of its own accord.  Fair? 

[Yare]

Since [this] isn't really a pressing issue and since there are so many other matters to talk about at the moment and write about, I'lll move this to the backburner until the point when there isn't much going on or the issue comes to the fore of its own accord. Fair?

I don't know that it could have been said better.  I think maybe a few months (or years) down the road this should be hashed out again.  For now, however, I think everything that needs to be said has been said.

If nothing else, I suppose we have started to lay some kind of groundwork for banning (although whether banning is even something we want, obviously, has been contested).

[kl0wn]

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

How? If Lotus, Walk, Ancestral and LED were banned, how would Will be much more than slightly better than Thirst For Knowledge? Especially early on in the game, when not only do you need 2B to cast it AS A SORCERY, but you also need whatever mana it costs to cast any of the spells out of your graveyard that you want. Yes, multiple Rituals would make it very good but barring any stupid hands, how likely is it that someone's going to get more than 2 Rituals without a bunch of draw and whatnot? And even then, if combo is going to rock a bunch of Draw-Sevens into them, most likely they would have found a tutor to fetch Will with anyway. But you also have to take into consideration that they wouldn't have access to Lotus, Walk (not so much Walk in combo though), Ancestral and LED to grease their card and mana generation.

If will were unrestricted, it would be used for smaller effects earlier in the game.

Which makes it close to Three Wishes from Visions since you still have to pay additional mana for card advantage in addition to the 2B mainphase.

Even if you dont play lotus walk ancestral off it is still a damn good card, and in combo decks it is ridiculous since you get all the mana acceleration out of the yard.

Since we're functioning under the assumption that LED and Lotus are banned and Moxes don't die when you use them, I'll assume you mean Rituals and 1 Lotus Petal. So you'd need like 3 Rituals in the yard to cross the "truly broken" threshold, but that only produces black mana anyway, so you'd have to have a Tendrils in the yard too. Which stil makes it very conditional.

Restricted, it is uber powerful because everyone saves it until it is as fat as possible. Unrestricted, however, you wouldn't have to save it, and you could use it multiple times per game, getting perhaps only a little mana and 2-3 spells off it. That is still broken as fuck and the card would be monstrous unrestricted.

Two or three spells for at least 6 mana at sorcery speed isn't "broken as fuck". If it were, we'd all be playing Concentration.

[jpmeyer]

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

I think there might be a corollary to the idea that "Will is only as good as good in the cards in your deck" (which it is) with "Will turns the cards that are already in your deck into win conditions".

[glacial-blue]

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

How? If Lotus, Walk, Ancestral and LED were banned, how would Will be much more than slightly better than Thirst For Knowledge? Especially early on in the game, when not only do you need 2B to cast it AS A SORCERY, but you also need whatever mana it costs to cast any of the spells out of your graveyard that you want. Yes, multiple Rituals would make it very good but barring any stupid hands, how likely is it that someone's going to get more than 2 Rituals without a bunch of draw and whatnot? And even then, if combo is going to rock a bunch of Draw-Sevens into them, most likely they would have found a tutor to fetch Will with anyway. But you also have to take into consideration that they wouldn't have access to Lotus, Walk (not so much Walk in combo though), Ancestral and LED to grease their card and mana generation.

If will were unrestricted, it would be used for smaller effects earlier in the game.

Which makes it close to Three Wishes from Visions since you still have to pay additional mana for card advantage in addition to the 2B mainphase.

Even if you dont play lotus walk ancestral off it is still a damn good card, and in combo decks it is ridiculous since you get all the mana acceleration out of the yard.

Since we're functioning under the assumption that LED and Lotus are banned and Moxes don't die when you use them, I'll assume you mean Rituals and 1 Lotus Petal. So you'd need like 3 Rituals in the yard to cross the "truly broken" threshold, but that only produces black mana anyway, so you'd have to have a Tendrils in the yard too. Which stil makes it very conditional.

Restricted, it is uber powerful because everyone saves it until it is as fat as possible. Unrestricted, however, you wouldn't have to save it, and you could use it multiple times per game, getting perhaps only a little mana and 2-3 spells off it. That is still broken as fuck and the card would be monstrous unrestricted.

Two or three spells for at least 6 mana at sorcery speed isn't "broken as fuck". If it were, we'd all be playing Concentration.

Rather than going into detail about all of these arguments, I'd like to point out the truly devestating impact that Long.dec was as it was proclaiming a turn 1 win ration of upwards of 60%.  AND that was with Will be restricted AND one of the primary targets of burning wish WAS 'will'.  With Will being unrestricted we would all go nuts for combo as it saves BB 1 colorless mana in the form of death wishing for will unless absolutely necessary *assuming you had 3 will main 1 board*  AND even if you didn't particularly need Will for that game, that just means you'd win turn one anyways. 

As to the other argument about Will being only as powerful as LED and Black Lotus and Ancestral recall... i do believe that this has already been discussed in this thread.  but, even beyond the idea that will turns your graveyard into win conditions it also can give you the boost necessary to win *for example yawgmoth's will for a mox or two that was destoryed to get the mana boost necessary to go off next turn, or even to just replay stp's and some basic draw as in old style keeper to merely get card advantage over the opponent*.  In reality, the purpose of will is truly dependant upon the focus of your deck and trying to compare it to thirst for knowledge and other cards with similar casting costs is unfair b/c Will generally has a different purpose than those cards b/c it isn't 1 sided.  Its like trying to say that thirst for knowledge should be used in death long for card advantage purposes to help it go off turn one...  it just doesn't work.

(3) Yawgmoth's Will is Inevitably Going to Cause More Restrictions.

I can't disagree with you on this one but as JP said:


Quote
Speaking purely hypothetically, to me the only situation I can see where you would need to ban a card because no restrictions can possibly work would be if the far and away "best deck" were a combo deck (what turn it kills is irrelevant) which consists of 4 Gemstone Mine, 4 City of Brass, 4 Brainstorm, 4 Force of Will, and 44 unique restricted cards

So in conclusion I agree with you on the fact that even one copy of Will is powerful, but then again only one copy of Lotus is powerful.  I also agree that the fundamental rule that Will breaks is greater than any other card that currently exists, but I contend that it is so conditional on how your deck is built that the format is not warped to an unhealthy extent (at this point) by Will and anti Will decks.

I don't think it has to go that far.  In fact, I don't think ANY deck could ever go that far unless it were some amazing combo deck that won 75% of the time turn 1 *not even sure then b/c you don't get to go first 50% of the time and it would depend on how well the deck dealt with hate at that point*  I think that the format really is Will decks v.s. anti-will decks.  We just happen to be in a swing currently as the meta-game is shifting rapidly.  When you look at it, Will decks tend to be the most powerful decks in the format *based upon pure power*... look at gifts and friends.  Then we have anti-will decks that attempt to disrupt that plan aka... fish, stax, and so on.  with enough hate, any card in vintage can be destroyed.  If we all started running 4 crypts, 4 planar voids, etc... and 1 win condition, then will would pretty much be shut down.  but that leaves that deck open to other decks *such as FCG* to come in and steal a victory.  The reason is because everyone starts playing the anti-will deck, and then decks that beat the anti-will deck *aka the anti-anti-will deck* becomes popular.  Once that becomes the main choice then the will deck comes back into play.  In other words, Will decks really are shaping the format it just depends on how much so based upon current meta-game shifts.

This implies that the environment can never become unhealthy unless in the form of extreme combo.  Even 4 gush gat could have been effectively hated out, but it would become the deck to go back to rather than gifts.dec or w/e other deck is presumed to be dominant in today's format.  This puts into question y restrict ANY card that doesn't impact combo directly? cards such as trinisphere even, gush, etc... all CAN be hated out, but ultimately the question is do we LIKE those decks being number one. 

[kl0wn]

Rather than going into detail about all of these arguments, I'd like to point out the truly devestating impact that Long.dec was as it was proclaiming a turn 1 win ration of upwards of 60%.  AND that was with Will be restricted AND one of the primary targets of burning wish WAS 'will'.  With Will being unrestricted we would all go nuts for combo as it saves BB 1 colorless mana in the form of death wishing for will unless absolutely necessary *assuming you had 3 will main 1 board*  AND even if you didn't particularly need Will for that game, that just means you'd win turn one anyways. 

Thanks, I really needed it pointed out to me how Long performed. It was a little fuzzy until you clarified it. You've really put things in perspective for me. I wasn't playing Type 1 when Long was running rampant, nor was I playing Long when it was legal and I really needed to have it spelled out.

All sarcasm aside though, without Lotus and LED, where are you getting the mana to do all this on the first turn?

In reality, the purpose of will is truly dependant upon the focus of your deck and trying to compare it to thirst for knowledge and other cards with similar casting costs is unfair b/c Will generally has a different purpose than those cards b/c it isn't 1 sided.  Its like trying to say that thirst for knowledge should be used in death long for card advantage purposes to help it go off turn one...  it just doesn't work.

Huuuuuuh? Will IS one-sided. It gives you access to more cards than you would otherwise have if you were just drawing one card per turn and had no recursion.

Basically, it's like this:

Hypothetical A (Will):
You have the following cards in your graveyard: Brainstorm, fetchland, Swords to Plowshares.
You cast Will.
You may now, until the end of the turn, cast Brainstorm, play your land and cast Swords.

Hypothetical B (Concentration):
You cast Concentration.
You draw the following cards: Brainstorm, fetchland, Swords to Plowshares.
You may now, at your leisure, cast Brainstorm, play your land and cast Swords.

Pros and Cons of Will:
+ You've already had the benefit of using these cards and you get the benefit again.
+ Because you're not playing the cards from your hand, you gain more card advantage.
- You have to cast all of the spells during your main phase to get their full benefit, most likely tapping out.

Pros and cons of Concentration:
+ You get to play the cards you drew at your leisure, when you need them.
+ You do not have to use the cards you drew THAT turn.
- Playing the cards you drew costs you card advantage.

Both cards provide the same effect: resource advantage. Will provides more at the cost of flexibility and tempo (you have to cast instants as sorceries to benefit).

Now as far as this "comboing out on turn 1" thing goes, I would like to see you come up with 10 spells, the mana to cast them, 4BBB for Will and Tendrils and a Force + blue card to prevent your Will from being countered on the first turn with any kind of consistency. Without Ancestral, Lotus and LED.

You have a 7 card hand, one of which is your land drop, a Jet or a Lotus Petal, so that's 6 cards. You need a Force and a blue card that you don't need to cast as well, so that's 4 cards. No Lotus, no LED, no Ancestral. What are your 4 cards (that you can get with any kind of CONSISTENCY) going to be that will win you the game?

If you find the answer to this question, I will pick up my dollies and go home.

However, this whole arguement is retarded because the comment in question (ban Lotus, LED and Ancestral to unrestrict Will) wasn't at all serious. My point was and still is that before we ban Will, we should look at restricting the enablers that get all those juicy Willbreakers in the graveyard and hand.

And for the record, Will doesn't turn all the cards in your deck into win conditions; cast Will with a graveyard full of Ornithopters and then try to argue that point.

[Summit]

glacial-blue said:

I think that the format really is Will decks v.s. anti-will decks.  We just happen to be in a swing currently as the meta-game is shifting rapidly.  When you look at it, Will decks tend to be the most powerful decks in the format *based upon pure power*... look at gifts and friends.  Then we have anti-will decks that attempt to disrupt that plan aka... fish, stax, and so on.

OK, I agree mostly with Steve's arguments but yours is strictly conjecture and opinion with loose ends and no facts.  Frankly its asinine to say the format is Will vs. Anti Will without describing what in the "Anti Will" decks IS ANTI WILL? Unless you are meaning mana control in which case it isn't anti Will just because Will can abuse cheap mana!  It is an Anti Mana strategy that just happens to work against a deck that is trying to use Will to abuse cheap mana.  Ill give you that Chalice and Rods hurts Will's strategy, but it also hurts any deck that plans on playing a bunch of 0 and 1 CC cards.  The decks you describe have a strategy that isn't distinctly meant to disrupt an opponent from casting a Will (it just happens to work well at it).  Those strategies are anti MANA DRAIN DECKS!!!!!  They are essentially anti Blue control.  When I see Fish play 2-4 main deck Extracts Ill know its anti-Will.  The truth is that "Will Decks" as you call them don't necessarily need to resolve a Will in order to win because they have other broken effects already built into them (they're fundamental rule breaking just isn't as detestable to most players) that will win on their own (unless its combo but we all know how successful that has been as of late).
Until then you need to support your words with numbers or cards or something, just don't spout off.  This rapid shift you are talking about also does not exist.  You do know that Gifts decks were around last year don't you?  You also know that 3Sphere is what kept combo in check because it forced all spells to be paid for.  Wills fundamental rule breaking is for lots of broken stuff to be played in one single turn (YOU NEED MANA FOR THIS!).  If anything the restriction of 3sphere was the biggest move in removing a potential Will vs Anti-Will meta-game.  I also know that the Mana Drain decks were the most successful at avoiding the hurt that 3sphere but on a combo deck, that is why combo control evolved...need mana and can't recur your mana artifacts?  Just play a broken ass counter spell and BAMM instant game swing.  Now, I challenge you to tell me why Will was so influential in the past 6 months of tournament play and then do so without a decklist that had the following cards in the deck:

Mana Drain
Trinisphere
Chalice of the Void
Mishras Workshop
Recoup

You may find a few but you wont find enough numbers to justify a warped meta or a rapidly evolving meta due to Yawgmoths Will.  The changes are probably due to 3sphere's restriction, Orloves Fish, and the main stay that is stax.  Yes, Gifts decks are there too, but not to the number that other decks cannot handle them.  And, might I mention, that in all of the decks that are even considered for play anymore you can still play Aggro, Control, and Combo!  Now, if Rock Paper Scissors isn't a healthy environment Ive been playing a different game then yall have for the last 9 years.

[Dozer]

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

Steve, this argument is backed up by nothing but logic. But pure logic doesn't hold a candle to results, and results are what makes people cry against a card. I agree to a lot of the arguments in your article, but they don't add up to a case for banning. They demonstrate the singularity of Will in Vintage, and elevate that card on the pedestal of "best card ever". So in theory, Will is unhealthy for the format. In real life, it isn't.

You (appearently) apply very different criteria for banning than almost everybody else. That something should be gone on principle is not a reason to make it go away for real! Abusing Will is one of many strategies in Vintage. If it was the only really good one, the results must show this. They do not.
The one deck that is currently most reliant on Will is Gifts. We will see how Gifts fares in Chicago this weekend. My prediction is that Gifts will not dominate as it should if Will really was the best strategy. (And "a very good one" is not the same as "the best one". In fact, I expect 1-2 Gifts decks in the T8, and a maximum of 20%, maybe 25% of the field running it. Nothing to worry about.)

I know that you are likely to answer "but without Will, the format could develop further!". Well, that's true. But the format develops, or evolves, even while Will is around. The prize of a card going completely away is not worth accelerated format development. Only if evolution stalls around one single restricted card, and you can't step anywhere without running headlong into it, is a banning in order. This is not the case with Will. Maybe it should be, according to the theory -- but in real life, it isn't. (Yet.)


As for glacial-blue's comments:

Then we have anti-will decks that attempt to disrupt that plan aka... fish, stax, and so on.

You are quite stretching it when you classify every deck that does not run Will as an anti-Will deck. I can see where that conclusion comes from, but I cannot agree to it. The strategies that are presented by Stax and Fish (WTF, U/W, Vial or Rod) are based on resource denial. This is anti-Will only by splash damage, or to the extent that decks that rely on Will need a lot of resources (which these decks try to cut). You can even make the case the other way around: Control decks need resources, and Stax et al. prevent that from happening, so control decks need a boost that can surpass the resource denial: Yawgmoth's Will. That view is as valid as yours when you start making really broad assumptions.

In other words, Will decks really are shaping the format it just depends on how much so based upon current meta-game shifts.

How can you say something like that straight-faced? This is like saying "it's windy because the wind blows". It is such a generic statement that you can apply it to any deck that wins a tournament, or in fact to any deck. The back-and-forth in the metagame you tried to summarize with the statement is not a case for banning Will, either. It shows instead how Will decks, and any other decks, are being handled by the metagame. Only once those shifts become impossible (example: the Tinker season in Extended) steps need to be taken.

Dozer

[PucktheCat]

The decks you describe have a strategy that isn't distinctly meant to disrupt an opponent from casting a Will (it just happens to work well at it).  Those strategies are anti MANA DRAIN DECKS!!!!!

I think you are completely wrong about this.  I played Gay/r quite a bit last summer.  At that time the format's key matchup was Fish v. Hulk.  Null Rod was a key card in that matchup, but why was that so?  It certainly wasn't to prevent casting Mana Drain, because artifact mana rarely powers a Drain (because it is off-color for the most part).  What's more, Rod was actually a liability against Mana Drain because it was, along with Standstill, one of only a very few cards that made a relatively juicy target for Drain.  It wasn't the Drain itself the deck was fighting, at least not with Null Rod, it was something that was played only (or mostly) after 2nd turn and cost a lot of colorless mana.

What was that?  Intuition -> AK?  This certainly was a consideration, but I would argue that the real reason for Null Rod was Yawg. Will.  I know for a fact that when I played a Null Rod after 3rd turn or so in that deck the best reason to do so, in my mind, was Yawg. Will.  And, in fact, hosing Intuition -> AK was an essential part of slowing down a game winning Will.  If Null Rod stopped only Will it would have been to easy for the Tog deck to play around it or bounce it then win.

I think that Null Rod is the best Yawg. Will hoser in the game because it stops the cards that stock the grave (Gifts, Intuition) as well as the actual Yawg. Will itself.  It is better than Extract because it has some effect on the game right away and doesn't amount to a mulligan.  And, of course, it isn't hard to see that Null Rod or Chalice have become essential cards in virtually every competitive deck that doesn't run Yawgmoth's Will (and some that do).

I am far from convinced that Will should be banned, although Steve's arguments certainly have some merit, but I think people vastly underestimate the role Will has in shaping the format.  People argue that Mana Drain is the reason T1 mana curves are so tight.  The argument is a bit reductive, since the rules of the game certainly provide a strong incentive to play low cc spells on their without any need to look to specific cards, but I think a plausible argument can be made for Will's role in shaping mana curves as well.  First of all, it is clear that Yawg. Will rewards players who fill their decks with cheap spells.  Everyone knows that Brainstorm is a great card to have in your grave on a Will while Fact or Fiction is decidely mediocre.  In addition Will encourages a large amount of mana hate (because that is the only effective way to prevent a game winning Will) and that mana hate forces decks to be prepared to play a whole game with only a couple of mana.

Leo

[Summit]

I think you are completely wrong about this.  I played Gay/r quite a bit last summer.  At that time the format's key match up was Fish v. Hulk.  Null Rod was a key card in that match up, but why was that so?  It certainly wasn't to prevent casting Mana Drain, because artifact mana rarely powers a Drain (because it is off-color for the most part).  What's more, Rod was actually a liability against Mana Drain because it was, along with Standstill, one of only a very few cards that made a relatively juicy target for Drain.  It wasn't the Drain itself the deck was fighting, at least not with Null Rod, it was something that was played only (or mostly) after 2nd turn and cost a lot of colorless mana.

Perhaps I should have made myself a little more clear, but I thought I didn't have to list the fact that Fish is an Aggro deck.  Its the Aggro inherent in Fish that races Mana Drain and Will both.  Yes, Null Rod was in there but it was for Mana Denial or Resource Denial...whatever you want to call it.  The same can be said now of Vial and Chalice.  Vial is not in there to avoid Will its in there to avoid Drain and FOW. 

Null Rod/Vial and Chalice are not an auto include because they are Anti-Will cards, but because they are tempo cards that race Control.  Did everyone really think to themselves..."I need me some Null Rods/Vials/Chalice's to stop stupid tricks with Will" because, if they did thats just absurd when you consider that Extract targets Will directly and is much more effective at removing it as a threat than Null Rod or Chalice is.

Null Rod/Chalice are more rounded cards that force decks that play a vast majority of artifact mana to use lands only(I know they both also do a whole lot more ie.. slaver, one drops etc).  The fact that Chalice/Null Rod diminishes the plans of combo/Will is just icing on the cake.  That is why Fish is so successful because it is so robust a deck.  The fact that Fish also runs Wastelands most of the time is more than evident that its goal is to stop artifact mana, play efficient tempo creatures and waste non-basics (because non-basics are always going to be a staple in everything that isn't mono blue).  Fish is a tempo deck that wants to out race the other decks of the format.  It is just a matter of executing its plan that it also hits Will. 

Sorry I wasn't more clear in that explanation previous.

[glacial-blue]

Sorry in advance... this is a long post but I hope it helps clarify the points i made earlier...

All sarcasm aside though, without Lotus and LED, where are you getting the mana to do all this on the first turn?

Idk... you tell me.  With dark rituals, cabal rituals, chromatic sphere's and darkwater egg's running around *granted the last two don't really net you mana but they still provide cheap draw which decks such as meandeck tendril's abuse to overcome your "only have 7 card in hand" scenario* it would seem to me that there are plenty of viable options out there.  Not to mention the inclusions of spoils of the vault, demonic consultation, demonic tutor, etc... all turn into black lotus, LED, ancestral recall, or the previously mentioned mana enhancers.  For someone so familiar with combo as you poignantly claim, I would think that the answer to your question was self-evident.  Thats the entire reason why decks such as Death long, meandeck tendril's and gang are able to survive... having these plentiful fast mana sources available.  Not to mention, you can also rebuild, will, then rebuild again if necessary on all of the moxes, mana crypts, and so on that are still in play if you are needing the extra mana *though most likely this would just be over-kill*.

As to the question of force of will...

You need a Force and a blue card that you don't need to cast as well, so that's 4 cards. No Lotus, no LED, no Ancestral. What are your 4 cards (that you can get with any kind of CONSISTENCY) going to be that will win you the game?

I think you highly overestimate the need for force of will in your opening hand to succeed.  First off, I would probably end up playing duress in a deck that consistently won on turn one b/c it is cheap, does essentially the same thing, and has less of a draw back.  Not to mention it always guarantees me one storm count rather than holding FoW just in case they can counter something major AND it gives me the information needed to know if i WILL be able to succeed or need to hold off for a few turns.

Secondly, the amount of times you will have a FoW in your hand will be negligable to the amount of times that your opponent has FoW in their hand.  In a 60 card deck, you will only get FoW once every 15 cards which is about once every 3 hands *assuming you play first*.  Now, on top of that, you have to figure in how many times you and your opponent will have FoW together rather than just you having it while they don't *meaning yours is a dead draw*.  This on average will be about 1:6 times in which FoW will pair up against each other.  Now of course the numbers vary due to how many cards you draw or they draw on turn 1 via brainstorm and the likes, but still gives you a starting point.

Third, the fact that a combo deck has multiple Will's to choose from *as was the scenario we were speaking of* means that the timing for a FoW becoms MUCH more difficult to judge.  That a combo player can now float multiple black mana, play a Will, and then come back and play another one means that it has natural consistency in pure numbers to over-rule the hate.  Now decisions must be made as to whether or not one must counter the early mana and hope that the deck stalls out only to play Will next turn and pick up from where it left off, or to FoW the 'Will' and have that player play another one and or still just go off.

Will IS one-sided. It gives you access to more cards than you would otherwise have if you were just drawing one card per turn and had no recursion.

Clearly you misunderstood what i was going for right here.  What i meant was that when you play a draw spell you are playing the odds.  For instance, when you play brainstorm, you are guessing that w/in the next three cards you see that you will *hopefully* see the card necessary for play.  Hence you don't hesitate to play draw when resources are available b/c it opens up your deck by showing you more cards and increasing your chance of seeing specific ones.  this interaction is one-sided b/c you KNOW what the fundamental purpose of a draw spell is... play it whenever possible as soon as possible and cross your fingers that you get something good.

In contrast, Will is more like a tutor.  You know what card pool you have to choose from and you hold the card until the timing is right.  In other words, you have to do the math and figure if this is the time to break it and get the necessary tempo boost to win as was the case given with the fetchland, stp, and brainstorm or if you must hold the card in hopes that you will draw something else that will need to be replayed to help you win.  From this perspective, you KNOW that you won't always play WILL as soon as you draw it AND WILL serves a different function depending upon the needs of that particular game.  For instance one game you may need to get mana so replaying those destoryed moxes will be sufficient.  Another game it may be to replay draw. etc...  This is why will is not as one sided as draw.

As to your specific example highlighting concentrate against Will:  obviously if a draw spell were to get the same cards that will would have, then it may be considered on-par with Will.  But so would any other tutor that got three cards randomly pulled throughout the deck 100% of the time...  Personally i'd rather have Will knowing what I have access to even if it is limited rather than concentrate with 53 other cards to choose from hoping that i'll get 1.

However, this whole arguement is retarded because the comment in question (ban Lotus, LED and Ancestral to unrestrict Will) wasn't at all serious. My point was and still is that before we ban Will, we should look at restricting the enablers that get all those juicy Willbreakers in the graveyard and hand.

Right.  We could look to restricting all of the enablers which
     1. Is what Smmenen addresses by saying that Will will lead to future restrictions.
     2. Is my point earlier in the thread *if you bothered to read it all* about how Will is one of the few restricted cards if not the only one that is constantly causing unrestricted cards to become restricted because of the interaction with it.  In other words, if a restricted card is so powerful that 1 copy in a deck is enough to abuse and win to such a ground shaking level that we have restrict more cards it seems that that proves that Will is creating an unhealthy environment.
     3.  Most of the unrestricted "enablers that get all of those juicy Willbreakers in the graveyard and hand" tend to be draw cards.  Currently the unrestricted draw by itself tend not to be over-powered to the point of restriction since they take a lot of mana to use *aka... TFK, Intuition -> AK* or don't give you TONS of card advantage *brainstorm since it only trades 1 card for 1 card. although it is one of the most broken draw cards in the format and does give card quality etc...*.  This means either you are going to significantly lower your standard for what is "broken" and restrict a bunch of these enablers OR you are going to talk more about tutors in the form of spoils of the vault which does have a pretty nasty draw back and doesn't truly put cards in the graveyard to abuse.

       Instead, it seems to me that you need to specify what enablers specifically would need to be restricted.  Now if you are talking about the cards that specifically break 'Will' such as dark ritual etc... that's different, but that's not what you initially posted. 

Frankly its asinine to say the format is Will vs. Anti Will without describing what in the "Anti Will" decks IS ANTI WILL? Unless you are meaning mana control in which case it isn't anti Will just because Will can abuse cheap mana!  It is an Anti Mana strategy that just happens to work against a deck that is trying to use Will to abuse cheap mana.  Ill give you that Chalice and Rods hurts Will's strategy, but it also hurts any deck that plans on playing a bunch of 0 and 1 CC cards.

     I'd say that is is asinine to suggest that I must specify which hate cards are used against Will decks.  Will has multiple functions NOT just mana recurious.  In tog it is to replay draw spells and other essentials.  In keeper it was to re-play w/e bomb was needed to give the necessary boost to maintain control.  and YES in combo it is for mana recursion.  The reality that ALL decks are hurt by mana denial *to varying degrees* is one of the reasons why that is such a good strategy in stax as a lock component.  1rst turn workshop, crucible, followed up by wasteland will even wreck fish barring Vial. 

    In addition, i'd like to note that you are also asking me to specify what cards in today's meta are used to target Will decks.  One thing to note about Will decks is that they DO tend to be mana intensive and I'll cover this later when addressing why the meta is Will vs. Anti-will decks.

The decks you describe have a strategy that isn't distinctly meant to disrupt an opponent from casting a Will (it just happens to work well at it).  Those strategies are anti MANA DRAIN DECKS!!!!!  They are essentially anti Blue control.  When I see Fish play 2-4 main deck Extracts Ill know its anti-Will.  The truth is that "Will Decks" as you call them don't necessarily need to resolve a Will in order to win because they have other broken effects already built into them (they're fundamental rule breaking just isn't as detestable to most players) that will win on their own (unless its combo but we all know how successful that has been as of late).

What are most Mana Drain Decks if not Yawgmoth Will decks?  You even give the answer yourself when you say:

You also know that 3Sphere is what kept combo in check because it forced all spells to be paid for.  Wills fundamental rule breaking is for lots of broken stuff to be played in one single turn (YOU NEED MANA FOR THIS!)

  In other words, mana drain became a cheap way to gain lots of mana quickly.  This was then used to play draw spells.  These draw spells lead to more card advantage, and more draw, and so on.  Now once all of this was done, what do you think would fuel another nice big Yawgmoth's will?  probably another mana drain...

Now i'm not saying that this was the only strategy of these decks.  Some people will even argue that mana drain decks don't need Will as is the case between CS and Gothslaver.  This is why i stated earlier in the thread, if you had read it all, that in general any deck that relies on card advantage as a win condition probably doesn't need Will for its kill because it relies on consistency and, as such, has multiple routes to victory. However, its like saying TPS isn't a Tendril's deck just because it casts tinker first turn and wins. But this doesn't mean that Will isn't essential to fulfilling that deck's strategy and is, as many players will attest, one of the benefits of so much draw (aka find will, replay all draw or w/e essentials are needed, and have so much advantage that you just win).

As to why people call these decks mana drain decks over Will decks?  i would probably conclude that the reason is because Drain overcame that obstical that you addressed: needing more mana.  Can someone win w/o a mana drain? of course... can someone win w/o Will? of course...  but both cards essential to the strategy.  Its sort of like Draw 7.  Draw 7's didn't win... it was just essential to finding and playing enough cards to go lethal with tendril's and as such we still classify it as part of the tendril's archetype.

You are quite stretching it when you classify every deck that does not run Will as an anti-Will deck. I can see where that conclusion comes from, but I cannot agree to it. The strategies that are presented by Stax and Fish (WTF, U/W, Vial or Rod) are based on resource denial. This is anti-Will only by splash damage, or to the extent that decks that rely on Will need a lot of resources (which these decks try to cut). You can even make the case the other way around: Control decks need resources, and Stax et al. prevent that from happening, so control decks need a boost that can surpass the resource denial: Yawgmoth's Will. That view is as valid as yours when you start making really broad assumptions.

First off i'd like to start by thanking you for actually taking the heart of my argument and trying to answer it.  In addition I would like to say that i whole-heartedly agree with you that I did not explain this theory very well and hope that i can clarify it now.

When i say that decks in today's meta are either Will or Anti-will I am basing this upon which deck is the best deck to play period.  Not based upon what another person is playing, but which deck has the most power associated with it.  From this standpoint Combo really comes to mind as it consistantly has the fastest goldfish.  Since the majority of good combo decks out there use Will as a major boost, I think it is fair that we can assume that these are Will decks. 

however, combo really doesn't define the format because it is either A. too hard to play over 8 grueling rounds *not including out rounds* or B. it is WAY too easy to disrupt making it NOT the most powerful deck in the format.  This leads us to conclude that another deck probably is the most powerful deck in the format...

This tends to lead to Combo-control since this archetype still has an exceedingly fast clock but carries with it the resiliency necessary to withstand some hate. 

Now one can argue why stax and fish aren't that deck... why do we assume combo-control?  The main reason i'd argue is that these two decks really aren't the "most powerful" decks in the format.  If every deck were fcg then stax wouldn't be so hot since it can rely on few lands *meaning crucible lock isn't as hurtful* has lots of permenants *thus smokestack isn't as potent* is unaffected by ITEOC and is relatively unaffected by null rod and COTV considering it has lackey and diverse castings costs.  While FCG might have problems with fish *since fish has vial and Jitte*, another deck would arise to hate out fish... *i'm not specifying because we haven't figured out the best way to beat fish though MeanGifts does promise good results or so i hear*. 

In other words, decks that are specifically designed to hate out combo-control decks through resource denial would be totally annihalated by decks designed to do the same to them.  In contrast, Combo-control still is spouting out incredibly good results and is expected to make a decent showing at the upcoming tournament.  This leads me to the conclusion that combo-control is the most powerful deck out there.

Not to mention, when you say

You can even make the case the other way around: Control decks need resources, and Stax et al. prevent that from happening, so control decks need a boost that can surpass the resource denial: Yawgmoth's Will. That view is as valid as yours when you start making really broad assumptions.

This just doesn't work.  Stax is a hate deck no matter how you look at it.  If aggro were popular then tangle wire would make a huge showing rather than CoW or some other lock piece.  The reality that Stax decks are designed to target combo control currently means that that is the most powerful deck out there which comes with innate resiliency b/c Will is really built for any combo deck out there regardless if it is designed to win slowly or quickly *besides dragon which is just an abomination;)*

As to your other question:

It shows instead how Will decks, and any other decks, are being handled by the metagame. Only once those shifts become impossible (example: the Tinker season in Extended) steps need to be taken.

I would say that if this were true then practically NO card would ever need be restricted.  Or rather that a lot of cards on the current restriction list would not be there.  For example, why put gush on there?  surely we could find other ways to hate out GAT... I mean we have plenty of cards to choose from that hate out creatrues and/or the ability to play lots of spells.  pyrostatic pillar, stp, wrath of god, even terror and dark banishing if need be *tho that doesn't solve for the tog annoyance*.  What about dream halls?  or mind over matter?  And, namely any other card that does't help first turn combo decks succeed with more consistency through hate.  If a deck has time to errect a defense, then with the large pool to choose from ANY deck can be hated out no matter how solid it is.  So why did trinisphere become restricted?  especially since first turn FoW was more likely to occur than first turn trinisphere?

In other words, I think that vintage players need to realize that this all or nothing situation that they place themselves in really doesn't apply.  They are using a lot of the same rules that apply to standard and, to a lesser extent, extended where card pools are limited and a particular deck has the potential to become TOO good.  In vintage, however, the standard is shifted to reflect what is currently popular.  Namley tog was spouted as the best deck to play... then fish became popular b/c it hates combo-control...  As a result, stax and its variants became to make a showing b/c dropping a 7/10 body or even a jugg at the time was sufficient to stop fish... Since stax was popular for a LONG time due to trinisphere combo control took a step back, though it was still under development and made big showings with CS and so on.  *this was actually the time that combo should have made a showing b/c stax is one of tps's best matchups and is what the europeans did to help combat trinistax.  We americans just like to play decks that are more secure and as such didn't capitalize*

Now that stax has lost one of its key components and gifts was tuned, this has become the new "best deck" beginning the cycle all over again...  With this in mind i would say that since combo-control decks really are Will decks that add in resiliency and as such have lest reliance upon any single card which diminishes the correlation in many people's mind, and since combo-control is consistently the "best deck" it may merit some revision.  The only difference between this and trinisphere *which if i remember correctly wasn't even a 4 of toward the end of its career* is that people complain about trinisphere b/c it was percieved to create more non-interaction than Will.  Which if you look at my previous posts i do not believe is necessarily true.

Perhaps I should have made myself a little more clear, but I thought I didn't have to list the fact that Fish is an Aggro deck.  Its the Aggro inherent in Fish that races Mana Drain and Will both.  Yes, Null Rod was in there but it was for Mana Denial or Resource Denial...whatever you want to call it.  The same can be said now of Vial and Chalice.  Vial is not in there to avoid Will its in there to avoid Drain and FOW. 

Since when is Fish an aggro deck?  isn't it closer to control-aggro in that it tries to control the player through denial while trying to win? *not sure how true this is anymore due to jitte and beefier creature additions from green*.  But with cards such as chalice, wasteland/strip, rootwater thief, etc... it seems that many of the cards, even the creatures which serve dual purpose, are designed to control the game while the creatures go the distance.  The reason this is necessary is b/c Fish really doesn't have the means to beat many of the tier 1 decks w/o disruption so that becomes one if its primary goals... ie gifts would just goldfish otherwise and win etc...

As to vial being included to avoid drain and FoW? WTF... who would trade a FoW for a cloud of fairies?  MAYBE for meddling mage... but that is primarily to stop the disruption it creates.  And if a Fish deck really is using vial ONLY to stop mana drain decks from countering a 1/1 so that it creates a massive 20 turn clock then something is wrong with that aggro strategy of yours... instead it seems vial is able to pump out creatures faster, free up mana to cast jitte and/or seal of cleansing/standstill etc...  namely other threats which provide mana drain mana just as efficiently *the main reason for countering anything with mana drain against fish*.

Null Rod/Vial and Chalice are not an auto include because they are Anti-Will cards, but because they are tempo cards that race Control.  Did everyone really think to themselves..."I need me some Null Rods/Vials/Chalice's to stop stupid tricks with Will" because, if they did thats just absurd when you consider that Extract targets Will directly and is much more effective at removing it as a threat than Null Rod or Chalice is.

If you had read my previous posts... the fact that direct hate doesn't really work would be answered...  But to reiterate, direct hate doesn't work since a combo-control deck tends to cycle through a TON of cards where, a deck like fish, cycles through relatively few.  This means that you have to run multiple hate cards against Will for them to be seen with any efficiency.  However, since combo-control are used over straight control due to resiliency, that means that combo-control can win even w/o Will and, b/c it sees half of its deck through its massive draw engine, it will most likely see one of the other threats as well.  This means you waste at least 4 cards to hate out 1.  Since vintage is really all about playing the odds this gives the combo-control player a HUGE advantage in the long term and leads to them winning.

In contrast, if you run hate cards that target the purpose of Will... ie mana acceleration or preventing mana so that Will can only have minimal effect, then you stop multiple cards with only 1 of yours which puts the odds in your favor.  Its the same reason Smmenen told people to stop the draw engine in CS rather than just stopping the Mindslaver.  ALSO as an additional bonus, since there are multiple decks being run *as i described earlier in this post* running cards that affect many decks is a good thing as it makes YOUR deck more resilient.

[kl0wn]

Sorry in advance... this is a long post but I hope it helps clarify the points i made earlier...

All sarcasm aside though, without Lotus and LED, where are you getting the mana to do all this on the first turn?

Idk... you tell me.  With dark rituals, cabal rituals, chromatic sphere's and darkwater egg's running around *granted the last two don't really net you mana but they still provide cheap draw which decks such as meandeck tendril's abuse to overcome your "only have 7 card in hand" scenario* it would seem to me that there are plenty of viable options out there.  Not to mention the inclusions of spoils of the vault, demonic consultation, demonic tutor, etc... all turn into black lotus, LED, ancestral recall...

Except that in the scenario that I'm using, Ancestral, LED and Lotus are BANNED. Go back to my previous posts and then work on your reading skills.

For someone so familiar with combo as you poignantly claim, I would think that the answer to your question was self-evident.

And for someone so familliar with Magic in general as you poignantly claim, I would think that you would understand that YOU NEED MANA TO CAST SPELLS.

Look...where the hell do you live? I'm done repeating myself. Apparently it isn't enough that I've been playing and TEACHING this game probably since you were in diapers, have that fun little "Vintage Adept" tag over to your left and have won or top eighted more tournaments than you could ever dream to. Apparently you "know" the game so well that nobody other than you could possibly have any clue how the mechanics work. I'm done butting heads with you, apparently the only thing that will get shit through your thick-ass skull is some cold, hard testing (or the Cerebral Bore). Build your unbeatable turn one combo deck with as many Wills as you want and without Lotus, LED and Ancestral (no Force of Will either, since you claim to not need them). Shoot mang, play 6 Wills if you feel the need. I guarantee that I will crush you in at least 80% of the games with a dedicated control deck. I won't even run Will myself. But make sure to build the deck and goldfish it a few hundred times first; we wouldn't want you to have any excuses like "I have no experience with it".

Are you up to the challenge?

[Summit]

Quote
It shows instead how Will decks, and any other decks, are being handled by the metagame. Only once those shifts become impossible (example: the Tinker season in Extended) steps need to be taken.

I would say that if this were true then practically NO card would ever need be restricted.  Or rather that a lot of cards on the current restriction list would not be there.  For example, why put gush on there?  surely we could find other ways to hate out GAT... I mean we have plenty of cards to choose from that hate out creatures and/or the ability to play lots of spells.

Lets get started right here because it is the best point of contention.  You are clearly a contradiction to your statements.  "Surely we could find other ways to hate out GAT?  Why then can't we just as easily hate out an already restricted card 'WILL' and not bitch about it?  If the meta is how you say, Decks that abuse Will and those that respond to it by using disruption to defeat it, then we really shouldn't bitch now should we?  I hate to get on a soap box, but as I stated in my primary argument to Steve, he was CORRECT just not timely.  YES his arguments ring true but only for a future period that we have yet to see.  For now even though Will is THE strongest card it isn't taking over the format as a singleton.  And for that matter, why can't this game have a "strongest" card.  I firmly believe that if you want the most fair and unconditional statistics to a RANDOMIZED card game called Magic then you have got to get out of Vintage and into Standard.  Until then just because the environment could have adapted w/o Will isn't a good argument in ANY SENSE OF THE WORD ARGUMENT that we cannot adapt to an environment with Will when it has ever since the card saw print.

As for this statement you made here:

Since when is Fish an aggro deck?  isn't it closer to control-aggro in that it tries to control the player through denial while trying to win? *not sure how true this is anymore due to jitte and beefier creature additions from green*.  But with cards such as chalice, wasteland/strip, rootwater thief, etc... it seems that many of the cards, even the creatures which serve dual purpose, are designed to control the game while the creatures go the distance.  The reason this is necessary is b/c Fish really doesn't have the means to beat many of the tier 1 decks w/o disruption so that becomes one if its primary goals... ie gifts would just goldfish otherwise and win etc...

Since when did Aggro not run disruption?  Even Sui back in the day - when a practically disruptionless Zoo deck was viable - ran duress and sinkhole and wasteland.  What the hell do you think those cards are?  Seriously you find me a successful Aggro decklist from the last 2 years, that was a serious contender, without disruption or at least BASIC ability to protect its threats (red elemental blast) AND LIST IT HERE FOR ME like you failed to do with this argument below.  You wont because it nigh impossible.  Oh sure you might find 1 or 2 tournament reports but a SERIOUS contender?

I said:
Now, I challenge you to tell me why Will was so influential in the past 6 months of tournament play and then do so without a decklist that had the following cards in the deck:

Mana Drain
Trinisphere
Chalice of the Void
Mishras Workshop
Recoup

You said:
I'd say that is is asinine to suggest that I must specify which hate cards are used against Will decks.  Will has multiple functions NOT just mana recurious.  In tog it is to replay draw spells and other essentials.  In keeper it was to re-play w/e bomb was needed to give the necessary boost to maintain control.  and YES in combo it is for mana recursion.  The reality that ALL decks are hurt by mana denial *to varying degrees* is one of the reasons why that is such a good strategy in stax as a lock component.  1rst turn workshop, crucible, followed up by wasteland will even wreck fish barring Vial. 

    In addition, i'd like to note that you are also asking me to specify what cards in today's meta are used to target Will decks.  One thing to note about Will decks is that they DO tend to be mana intensive and I'll cover this later when addressing why the meta is Will vs. Anti-will decks.

Give me a list of cards that are there specifically to target Will and then certainly I would bow down to you as the superior intellect in the ways of banning and restriction.
Because, as of now, if Will was as horrible as it is being presented as then people would most certainly run specific hate cards to eliminate it as a threat.  The reason no one does is because it is a Bomb, but not so important as to justify running 4x Extract.  Seriously, Mana Drain and its ilk of draw even gets Minds-Eye as a specific Hate card run against them, Will has nothing specific for it because of its redundancy other than Extract or maybe Jesters Cap.  Get REAL.

Until then Kl0wn and I have argued till blue in the face and you still have failed to properly protect the argument that AT THIS POINT IN TIME, WILL IS SO DETRIMENTAL TO THE STABILITY OF VINTAGE THAT IT NEEDS TO BE BANNED.  Essentially all of us naysayers are boiling everything down to this. 

"Just because the risk factor in allowing Will to survive is high does not mean that the game cannot handle it, AS IT HAS."

Remember my statement about being able to play every viable archetype in today's vintage metagame.  Sure, some are bastardized versions like combo control, aggro control but this evolution no matter the existence of Will or not was bound to happen at some point in time with the size of cardpool that Vintage has.  And, surprise of surprise even though some people feel it a must to include Will, others feel it is a must to include Ancestral Recall AND Black Lotus AND the format is still healthy enough to have MANY viable archetypes AND viable deck options (WITH MANY THAT DON'T INCLUDE WILL IN THEIR LIST NO LESS!)

If Will were never to have existed at all in that parallel universe there would be another BEST CARD IN VINTAGE MAGIC or MOST BROKEN OF ALL TIME.  And, those negative pissers and moaners would come up with ridiculous arguments based on no factual data (or at least supply none) but positive assumption on things that MIGHT happen and call them truth.

[Smmenen]

Ugh.  I don't want to be drawn into this, but I still think that you are missing the most important argument of all - not that it is going to cause more restrictions and not that it has become a dominant (in the game theory use of the term) strategy, but that restriction is ineffective. 

Think about all the cards on the restricted list and ask yourself right now, how many mid-late game cards on there.  I will Note any cards I think are late game or mid game.  Second, ask whether restriction is effective.

Why?  I tried to illustrate this in the article.  But some poeple didn't get it.  So I'm going to post that segment of the article and then a little more description before going through the restricted list.

From the article:
There are two reasons why restriction is an effective policy device. First, with only a single copy, the card won't come up with enough frequency in a sixty-card deck to rely on it or abuse it to the full extent. The restriction of Fact or Fiction killed BBS and the restriction of Gush ruined GroAtog. Second, restrictions make the card itself significantly weaker. There are hidden synergies that arise from being able to design a deck around a four-of. This is obvious with Mind's Desire but take cards like Channel, Black Vise, Gush, and Fastbond for example. All four cards are hugely powerful but see almost no play because they are narrow cards that don't have a good home as singletons. When you can't rely on a card, decks have to find other engines to rely on making powerful, restricted singletons like Fact or Fiction less important.

Here is something I had in a draft of the article becuase I thought it was too dry:

I was going to assign a numerical utility value to any given card.  Let's say that Gush has a numerical utility value (say a Util) of 10 when it is unrestricted.  As a restricted card, it has a numeric utility value of 4.  In other words, the sum value of Gush in unrestricted GroAtog was 40.  The sum value of Gush in restricted GroAtog is 4.  THe reason is simple - as I described in the paragraph from the article: when you can't rely on a card, decks have to find other engines to rely on making the remaining singletons, of necessity, less important.  Restrictions, in other words, make the VALUE Of any GIVEN card LESS!!!  That is CRITICALLY IMPORTANT.  And I don't think a single person in this thread understood that point.  I tried to show that with Channel, Black Vise, and Fastbond.  I'll say it again becuase its worth emphasizing: Unrestricted Cards have Synergies that once restricted make the card itself much weaker. That synergy is twofold.  Sometimes its the fact that one mind's desires is more likely to see another one.  But the more important synergy is what I'll call the "reliance" synergy.  The fact that a card is much more valuable as a 4-of because you can rely on it in deckbuilding.  Anyway:

    * Ancestral Recall
This card is an anytime card.  But restriction is certainly effective at stopping it.  If it comes up, it comes up.  This card is closest to will in terms of likely to be played in any given game. 

    * Balance
The restriction of this card has totally neutered it.  Unrestricted, you could make a Workshop power house prison deck with it.   Restricted, it's a randonly amazing utility card that no deck relies on.

    * Black Lotus
This is similar to ancestral but much less so in that even in a relatively long game of control mirrors or whatever, its as likely to be played as not. 

    * Black Vise
Totally ruined by restriction.  Sees almost no play as a result.

    * Burning Wish
Almost completely neutered by restriction. It is being used as a tutor in Gifts, but was much more powerful unrestricted. 
    * Channel
This card would be insane unrestricted.  Restricted, it's poo.  With this card we can begin to see how restriction can make individual cards less powerful.  The more narrow the card is in any way, the bigger the value drop is going to be when restricted.  This card has harsh requirements in order to abuse it.  Restricted, it is nearly useless.

    * Chrome Mox
Restriction certainly was effective.  Very few decks play this card. 

    * Crop Rotation
Unrestricted, this card would be a monster.  Restricted, it only comes up once a while.

    * Demonic Consultation
Unrestricted, this card can singlehandedly build decks.  Restricted, its hardly run.

    * Demonic Tutor
Unrestricted, mwhahaha.  Restricted, it's still run in tons of decks, but no one could claim that this card comes up nearly every game.  It's played in probably less than half of my Gifts games.

    * Dream Halls
I have been playing Vintage for a VERY long time.  I have NEVER seen this card in play in a vintage game.  Ever.

    * Enlightened Tutor
Unrestricted, maybe playable.  Restricted.  Poo.

    * Entomb
Poo.

    * Fact or Fiction
Unrestricted, this is the strongest control draw engine in the game.  Period.  Restricted, this card isn't even good enough to make it into my mono blue deck.  But it's still really powerful so it gets into Gifts and a sb slot in Tog.  Not being able to rely on it - gifting into gifts
    * Fastbond
A fucking sick card that is pretty crappy restricted.

    * Frantic Search
This card is seeing a little more play, but I think its worse than Cloud of Faeries.  Restriction has made it impossible to rely on.

    * Grim Monolith
...
    * Gush
 Restriction was effective.  It sees almost no play.   I think Doomsday is the deck that best abuses this card. 

   * Library of Alexandria
Now, it is true that restriction isn't necessarily very effective at stopping this card, but there are plenty of other cards that do.  And this card isn't nearly as powerful as it used to be.  Unrestricted Library has INSANE Synergies though. Two libraries can fuel themselves and support land drops.  For that reason alone, restriction has totally taken alot of the utility from the card.

    * Lion’s Eye Diamond
You can't rely on this as a one of.  It sees nearly no play now whereas it would be in at least 4-5 decks unrestricted (Madness, Belcher, Long, meandeck TEndrils and I'm sure some more).

    * Lotus Petal
    * Mana Crypt
    * Mana Vault
    * Memory Jar
Unrestricted, this card could be really fun in Workshop combo.  Restricted, it's a tinker target that probably shows up in my Meandeath games about one in every four games.

    * Mind Over Matter
Another card I have never seen in play.  WHY IN GODS NAME IS THIS STILL RESTRICTED.

    * Mind Twist
Restriction certainly narrows the power of this card, but this card is honestly closer to will than any card I have seen so far in that it is also a huge late game bomb.  I think the danger of this card isn't its late game power - unlike will - but its randomness in the first two turns.

    * Mind’s Desire
Restricting this card has HUGELY Diminished its power.  This is the BEST example - next to LOA of how restriction can ruin synergies that aren't just deck construction synergies.  THe best Mind's Desires involve other MInd's Desires.  Just like Facting to Facts or LoAing into mxoen to drop and then use another LOA.
    * Mox Diamond
    * Mox Emerald
    * Mox Jet
    * Mox Pearl
    * Mox Ruby
    * Mox Sapphire
It's absurd to analyze these cards restricted or unrestricted.  But the fact remains that these cards show up when they do and they are great when they do, but no one is searching for them.  No one is strategically planning to resolve these cards.

    * Mystical Tutor
Running only one makes it a somewhat infrequent card to play.  I'd say it comes up in slightly less than half of my Gifts games.  Maybe closer to 2/5s.  Hard to say.

    * Necropotence
Restriction ruined this card as an engine.  Restriction was completely effective at stopping this card.

    * Regrowth
Unrestricted, this card becomes ludicrious.  Now it's just randomly good.

    * Sol Ring
    * Strip Mine
Unrestricted, this card IS ludicrious.  Restricted, this card is ludicrious.  But it doesn't come up that often.

    * Time Spiral
???  Terrible.

    * Time Walk
This card has gotten alot better in the last year and a half, but this isn't a card people just up and tutor for.  It is played in a substantial majority of my gifts games though. 

    * Timetwister
Restricting this card makes it impossible to rely on, but the density of restricted draw7s in the format makes it possible to rely on them.  So restriction is necessary, but a wash sort of.

    * Tinker
People keep saying how this should be restricted.  They miss the point.  Restriction worked with this card.  It comes up in a significant number of my gifts games, but it isn't something I strategically plan to play.  IN fact, I often avoid playing it becuase Colossus just isn't good enough in lots of game states.  However, the point is that restriction works.  4 Tinker would consistently enable ridiculous shit.  With just one, it is only going to be in your opening hand like 7% of games and in the midgame, it's totally fair to resolve it.  The most threatening midgame tinker probably involves Titan or Slaver - which is fair as it could have just been welded in anyway after Thirst for the same result.

    * Tolarian Academy
Again, another card that once restricted can't be relied upon.  It isn't narrow becuase its blue and good decks play moxen so it still sees play though.  But it isn't a card I plan for or tutor up with any sort of frequency.

    * Trinisphere
That's why this was restricted, to neuter it. 

I think for understanding the point I'm trying to make, this is best demonstrative card.  You can see how much it wins now by how often your opponents get it on turn one.  The corollary is that you can remember how functional it was pre-restriction at winning games.  The difference is the impact of restriction.  That's measurable. 

    * Vampiric Tutor
    * Voltaic Key
Terrible card.  I think unrestricted it would be slightly better, but still crap.

    * Wheel of Fortune
See Twister.

    * Windfall
See Twister

    * Yawgmoth’s Bargain
I'm not sure how functional restriction is with this card, but i'm sure I could find a way to build a deck around 4 of them if I had the opportunity.  I never have so its hard to see.

    * Yawgmoth’s Will
Finally, after going thorugh all of that, it should now be MUCH more obvious why I think this card should be banned.  Restriction is ineffective.  Unlike EVERY SINGLE CARD on the list, this card actually has DISSYNERGY unrestricted.  Using it once means that your next will is alot less good.

In the article i talked about this opening play:
Underground Sea, Dark Ritual, Yawgmoth's WIll.
Go.

That's why Will is problematic.  All the restricted cards are restricted so that first of all they come up with less frequency in the opening hand and as a result can't be relied upon.  Will CAN be relied upon and you don't WANT it in your opening hand.  NOt only is it relied upon, it's going to come up more than any card your want to see in your whole deck if you are playing a drain deck. 

[Machinus]

Steve, you are absolutely right that restriction has the added effect of unreliability. That is a really important point. Most people are only considering the aspect of playing with these cards, and not building decks around them.

I still believe that unrestricted Will in 2005 would make combo into something more powerful than any deck, EVER. The difference between 1 and 4 wills is a difference of DECKBUILDING proportions. It would annihilate the format. Contrast this with 1-Will combo in 2005.

[Smmenen]

Steve, you are absolutely right that restriction has the added effect of unreliability. That is a really important point. Most people are only considering the aspect of playing with these cards, and not building decks around them.

Exactly right.  Which is SO surprising.  That was the VERY first point in my article!  I swear to god that people don't actually read my articles.  They skim them.  Bah.

As an addendum, this is why I found what Rico Suave was saying so surprising.  He was saying that I was just asserting that restriction hadn't sufficiently neutered will and nothing more.  No I was making a point that restriction is more effective in the case of every single card becuase of the reasons in my last post and in my article.  I thought I was being perfectly clear, but once again I am proven that I am somehow as unintelligible as some ancient hyroglpyh.

EDIT: It also makes me wonder how strongly my view is colored as a deck designer.  Let's face it, the vast majority of players in any format are deck designers.  I suspect that without that sort of foundation, some parts of my arguments presented in the article won't make as much sense or seem as persuasive.

[Summit]

* Yawgmoth’s Will
Finally, after going through alll of that, it should now be MUCH more obvious why I think this card should be banned.  Restriction is ineffective.  Unlike EVERY SINGLE CARD on the list, this card actually has DISSYNERGY restricted.  Using it once means that your next will is alot less good.

I concede to your point.  Your last post does indeed prove that restriction didn't nueter Will enough along side almost all of the other cards listed on the restricted list.  I will not however, agree that banning it is a necessary step to "fix" the metagame.  Yes, the only way to eliminate the power of Will is to ban it as you have said, but my questions are these:

1.  Is even a restricted Yawgmoth's Will enough that the metagame hasn't been able to shift since its creation?
2.  Has Yawgmoth's Will created a stagnant Vintage metagame with little or no development that disables the use of newer and older cards to constantly flux in and out of tournament worthiness?
3.  Will Banning THE CARD make the vintage meta-game more or less stable?   Essentially, will all deck types continue to be viable options or will some be underpowered?

My answers are simple so Ill try to keep them short, but Id like to know what you think.

1.  The meta has constantly shifted, just because the card is always included is because it is insanely good.  THE CARD shouldn't be punished to the extent of extinction just because its the best.  It must also prove to the community that nothing else but it will work (and please no more Will Anti-Will dichotomies because they are lame and hard to prove).

2.  I see that everytime a set rotates in we gain more and more usefulness out of each restricted card not just Will.  I even see oldies but goodies like Minds Eye pop up to the evolving strategies of a NON stagnant meta-game.

3.  I like to think of Will and other cards like you do, in terms of their Utility Value Points (lets just say UVP).  Well, a popular way to keep card games in check is to assign powerful cards a point value and then tell the deck builders you cannot go above and beyond a certain point value.  Will having a powerful point value if removed would take viable decks, aligned in point value with other successful decktypes, and disable them as viable all together.  Now of course everyone will think, just because its viable doesn't mean it can't get caught in the cross hairs of Bannination.  The weak must sometimes suffer for the greater good etc.. etc.. etc..  I would agree with that but to the point where I stop is that Many of the underpowered (in UVP) are decks that help keep the vintage metagame in a state of flux rather than a state of stagnation.  I can honestly see the metagame collapsing from the Banning of Will.  Will it recover?  OF COURSE it would.  Would it be better for it?  How long will it take to recover?  Who knows!

One can postulate but without trying it we cannot see for sure.  That is why in the Waterbury forum I suggested a Day 2 even where Will is Banned.  Maybe I and the rest of the community is wrong Steve, maybe you are timely and we just refuse to see it.  I am open to be proved wrong, I just challenge words and opinions (though yours are strongly based on experience and expertise dodon'tet me wrong YOU DA MAN) to come up with FACTUAL evidence to support them.
I want to see some numbers and some decklists of Why it needs to be banned.
I want to see how it is SO abused that it has created this "Will vs. Anti-Will" meta and the decklists that we can determine are STRICTLY Will and STRICTLY Anti-Will strategies (no extra strategy cuz that would be fair...remember Ravager, you had Ravager decks and those built to beat Ravager...I want to SEE Will decks and those built to beat Will).
I want to see a hypothetical future metagame without Will.  I want the decklists and I want to play in it.  Id like to see if it makes things better or just a bigger mess.

I believe in your cause Steve, but community and I need some stats to back up the need to Ban before we go crying to Wizards.

[xrizzo]

3.  Will Banning THE CARD make the vintage meta-game more or less stable?   Essentially, will all deck types continue to be viable options or will some be underpowered?

Steve also mentioned that leaving Will restricted (but not banned) will result in future restrictions.  I wonder what would need to be restricted if Will were banned?  Would Mana Drain be too incredibly dominant?  Workshop?  Would things be fine?

If banning will equates to restricting Mana Drain, but unrestricting like 2-3 other weak cards, then Will isn't worth banning.

[glacial-blue]

Yea... Sorry steve if you thought i had completely ignored this point...  I addressed it earlier on and hate repeating myself as much if not more than i'm sure you do.  In addition I didn't go into as much detail as you did by detailing all of the restricted cards and the impact of restriction on them.  

I also want to say that I agree with Machinus about how people are only looking at aspects of playing with cards and not building decks around them...  This is another aspect that I tried expressing earlier *though probably incoherently* and have realized that few people actually read entire posts/articles and don't truly want to think TOO hard about any particular issue.  Like what you are asking for is something that is abstract in a crowd of people who are calling for statistics and other tangible "arguments."

Now onto my replies:

"Surely we could find other ways to hate out GAT?  Why then can't we just as easily hate out an already restricted card 'WILL' and not bitch about it?  If the meta is how you say, Decks that abuse Will and those that respond to it by using disruption to defeat it, then we really shouldn't bitch now should we?

Wow, i really like how you read the entirety of my last post... I don't even want to get into how wrong this is.  Just remember Smmenen's article about how to defeat CS... not through graveyard hate, but through denying their draw.  In addition, i went into pretty decent analysis as to why extract and other narrow cards, which would have to be used in multiples, to hate out a singleton really is inefficient with today's decks.  seriously just read what i said next... ALL OF IT... rather than just picking up one line and saying "wow this is wrong" when it is incomplete.

Since when did Aggro not run disruption?  Even Sui back in the day - when a practically disruptionless Zoo deck was viable - ran duress and sinkhole and wasteland.  What the hell do you think those cards are?  Seriously you find me a successful Aggro decklist from the last 2 years, that was a serious contender, without disruption or at least BASIC ability to protect its threats (red elemental blast) AND LIST IT HERE FOR ME like you failed to do with this argument below.  You wont because it nigh impossible.  Oh sure you might find 1 or 2 tournament reports but a SERIOUS contender?

You're right, aggro has always ran disruption.  The difference is the fundamental strategy of the decks.  FCG is aggro because it doesn't really look to disrupt your opponent first and then kill with small beats.  It hopes to overwhelm the opponent with a TON of goblins very quickly and, if disruption happens, great.  Fish on the other hand, has a completely different purpose.  It hopes to see null rod/chalice in its oppening hand.  It uses utility creatures such as meddling mage specifically designed to dirsupt the opponent. etc... In other words, Fish's gameplan is designed around disrupt your opponent for a while and in the meantime you kill them with 1/1's and 2/2's.  That is why we have hybrid archetypes *not just the traditional 3* where this would be relegated to aggro-control b/c its strategy is apply beats with LOTS of disruption.  aka w/o disruption fish would lose majority of rounds.  w/o disruption fcg would still be decent.

Give me a list of cards that are there specifically to target Will and then certainly I would bow down to you as the superior intellect in the ways of banning and restriction.
Because, as of now, if Will was as horrible as it is being presented as then people would most certainly run specific hate cards to eliminate it as a threat.  The reason no one does is because it is a Bomb, but not so important as to justify running 4x Extract.  Seriously, Mana Drain and its ilk of draw even gets Minds-Eye as a specific Hate card run against them, Will has nothing specific for it because of its redundancy other than Extract or maybe Jesters Cap.  Get REAL.

Again... seriously... read my post further down where i address why this isn't the best way to hate out Will.  In addition, when you talk about the redundancy of will have you seriously ever played against Goth Slaver?  or any other good mana drain deck?  When a deck has the ability to cycle through like half of its deck in a game, don't you think it will either have drawn Will or found a tutor that can?  IDK, i think if the player really needs Will then they will find it.  How else do these decks win when they only have like 2 cards designated to win?

The thing is, however, again as i addressed in my post, that mana drain decks which rely on card advantage to win *aka that is their strategy* don't always need Will to win b/c they already have enough CA based upon game-state.  This does not mean Will isn't central to the strategy b/c Will really is one of the best CA cards ever printed for mid-late game.  Even look to your buddy Klown's post to see why Will gives you card advantage over concentrate which is a draw spell.  All this means is that these decks pack a ton of redundancy which helps create a form of resilience.  

*onto a quick tangent*  Since we are so bent on trying to determine if this really makes this a Will deck or not look at it this way.  Ancestral Recall is the best draw spell in the game and, as such, gains u the most CA for the buck...  Yet, except in recent Gift decks, is finding and resolving Ancestral Recall the primary purpose of these decks?  no... simply b/c it doesn't provide as much CA as Will...

Will provides more CA b/c it can replay AK 3 and 4, bring back destroyed moxes, etc... all of which basically null-n-voids your opponents card/s which were used to disrupt your plan.  This means not only are you drawing cards in the case of AK, but you also wasted one of your opponent's counterspells in the bargain which puts you that much more ahead b/c they have less hate and you have more threats to deal with.

Until then Kl0wn and I have argued till blue in the face and you still have failed to properly protect the argument that AT THIS POINT IN TIME, WILL IS SO DETRIMENTAL TO THE STABILITY OF VINTAGE THAT IT NEEDS TO BE BANNED.  Essentially all of us naysayers are boiling everything down to this.  

"Just because the risk factor in allowing Will to survive is high does not mean that the game cannot handle it, AS IT HAS."

Again, I answered this relatively well on like page 3/4 or something... please read all of this thread before just posting erroneous crap.  I'm not saying that it is wrong to answer something w/o reading everything, I'm just saying that you are spouting old arguments.  My honest answer is this:

No card really deserves restriction unless it makes combo too good.  Otherwise, the format really is able to deal with any other card adequately.

 Â *since this is not the case*  I would venture to assume that your initial standard is flawed.  Namely that just because the risk factor of X is high does not mean that the game cannot handle it AS IT HAS.  Again... look to trinisphere and how people were adapting.  Cron wasn't even using 4 trinisphere's, and other decks had spouted up to contest trinistax.  Not to mention, the odds of having a FoW in hand as opposed to a workshop + trinisphere meant that it should have easily been hated out.

 Â  This leads me to assume that the format really doesn't ban cards b/c no one can deal with it.  Rather, I believe, it is based upon the non-interaction that occurs as a result of the particular card.  This is why people dislike combo.  This is why people really hate trinisphere.  Now the line becomes blurry when we begin discussing other cards such as mana drain and Yawgmoth's will.  In the case of mana drain, people for a while were calling for its restriction b/c it wasn't about what card it countered *though that was a plus* it really was about the mana it generated.  This meant that you were on auto-pilot ready to counter anything with a high casting cost just to get the mana to go broken.  However, mana drain is a classic and people are willing to deal with that lvl of non-interaction simply b/c we are desinsitized to it.

 Â   With Will, this line is even harder to see.  The reason is because it is a mid-late game card *except in combo which i guess the mid-late game could techinically be determined in just minutes rather than turns*  As such people feel that it is acceptable to lose to it b/c, hey, they had a chance to play all of their pretty little foils.  But, as I described earlier, Will really does give a CA deck, such as mana drain decks, the ability to simply goldfish *while dealing with particular hate in due time* using their life totals as a buffer until they have overwhelming CA and just win.  The reason Will is so central to this is b/c it allows a player to replay cards that have been countered *thinning hate.dec of hate* and to replay any essential card that was destoryed etc...  This not only means that your goldfish was disrupted for only a turn or two, but means that the opponent now has less cards to effectively deal with your threats making it MORE like a goldfish trial.

 Â   From this perspective, I think Will creates one of the largest non-interactivity gaps of any card currently developed.  It helps by-pass hate, it replays cards designed around CA which inevitably leads to more CA *which more than doubles your CA which is better than just playing draw spells constantly from the deck*  AND it can be used, as was the case in old style keeper, to merely replay one or two cards which pushes a controllish deck over the top *even if that is only to replay mox jet* making the game from that point on over.

And for someone so familliar with Magic in general as you poignantly claim, I would think that you would understand that YOU NEED MANA TO CAST SPELLS.

Lol, who needs to work on their reading skills?  YOu even quoted me when i gave you a plethora of other mana producers that are currently being abused.  and remember, i did say that the tutors would also find these which, you so conveniently, decided to cut out of the quote b/c i guess you only read selectively...  As for me "misreading" your post... remember you did reply saying that that was just a hoax and, since you weren't serious, then that does make black lotus, ancestral recall, and led restricted/available for comment...  Thank you for understanding the finer details in life... next time you want to formulate an idea, let me know and i'll buy you a sledge hammer so you can chisel it out.

Did I not list plenty of cards that would provide mana and/or the ability to draw into mana while fixing your mana base *chromatic sphere and darkwater egg*.  I'm so glad that you've been teaching mtg for a LONG time... but you don't seem to understand combo at all.  Combo doesn't win turn one b/c they always find Black Lotus, LED, or Ancestral Recall.  IN fact, the majority of the time they don't have these cards though, when they do, it generally means auto-win b/c this breaks the tight mana curve that these decks focus upon.  You know what else breaks that mana curve?  Yawgmoth's will which is why most people claim that once u draw that card in a combo deck you pretty much just win.  

As for coming up with the mana, with 4 dark ritual, 4 cabal ritual, 4 chromatic sphere and darkwater eggs, a slew of artifact mana etc... probably land grant and some dual land, you'd easily have the mana necessary to combo off as was discovered by mean deck tendril's.  Heck, you can even count other silly cards such as crop rotation and the like if you want since that finds tolarian academy and, when replayed, is practically free storm.  The hardest part comes from drawing into more mana producers hence why chromatic sphere and darkwater egg are nice since they give u both... Will also gives you both by replaying your mana producers, a tutor if necessary/able, and any draw that you've accumulated making your storm count soar and giving you all the needed mana you desire.  Even if you only play Dark ritual, yawgmoth's will, you still get 2 storm count for the price of 2 black which is pretty decent.

I still believe that unrestricted Will in 2005 would make combo into something more powerful than any deck, EVER. The difference between 1 and 4 wills is a difference of DECKBUILDING proportions. It would annihilate the format. Contrast this with 1-Will combo in 2005.

take his word for it if you don't like mine.  Unrestricted Will EVEN in a world with banned black lotus, LED, and Ancestral recall wouldn't be so bad... Its not like we focus combo decks around finding those cards anyways the way we do Will...  These are more "oops i win" cards than strategies.  Will is the strategy and as such should be looked at more carefully.

If Will were never to have existed at all in that parallel universe there would be another BEST CARD IN VINTAGE MAGIC or MOST BROKEN OF ALL TIME.  And, those negative pissers and moaners would come up with ridiculous arguments based on no factual data (or at least supply none) but positive assumption on things that MIGHT happen and call them truth.

all that you've said here is a bunch of fluff.  This goes back to what Dozer was blaiming me for earlier... namely this is like saying that the wind is blowing when it is windy.  People will always complain and have always come up with ridiculous stuff.  Heck, people thought of banning morphling or FoW at one time.  But if you'd notice, people are not complaining about Will being the "MOST BROKEN OF ALL TIME".  We are saying that because of certain interractions with the environment that it deserves to be banned.  Hence why Steve goes on and explains why this would not lead to a slippery slope... Namely no other card fits the precise criteria for banning the way Will does.


AS to your particulars summit... to address your 3 big questions:

1.  

Is even a restricted Yawgmoth's Will enough that the metagame hasn't been able to shift since its creation?

 Sorry but i think the only way to explain it is by proving which decks are the most powerful.  Like its not a fun place to take it, and I agree... but you yourself already said that the meta shifts constantly.  The only way to really figure out where we are headed *barring some insane new tech in future sets* is to figure out what the best strategy is.  Right now the best strategy in a void IS combo.  The second best IS combo control simply b/c it is more resilient than combo and it forces hate.dec to play against it... Hence the reason why few people use tangle wire in stax in today's meta.  hate.dec which includes fish, stax, and keeper.  Am i saying that this will ALWAYS be the best strategy?  not really... but unless hate decks get new tech that doesn't hose everything *the way trinisphere did* then I think combo-control really will be the most powerful deck.  

2.  

Has Yawgmoth's Will created a stagnant Vintage metagame with little or no development that disables the use of newer and older cards to constantly flux in and out of tournament worthiness?

 Â No.  Yawgmoth's Will doesn't create a stagnant vintage metagame.  We constantly find new ways to break old cards such as merchant scroll for ancestral recall etc...  Not to mention, with the addition of new sets/cards, clearly there will be ways to break other cards.  The argument wasn't to say that Vintage will create a stagnant meta... b/c that really is more representative of standard when you have few cards to use/abuse... but to realize that yawgmoth's Will is a single card strategy and these new cards/developments should work toward abusing Will to the max.  I mean, look at Ancestral recall and merchant scroll... UU and 1 colorless for 3 cards really isn't all THAT great.  However, this does ensure you get ancestral recall in the graveyard which turns it into 6 cards, for UUU and 1 colorless spread out most likely over two turns which isn't bad.  Or look how gifts has really shifted from a way to abuse belcher to abusing yawgmoth's will...

3.  

Will Banning THE CARD make the vintage meta-game more or less stable?   Essentially, will all deck types continue to be viable options or will some be underpowered?

   Obviously it is impossible to determine the effect of banning Will shall have on the meta.  After the restriction of trinisphere it took months for the meta to finally stabalize.  Like it simply takes time to reconfigure all sorts of decks that were previously unusable b/c it clashed with a particular strategy, to test them, and then compare them with other unforseen threats.  To this end i really do commend your efforts with trying to make a Will free day at waterbury b/c it gives you the opportunity to start to think of the game w/o Will.  However, I still think that the results will be FAR from conclusive simply b/c people shouldn't be spending all of their time formulating Will free decks and most likely will simply cut Will and throw in some other random card.  But who knows... i wish you the best of luck with it...

I would agree with that but to the point where I stop is that Many of the underpowered (in UVP) are decks that help keep the vintage metagame in a state of flux rather than a state of stagnation.  I can honestly see the metagame collapsing from the Banning of Will.  Will it recover?  OF COURSE it would.  Would it be better for it?  How long will it take to recover?  Who knows!

I completely agree with this statement in that i think the Banning of Will would have a devestating impact on Vintage for a Long time.  The reason is b/c Will has become so ingrained in how we develop decks and to which decks are aimed at stopping those decks *such as Tog and now Gifts*.  In other words, I still believe firmly that Combo-Control has been the best deck for a long time now and, although diminished for times b/c of hate, has maintained that status.  To do this, it of course has to evolve hence why gifts is better than tog and why some argued that CS took Tog's spot.  

But this is like looking at an archetype and seeing how it evolves.  Combo evolves with every restriction/unrestriction and every new set.  Even when we restrict certain cards, such as Gush making it almost unplayable and killing GAT, the format evolves.  The point i'm making is that b/c the meta is so centered on Will currently, were we to ban it *ie making it unplayable* it would have a similar effect to restricting/unrestricting other cards.  It will have a big aftershock, things will crack, and then people will rebuild... and overall we would have more playable cards, stop future restrictions, and have even more diversity than before.... WHY? b/c Will really does restrict a lot of cards and gives combo-control the edge to maintain dominance for such a long time that decks have to become so focused against it that hate.dec is easily hated out making something else "the best deck" at the time until it is quickly squashed by combo-control again...


as to

3. Will Banning THE CARD make the vintage meta-game more or less stable? Essentially, will all deck types continue to be viable options or will some be underpowered?

Steve also mentioned that leaving Will restricted (but not banned) will result in future restrictions. I wonder what would need to be restricted if Will were banned? Would Mana Drain be too incredibly dominant? Workshop? Would things be fine?

If banning will equates to restricting Mana Drain, but unrestricting like 2-3 other weak cards, then Will isn't worth banning.

I would venture to say that mana drain wouldn't be restricted nor would dark ritual since those two cards are used in Will decks.  Workshop may become "too" powerful, though i've heard that fish has a really good game against it.  Like what I see happening is that instaed of combo-control being the most powerful deck out there, it lessens its power a little *decrease resiliency and have a worse win condition in gifts for ex. which still makes it a GOOD deck*.  This means workshop decks have a better game against it making them more powerful and likely to be used... Since fish decks have a good game against workshop, and poor game against Gifts, they would take up the slack and help keep shop in control.  Like i said, the problem i see now is that combo-control is so strong that hate.dec really has to focus too much on stopping it leaving it too vulnerable to other decks... meaning combo-control gets hated out but has a quick resurgence


As an additional note to all of you NAY SAYERS.  You want us to go through and give you reasons why Will should be banned...  We do and then you spout off reasons why it doesn't meet some arbitrary standard.  I'm not saying that those standards are wrong, but could you give some specific reasons as to why THOSE standards apply specifically to vintage?  After all, Vintage is a completely different beast and is capable of handling a lot more abuse than any other format.  Once we can come to SOME agreement on this i think we can become to actually resolve a lot of issues

[Vegeta2711]

2 things.

1. Glacial: PLEASE, OH PLEASE take some reading comprhension classes, figure out what a concise point/post is and finally stop being a parrot.

2.

It will have a big aftershock, things will crack, and then people will rebuild... and overall we would have more playable cards, stop future restrictions, and have even more diversity than before....

Unless you've actually tested decks with a Will ban in place, you have no idea if there would be more diversity or not. That's an assumption, something you seem to be confusing with fact quite a bit in your posts. Meanwhile I have tested decks with Will banned and I hate to break it to you, but control-combo -still- seems like it would be the best archetype. All you accomplish is to kill nearly every single 'normal' combo deck, except Dragon and Belcher. Based on the enviroment and my tests, I don't think there would be anywhere near the shift you seem to think.

[glacial-blue]

1. Glacial: PLEASE, OH PLEASE take some reading comprhension classes, figure out what a concise point/post is and finally stop being a parrot.

Well i do cover a lot of issues and i am one of the few supporters of banning Will on this thread still posting.  Meaning, either i can be very concise, have MANY posts which will get me in trouble, and fulfill your wish... OR i can not respond to everything, have people complain about THAT and essentially the thread will keep moving backwards b/c someone will say *oh but you didn't respond to this... OR i can attempt to answer a lot, put out my viewpoints, and have something for someone to actually respond to rather than just... "you're wrong".

Remember, the side that wants something to change tends to have the burden of proof so they can't just rely on arguments that say *that's not the way its done, better luck next time* or *it doesn't meet 50% rule, why have this thread at all* while ignoring the logic of everything that has been said.

Finally, i'd like to mention that i do relatively well at reading comprehension from the standpoint that i understand for the most part what someone else has said wholistically which is a lot more than most of the people who are replying on here... namley they take one line, respond, and don't truly comprehend how that fits into the big picture...  So rather than criticizing try to put it into perspective yourself... for example you state:

Unless you've actually tested decks with a Will ban in place, you have no idea if there would be more diversity or not. That's an assumption, something you seem to be confusing with fact quite a bit in your posts. Meanwhile I have tested decks with Will banned and I hate to break it to you, but control-combo -still- seems like it would be the best archetype. All you accomplish is to kill nearly every single 'normal' combo deck, except Dragon and Belcher. Based on the enviroment and my tests, I don't think there would be anywhere near the shift you seem to think.

Well vegeta I did mention that I didn't think it would Kill gifts very much... only weaken it.  I also did mention that it would be impossible to determine the shift in EVERY way and so it was obviously conjecture.  But I do think that if Will were banned, then gifts would resort to severence/belcher which is shut down by pithing needles.  Now, pithing needles doesn't have a lot to do, but for a stax deck, It would help shut down vial, jitte, AND belcher as well as random things in other decks making it worth playing more...  But of course that isn't represented in our current meta b/c needle to handle just fish really doesn't seem like the most effective plan.

Of course, if the belcher version became popular, then you could use needle.  Since crucible lock is effective, but possibly not the MOST effective lock compent against the majority of decks out there other than mana drain decks, which take a huge hit from needle, then another lock piece could take its place... Again, all conjecture b/c it depends on what changes are made to which decks so that hate decks can determine the best cards to use in response...  As i said earlier, and was expressed vehemently by summit, it is impossible to know exactly what the change will be.  Look at trinisphere's restriction... it took months to stabalize and who would have guessed in february that fish would have made a come back?  So unless your "extensive testing" someone is able to read future meta's i don't think it really is all THAT effective for the same reasons i don't think the Waterbury 2nd day thing will be truly indicative of what would actually occur

AND as for the diversity issue... I didn't necessarily mean having more diverse meta.  I meant, as was indicated by the previous clause (reading comprehension skills needed here) where i am specifying cards, that we would have more cards to choose from.  For instance someone earlier in this thread mentioned the portal tutors etc... 

As for killing every "normal" combo deck out there... i assume you mean tendril's based combo and yes, it would kill many decks in that archetype.  Hence why cards probably would become unrestricted opening up the card pool once again   That really isn't conjecture, that is almost an assurance since Will really does keep a lot of cards restricted.  Who knows, this may even make combo viable once again b/c hate against one combo deck may not work against another making them actually resilient against the meta.

Clearly some of this is conjecture and isn't the reason to ban WILL... like you don't say *banning Will -> more diverse combo decks making it viable again.  We like combo decks. Thus, Banning Will is good.*  But we can make some pretty clear assurances that if a card is on the restricted list, for example, b/c it is overpowered in a tendril's combo deck... and tendril's combo dies... then that card can be unrestricted and we hope that it will happen.  From this standpoint, who knows what will result... this may lead to more decks trying to abuse fastbond in animal farmesque decks... or to someone trying to break Crop Rotation *though it probably still will be restricted* or frantic search in ways we havent seen yet.  Mind over Matter may even find a home in a deck considering future sight is being used and has the same casting cost... again it all depends on what changes actually happen, and only time would be able to tell... hence why SOME conjecture is necessary.  Of course it really isn't conjecture if you make broad statements that are assured to be true such as *trinisphere's restriction will lead to changes* or something more specific such as *trinishpere's restriction will decrease the popularity of stax decks...*

[Smmenen]

Saying that banning will kills all non belcher non dragon combo is nothing more than saying that it kills TPS, Rector and maybe meandeath.  I don't think a banned will would kill TPS.  TPS still has Bargain, Necro, draw7s and other broken cards.  Will is just one card of many busted cards in TPS.  I also don't see how banning Will kills Rector.  Meandeath, on the other hand, would obviously be killed.

[Vegeta2711]

Saying that banning will kills all non belcher non dragon combo is nothing more than saying that it kills TPS, Rector and maybe meandeath.  I don't think a banned will would kill TPS.  TPS still has Bargain, Necro, draw7s and other broken cards.  Will is just one card of many busted cards in TPS.  I also don't see how banning Will kills Rector.  Meandeath, on the other hand, would obviously be killed.

TPS is already a weak deck power-wise and killing off Will basically removes one of the best bombs it can tutor for. At that point you have some random draw-7, Desire, necro and Bargain left. You may as well play that old draw-7 deck you had at that point. Rector isn't that good even with Will, so losing it means it drops down ANOTHER notch, which basically means it's tier 17 or so at that point. Meandeath, as you said, obviously dies off. Not to mention losing Will hurts ever non-Dragon combo deck to some extent.

That's 3 decks down, kills off a 1-2 variations of combo/control decks (Combo Oath and another Gifts build) and basically a blow to combo in general. All I was trying to say.

[kl0wn]

And for someone so familliar with Magic in general as you poignantly claim, I would think that you would understand that YOU NEED MANA TO CAST SPELLS.

Lol, who needs to work on their reading skills?  YOu even quoted me when i gave you a plethora of other mana producers that are currently being abused.  and remember, i did say that the tutors would also find these which, you so conveniently, decided to cut out of the quote b/c i guess you only read selectively...  

MIIIIIISE! Tutoring for Rituals is not only optimal, but highly effective. I for one know that whenever I cast Demonic, I'm looking for that Cabal Ritual.

I cut out the quote the way I did because it was the part that I was commenting on. I kept the relevent part of your argument intact for brevity (that is, of course, assuming that any part of your argument is relevent, which it's not really).

As for me "misreading" your post... remember you did reply saying that that was just a hoax and, since you weren't serious, then that does make black lotus, ancestral recall, and led restricted/available for comment...

I didn't say anything was a hoax. I said the whole concept of banning Lotus, Ancestral and LED and unrestricting Will was crap since it's more effective to restrict the Will enablers. But for the purpose of our little excersize, Lotus, LED and Ancestral would be banned. You're right, you didn't "misread" my post, you read it fine, you just didn't understand it. You didn't connect the dots. Something's not functioning correctly up there. The gears need oiling.

Thank you for understanding the finer details in life... next time you want to formulate an idea, let me know and i'll buy you a sledge hammer so you can chisel it out.

I want to formulate an idea. Please buy me a sledgehammer so I can use it on your groin, thereby preventing you from pissing in the gene pool like your parents did.

NOTE: Sledgehammers do not chisel, chisels chisel.

Did I not list plenty of cards that would provide mana and/or the ability to draw into mana while fixing your mana base *chromatic sphere and darkwater egg*.  I'm so glad that you've been teaching mtg for a LONG time... but you don't seem to understand combo at all.  Combo doesn't win turn one b/c they always find Black Lotus, LED, or Ancestral Recall.  IN fact, the majority of the time they don't have these cards though, when they do, it generally means auto-win b/c this breaks the tight mana curve that these decks focus upon.  You know what else breaks that mana curve?  Yawgmoth's will which is why most people claim that once u draw that card in a combo deck you pretty much just win.

Hey look, now I've left your convoluted comment completely intact.

You did list plenty of cards that would filter mana and cards. But trading one for one on mana and cards won't win you the game on the first turn. Yawgmoth's Will only breaks the mana curve when you've seen the right cards to break the mana curve with. Again, my challenge stands: build your unbeatable turn one combo deck with no Lotus, Ancestral or LED (or Force of Will, since you don't need it) and unrestricted Will.

Oh, and about your VASTLY superior understanding of combo: how many tournaments have you made Top 8 with it? How long have you been playing it? WHO ARE YOU? And before you take the cheap way out and say "I never claimed to have a superior understanding of it", by claiming that I don't know what I'm talking about, you imply that you have more knowledge and practice than me. If you didn't think so, you'd have shut your yap a long time ago.

As for coming up with the mana, with 4 dark ritual, 4 cabal ritual, 4 chromatic sphere and darkwater eggs, a slew of artifact mana etc... probably land grant and some dual land, you'd easily have the mana necessary to combo off as was discovered by mean deck tendril's.

How's that deck doing these days anyway?

I still believe that unrestricted Will in 2005 would make combo into something more powerful than any deck, EVER. The difference between 1 and 4 wills is a difference of DECKBUILDING proportions. It would annihilate the format. Contrast this with 1-Will combo in 2005.

take his word for it if you don't like mine.

OMG!! SOME GUY SAID SOMETHING!!! I SHOULD AGREE WITH HIM!!!1!

Unrestricted Will EVEN in a world with banned black lotus, LED, and Ancestral recall wouldn't be so bad... Its not like we focus combo decks around finding those cards anyways the way we do Will...  These are more "oops i win" cards than strategies.  Will is the strategy and as such should be looked at more carefully.

Again: Build it up. Goldfish it. PROVE IT. Then I'll concede to your awesomeness, combo massa.

Until then, learn to punctuate and type full words and sentences. Furthermore, don't be condescending towards people.

[glacial-blue]

Until then, learn to punctuate and type full words and sentences. Furthermore, don't be condescending towards people.

A word out of your own book eh   I couldn't help but notice that that's all that you do.

Quote from: glacial-blue on Yesterday at 07:28:56 PM
Quote
And for someone so familliar with Magic in general as you poignantly claim, I would think that you would understand that YOU NEED MANA TO CAST SPELLS.


Lol, who needs to work on their reading skills?  YOu even quoted me when i gave you a plethora of other mana producers that are currently being abused.  and remember, i did say that the tutors would also find these which, you so conveniently, decided to cut out of the quote b/c i guess you only read selectively... 


MIIIIIISE! Tutoring for Rituals is not only optimal, but highly effective. I for one know that whenever I cast Demonic, I'm looking for that Cabal Ritual.

Sarcasm noted... but again, Spoils of the Vault for dark ritual or cabal ritual when you have threshold isn't a bad play...  Its one of the reasons meandeck tendrils was able to work goldfishing first turn kills 60% of the time *do i need to do independant testing or can we take their word on it?*

as for me misreading your post... You stated that

...this whole arguement is retarded because the comment in question (ban Lotus, LED and Ancestral to unrestrict Will) wasn't at all serious. My point was and still is that before we ban Will, we should look at restricting the enablers that get all those juicy Willbreakers in the graveyard and hand.

at which point i replied saying that those cards aren't the enablers that got all of those "juicy Willbreakers in the graveyard and hand".  The cards you just mentioned are the cards we are searching for... aka the willbreakers... not the enablers...

NOTE: Sledgehammers do not chisel, chisels chisel.

If you knew anything about masonry work you would know that you use specific hammers along with chisels to work the stone... a bigger hammer correlates with a bigger chisel meant for mass removal...  The point i was making is that your arguments are stupid and very crude.

You did list plenty of cards that would filter mana and cards. But trading one for one on mana and cards won't win you the game on the first turn. Yawgmoth's Will only breaks the mana curve when you've seen the right cards to break the mana curve with. Again, my challenge stands: build your unbeatable turn one combo deck with no Lotus, Ancestral or LED (or Force of Will, since you don't need it) and unrestricted Will.

IDK why any combo is able to win turn one then...  Please sir, tell me in your infinite wisdom do decks who will rarely see LED, Lotus, or Ancestral recall can win turn one?  I just don't get it... how do they do it since you say its impossible!!!  cough cough meandeck tendrils.

Also i didn't say that disruption isn't nice, but said if anything, substitute duress for Force of Will since it would provide you more information and do practically the same thing in terms of protecting the combo when going off turn 1.  Please answer why duress doesn't fill in that slot for faster combo and i'll drop the point... especially since a lot of faster decks didn't/don't run FoW.

As to your challenge, I do believe you are asking for a little much...  You want me to go through, goldfish hundreds of rounds, all on a scenario that we both know will never happen *Will being unrestricted* just to prove to you something that almost anyone should know...  Besides, the point behind your argument was to say that "i don't have enough experience to make this call" hence why i referred you to the quote by Machinus who has posted even more than you... Why should we take your advice on this? how many top 8's have you made using combo that tried to go off turn 1 or 2? 

Quote
As for coming up with the mana, with 4 dark ritual, 4 cabal ritual, 4 chromatic sphere and darkwater eggs, a slew of artifact mana etc... probably land grant and some dual land, you'd easily have the mana necessary to combo off as was discovered by mean deck tendril's.


How's that deck doing these days anyway?

Granted, meandeck tendril's isn't the deck to play... but it does prove my point about the ability to get lots of cheap mana acceleration in the graveyard which helps further the game plan *which is what we were discussing*.

Unrestricted Will EVEN in a world with banned black lotus, LED, and Ancestral recall wouldn't be so bad... Its not like we focus combo decks around finding those cards anyways the way we do Will...  These are more "oops i win" cards than strategies.  Will is the strategy and as such should be looked at more carefully.


Again: Build it up. Goldfish it. PROVE IT. Then I'll concede to your awesomeness, combo massa.

Again you don't truly reply to what i said *which seems to happen a lot... sorry for the condescension but its true*.    And i've already addressed why i'm not going to build the deck to prove a point on a thread on TMD when all it would be is a waste of time.  Just think about it... deathlong was willing to get a 6 CC yawgmoth's Will and that was still sufficient to win games.  Imagine what 3 3CC Yawgmoth's Will and 4 6CC yawgmoth's Will could do in a deck... Especially since you have other tutors to help find the 3 3CC ones.  *i'm not saying that 3 Will's in this deck and 1 sideboard is optimal, I'm just trying to make a point.*  Also, as a sidenote, Deathlong didn't run FoW.  The reason Smmenen gave is that its not worth decreasing threat density.  This combined with Duress's ability to give you knowledge about a player's hand and the ability to snag hate pre-emptively makes this a perfectly viable solution.

Check out his meandeath primers on starcitygames.com... it'll give you some insight... Hopefully you'll take his word and won't ask his credentials *though you were questioning mine even though i said the same thing and gave very similar analysis.*  Next time actually reply to what i say rather than making me look for it in old posts/articles... This is very time consuming and ultimately doesn't do much to prove a point... the smartest person in the world can be wrong and the dumbest one be right once in a while...  seperate yourself from credentials b/c they do nothing but get past the firewall of hate that is established against new ideas...

[andrewpate]

the smartest person in the world can be wrong and the dumbest one be right once in a while...  seperate yourself from credentials b/c they do nothing but get past the firewall of hate that is established against new ideas...

This is certainly true, and I'll agree that simply pointing out that he is a Vintage Adept lent little credence to kl0wn's point.  But that doesn't detract from the fact that his knowledge of how decks work and how metagames change over time was earned empirically and has been substantiated repeatedly by his input.  Moreover, it is something we have yet to see from you.  Asking you for a little testing data, therefore, is not inappropriate, and I, too, would be interested to see the unbeatable deck you claim to be waiting in the wings.

All that aside, however, you seem to be basing most of your argument on some rather dubious assumptions.  Take for instance:

*onto a quick tangent*  Since we are so bent on trying to determine if this really makes this a Will deck or not look at it this way.  Ancestral Recall is the best draw spell in the game and, as such, gains u the most CA for the buck...  Yet, except in recent Gift decks, is finding and resolving Ancestral Recall the primary purpose of these decks?  no... simply b/c it doesn't provide as much CA as Will...

This assumes that the primary purpose of Yawgmoth's Will is to generate strict numerical card advantage, acting like a big Stroke of Genius for only 3 mana.  But it is a bit of a stretch to say that decks do not center on Ancestral Recall simply because Will does the job better.  Here, you seem to be rebutting kl0wn's earlier comparison of Concentrate to Will.  I do think that his point there bears rebuttal, but not in this matter.

In kl0wn's post, he claims that drawing cards bears the advantage of allowing later use and the disadvantage of only allowing them to be played once.  But this misses the key power of Will, and what sets it apart from numerical card advantage.  Saying that a Will recovering 3 cards is similar to drawing 3 cards is something akin to a comparison between Brainstorm and Reach Through Mists.  Will is good because you wait to cast it until the specific cards it gives you are capable of winning the game immediately, while Ancestral merely gains 3 random cards.  This difference renders both perspectives on Will's numerical CA abilites moot.  abilitieson a game with Oath/Draw7 in which I got Hurkyll's Recall with Eternal Witness with Will in hand and simply used the Will as a Regrowth for Tendrils of Agony, winning completely out of my hand with Hurkyl's and a bunch of artifact mana.  The ability to both do this and reuse a game's worth of bombs is why Will is the nut high, a fact I would have thought to be obvious and not really to bear this much discussion but which nonetheless has been overlooked.

Then again, I'm not really sure how much this undermines your stance, glacial-blue.  Truth be told, I'm not really sure what your stance is.  Your extensive posts are riddled with circumlocution and generality and don't really seem to focus on any main idea.  What exactly are you trying to say?  Can you give it in one sentence?  Look at this:

Smmenen: In its application to Yawgmoth's Will, restriction has failed to accomplish what it is generally intended to accomplish due to the unique nature of that card, and as such, Yawgmoth's Will should be banned in an effort to do what restriction should have:  remove the excessive influence of a single card on an otherwise dynamic metagame.

kl0wn:  Yawgmoth's Will is not significantly more powerful than other extremely powerful cards, none of which bears banning, and as such should remain unbanned.

Can you summarize yourself this concisely?  Because if you could, it would do much more good than another 5-minute cul-de-sac of ambiguous, exhausting rhetoric and unproductive line-by-line semantic refutations.  I have no idea what you are hoping the reader leaves with after your last post.

[glacial-blue]

the smartest person in the world can be wrong and the dumbest one be right once in a while...  seperate yourself from credentials b/c they do nothing but get past the firewall of hate that is established against new ideas...

Moreover, it is something we have yet to see from you.  Asking you for a little testing data, therefore, is not inappropriate, and I, too, would be interested to see the unbeatable deck you claim to be waiting in the wings.

Fair enough...  all I was asking was that my ideas be treated in a fair manner rather than dismissing ideas simply b/c of the title next to a name (something that causes a lot of commotion on other threads and is the reason several people truly dislike posting on TMD).  In addition, I'd be willing to try and spout out some interesting decks based upon the set criteria if you'd be willing to give that to me.  Ie... are we working off the assumption that Will is unrestricted but Lotus, ancestral recall, and LED or if Will were unrestricted and nothing else changes?

All that aside, however, you seem to be basing most of your argument on some rather dubious assumptions.  Take for instance:

*onto a quick tangent*  Since we are so bent on trying to determine if this really makes this a Will deck or not look at it this way.  Ancestral Recall is the best draw spell in the game and, as such, gains u the most CA for the buck...  Yet, except in recent Gift decks, is finding and resolving Ancestral Recall the primary purpose of these decks?  no... simply b/c it doesn't provide as much CA as Will...

This assumes that the primary purpose of Yawgmoth's Will is to generate strict numerical card advantage, acting like a big Stroke of Genius for only 3 mana.  But it is a bit of a stretch to say that decks do not center on Ancestral Recall simply because Will does the job better.  Here, you seem to be rebutting kl0wn's earlier comparison of Concentrate to Will.  I do think that his point there bears rebuttal, but not in this matter.

In kl0wn's post, he claims that drawing cards bears the advantage of allowing later use and the disadvantage of only allowing them to be played once.  But this misses the key power of Will, and what sets it apart from numerical card advantage.  Saying that a Will recovering 3 cards is similar to drawing 3 cards is something akin to a comparison between Brainstorm and Reach Through Mists.  Will is good because you wait to cast it until the specific cards it gives you are capable of winning the game immediately, while Ancestral merely gains 3 random cards.  This difference renders both perspectives on Will's numerical CA abilites moot.  abilitieson a game with Oath/Draw7 in which I got Hurkyll's Recall with Eternal Witness with Will in hand and simply used the Will as a Regrowth for Tendrils of Agony, winning completely out of my hand with Hurkyl's and a bunch of artifact mana.  The ability to both do this and reuse a game's worth of bombs is why Will is the nut high, a fact I would have thought to be obvious and not really to bear this much discussion but which nonetheless has been overlooked.

Then again, I'm not really sure how much this undermines your stance, glacial-blue.  Truth be told, I'm not really sure what your stance is.  Your extensive posts are riddled with circumlocution and generality and don't really seem to focus on any main idea.  What exactly are you trying to say?  Can you give it in one sentence?  Look at this:

Smmenen: In its application to Yawgmoth's Will, restriction has failed to accomplish what it is generally intended to accomplish due to the unique nature of that card, and as such, Yawgmoth's Will should be banned in an effort to do what restriction should have:  remove the excessive influence of a single card on an otherwise dynamic metagame.

kl0wn:  Yawgmoth's Will is not significantly more powerful than other extremely powerful cards, none of which bears banning, and as such should remain unbanned.

Can you summarize yourself this concisely?  Because if you could, it would do much more good than another 5-minute cul-de-sac of ambiguous, exhausting rhetoric and unproductive line-by-line semantic refutations.  I have no idea what you are hoping the reader leaves with after your last post.

First off i'd like to point out that your analysis as to the purpose of Will i whole heartedly agree with and attempted to express much earlier in this thread and is the reason why I use the Mox example with correlation to Will.  I didn't mean to sound as if Will was PURELY about card advantage because its not.  This is one of the main reasons I tried to say it is closer to a tutor than a draw spell and should be used accordingly.

As to my summation, I'd say that my position is really an extension of Smmenen's where I agree with his position and add that, due to the degree of non-interaction that Will creates, it is deserves banning b/c that seems to be the heart of what leads to restriction in vintage.

And about my last post, I would like to apologize.  Kl0wn really didn't add anything and neither did I.  It was more of a personal thing between the two of us started by a misunderstanding i'm sure that just spiraled out of control.  Like we were still discussing SOME things of relevance, but they were so minute that, were he to have replied again, I was actually going to either just dismiss them or point out how pointless that discussion was.

[Summit]

Give me a list of cards that are there specifically to target Will and then certainly I would bow down to you as the superior intellect in the ways of banning and restriction.
Because, as of now, if Will was as horrible as it is being presented as then people would most certainly run specific hate cards to eliminate it as a threat.  The reason no one does is because it is a Bomb, but not so important as to justify running 4x Extract.  Seriously, Mana Drain and its ilk of draw even gets Minds-Eye as a specific Hate card run against them, Will has nothing specific for it because of its redundancy other than Extract or maybe Jesters Cap.  Get REAL.

Again... seriously... read my post further down where i address why this isn't the best way to hate out Will.  In addition, when you talk about the redundancy of will have you seriously ever played against Goth Slaver?  or any other good mana drain deck?  When a deck has the ability to cycle through like half of its deck in a game, don't you think it will either have drawn Will or found a tutor that can?  IDK, i think if the player really needs Will then they will find it.  How else do these decks win when they only have like 2 cards designated to win?

Ok, I will put a response to this as easily and quickly as possible (for me that means keep reading, sorry).  My point is proven in your statement.

Those decks in the metagame that are resilient against Mana Drain decks (Will decks) redundancy do so without having to play specific hate cards.  It is BECAUSE they do not play specific hate cards that I believe Will and "Fundemental Rule Breaking" is not POWERFUL enough in both strategic and intrinsic ability to be banned in the current state of Vintage July 31, 05.  Now, at some point when players are FORCED to use SPECIFIC HATE in order to have a viable deck, then that is the time to Ban it.

  *since this is not the case*  I would venture to assume that your initial standard is flawed.  Namely that just because the risk factor of X is high does not mean that the game cannot handle it AS IT HAS.  Again... look to trinisphere and how people were adapting.  Cron wasn't even using 4 trinisphere's, and other decks had spouted up to contest trinistax.  Not to mention, the odds of having a FoW in hand as opposed to a workshop + trinisphere meant that it should have easily been hated out.

Quick comment on this, I NEVER supported the restriction of 3Sphere.  I still think it was a bad move and Wizards should have allowed another 3 months for format adaptation to fully become realized.

This leads me to assume that the format really doesn't ban cards b/c no one can deal with it.  Rather, I believe, it is based upon the non-interaction that occurs as a result of the particular card.  This is why people dislike combo.  This is why people really hate trinisphere.  Now the line becomes blurry when we begin discussing other cards such as mana drain and Yawgmoth's will.  In the case of mana drain, people for a while were calling for its restriction b/c it wasn't about what card it countered *though that was a plus* it really was about the mana it generated.  This meant that you were on auto-pilot ready to counter anything with a high casting cost just to get the mana to go broken.  However, mana drain is a classic and people are willing to deal with that lvl of non-interaction simply b/c we are desinsitized to it.

I dont mean to use your entire quote but what I want to say is this:
Wizards still has yet to inform the public what they feel their offical reason to banning is.  Ravager didn't cause non-interactivity it was just "unfair".  Now, allow me to state an opinion on Bannings/Restrictions.  They occur when a vast enough part of the community feels they are unfair to the point that the game becomes unfun and people stop playing.  Even Vintage players purchase cards and Wizards doesn't neccessarily make this game for their health.

With Will, this line is even harder to see.  The reason is because it is a mid-late game card *except in combo which i guess the mid-late game could techinically be determined in just minutes rather than turns*  As such people feel that it is acceptable to lose to it b/c, hey, they had a chance to play all of their pretty little foils.

As to my summation, I'd say that my position is really an extension of Smmenen's where I agree with his position and add that, due to the degree of non-interaction that Will creates, it is deserves banning b/c that seems to be the heart of what leads to restriction in vintage.

When you say "People feel that it is acceptable to lose to it because they had a chance to play" it is that measure of fairness I talk of.  Its Vintage, its bahroken, people expect weird shit to happen.  Its part of the game and is thus acceptable to the extent that it isn't a recurring theme.  None of the decklists in the past have proven that Will is winning to the extent that people have measured its "fairness factor" toward the "I feel cheated" side so I doubt that Wizards will ban it, and that the majority of people feel it needs to be.

If you feel I didn't include this quote properly I apologize in advance.  Quote:

From this perspective, I think Will creates one of the largest non-interactivity gaps of any card currently developed.  It helps by-pass hate,

The only TRUE hate that can eliminate Will is Cap or Extract.  It doesn't by-pass specific hate cards but only ones that can also potentially hurt Will.  If you play careful around them or get into top deck mode then sure, it creates a huge gap of Card Advantage.  But, if that were truely a problem to the point that this meta felt unfair to players (and thus they stopped playing like back in the Acadamy days) then players that did want to stick around would be playing 4x Extract at the very least.

Quote: Vegeta2711 said
Quote

It will have a big aftershock, things will crack, and then people will rebuild... and overall we would have more playable cards, stop future restrictions, and have even more diversity than before....

Unless you've actually tested decks with a Will ban in place, you have no idea if there would be more diversity or not. That's an assumption, something you seem to be confusing with fact quite a bit in your posts. Meanwhile I have tested decks with Will banned and I hate to break it to you, but control-combo -still- seems like it would be the best archetype. All you accomplish is to kill nearly every single 'normal' combo deck, except Dragon and Belcher. Based on the enviroment and my tests, I don't think there would be anywhere near the shift you seem to think.

Thank you for at least saying you have done some testing and providing some informed information to the community.  Could there be anyway I could convince you to share a few of the possible decklists to see what decks you believe would be say, Tier 1 and Tier 2 decks after a Will Banning?

quote: Clearly some of this is conjecture and isn't the reason to ban WILL - But we can make some pretty clear assurances that if a card is on the restricted list, for example, b/c it is overpowered in a tendril's combo deck... and tendril's combo dies... then that card can be unrestricted and we hope that it will happen.  From this standpoint, who knows what will result

But, is banning will and opening pandora's box of possibility truelly worth it?  And, if you say yes, then I believe you think this metagame is stagnant based on power level of certain cards which is absurd.  The massive card pool that is Vintage Magic will only get larger every year, and every year there will always be the same powerful cards from each set that are better than anything in comparison.  This does not make it unfair that you cannot try different cards, it makes those cards weak.  I am sorry, but just because some cards cannot be played due to a lower power level does not mean we need to ban Will in order to make a few sentamentalists and "deck builders" happy.  Some cards are better than others DEAL WITH IT!

to Steve:

Saying that banning will kills all non belcher non dragon combo is nothing more than saying that it kills TPS, Rector and maybe meandeath.  I don't think a banned will would kill TPS.  TPS still has Bargain, Necro, draw7s and other broken cards.  Will is just one card of many busted cards in TPS.  I also don't see how banning Will kills Rector.  Meandeath, on the other hand, would obviously be killed.

But again, are these decks that OUT OF CONTROL that Will needs to be banned?  Is the real hidden argument here that 'we dont want Gifts restricted if it proves that it needs to be even if the cost of leaving it unrestricted is banning Will?'

Yes, another point for the "Will makes cards become restricted" team.  The same is true for other cards on that restricted list like Lotus and Moxen and Draw 7s.  Workshop was utimitley the demise of 3sphere and it isn't even on there!

That's 3 decks down, kills off a 1-2 variations of combo/control decks (Combo Oath and another Gifts build) and basically a blow to combo in general. All I was trying to say.

All for what? so we can play with different cards because Gifts/Drain/Will is to powerful in the same deck and Gifts may have to be restricted at some point?  We are talking about killing off several deck types at the cost of a future restriction.  That my friends is chicken little as uninteded card interactions when Wizards prints the cards will always lead to restrictions.

Quote Kl0wn:  Again: Build it up. Goldfish it. PROVE IT. Then I'll concede to your awesomeness, combo massa.

Until then, learn to punctuate and type full words and sentences. Furthermore, don't be condescending towards people.

Two things, firstly I agree to that the burden of proof to Ban Will falls not on the defense but on the accusers.  You need FACTS before this jury we call a community is going to convict Will.  Cold hard numbers people!  This doesn't mean "Will is abusive blah blah" it means, look at this deck, its like LONG and cannot be stopped!!! The meta will be decks with Will and decks with Extract itll be horribleness!

What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor. Real wrath of God type stuff! Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!  Forty years of darkness, earthquakes, and volcanos!  The dead rising from the grave!  Human sacrifices, dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!

Secondly, Kl0wn / Glacial Blue, please dont start a flame as I do believe this conversation has at least presented good arguments for Banning which may come up not just with Will, but with other cards in the future too.  This criteria that we are all pounding at is important to all of us and name calling and sarcasm are too much even when it gets emotional.  I formerly apologize to the boards if anything I typed was taken in this manner.  It was not ment to be harmful to individuals or to the community.

Quote:  andrewpate
Can you summarize yourself this concisely?  Because if you could, it would do much more good than another 5-minute cul-de-sac of ambiguous, exhausting rhetoric and unproductive line-by-line semantic refutations.  I have no idea what you are hoping the reader leaves with after your last post.

I am done with this post.  I have really enjoyed it and will continue to read it, but I am done and thank everyone on the boards its been fun.  So I will make my final point in one easy sentence (if you read this far I congratulate you!):

Will though powerful, is not felt to be unfair enough by the community to justify playing specific Yawgmoth's Will hate cards, losing players to a stagnant UNFUN metagame, and may cause future restrictions, but until the point that the metagame becomes unfun to the majority of players because of the "uneccessary restrictions" or unfairness that is Will, it need not be Banned.(yet)