[Discussion] What is your ideal Banned/Restricted list?

[Jacob Orlove]

Frantic Search is only actually good if you have Academy or Tide going. Otherwise, Careful Study is just better. Academy is simply too inconsistent to be a threat, and Tide is, like Dragon, a combo deck that basically cannot win on turn 1, and often needs to wait until turn 3 or later. That's perfectly fair, and possibly even slightly underpowered.

4x Entomb Dragon is pretty good at drawing the game, but surprisingly terrible at actually winning on turn 1. It's slightly faster than Bazaar Dragon, but with zero lategame and a much higher reliance on just drawing into the perfect 6-7 cards. Again, not the kind of thing we need the restricted list to protect us from.

As for some of the more broken suggestions of the previous post:
Channel: this already sees play in Belcher. Unrestricting it makes that deck the best in the format
Crop Rotation: Stax would love 3 more tutors to set up Crucible/Strip Mine, and this makes Academy busted
Fact or Fiction: it really is too powerful in multiples. People don't remember how much faster than Gifts this card is.
Enlightened Tutor: gets Necro and Fastbond, and Lotus. Combined with instant speed, it's too good.
Gush: busted draw engine. Dryads would wreck house.
Lion's Eye Diamond: this card is stupid broken. I would rather see Sol Ring unrestricted.
Regrowth: borderline, but very, very strong. If people could build decks around it, I would be very worried.

Brainstorm is quite honestly better than at least a third of the current restricted list (as is Force), but restricting them actually reduces diversity and format quality. You can only have maximum diversity when decks have a certain level of manabase and draw consistency. Compare last year's Standard with what it looks like with Rav block. All the dual lands and mana fixing mean that *more* decks are viable. Brainstorm and Force do much the same thing, by ensuring that more decks can draw what they need, and survive a broken opening by the opponent. Restricting either of these (or fetchlands, as someone suggested) would narrow the format to only the most powerful decks, as everything else would be much less consistent, and therefore unable to compete.

edit: Smmenen addressed a lot of the Will arguments in his article. Please read it before making slippery slope accusations.

[klu]

Sorry, I don't have premium SCG to read the article about banning ywill.
But i don't see in what way i'm making accusations.. i just read everyone begging for Ywill's ban.

I aggree with you about channel, crop, ... but i'm just asking for those card to be unres. to see in what way they will appear in the top8's. R&B will be able to restrict them back a few time later, just to stop damages.
I wan't the Vintage to be moving.. : we are currently just waiting like children for the new extension to see how to use our brain and have THE revoluting idea.

[zeus-online]

You can read the article...it is premium, but they allow non-premium users to read it after a certain amount of time.

I dont think unrestricting either channel og crop rotation would be good....5 tolarian academy's is just wwaaay too busted...and channel is basicly want charbelcher needs to reach that 80%+ Turn 1 wins or something.

Alot of people have been saying that enlightened tutor -> Necropotence is way too good, i disagree, that way the opponent will generally have a whole turn to merchant scroll for force, duress the combo player etc. etc.
It is currently possible to include enlightened tutor in combo decks due to rainbow lands, yet i've never EVER seen anyone do this...!

I do believe restricted the fetch lands would be good, all mana-denial based decks would gain alot from this....and realisticly people would still be able to play 2-3 fetch's (Say in Slaver, polluted, flooded, bloodstained) thats only 1 less then what the deck currently run.

/Zeus

[netherspirit]

I think Dream Halls should definitely be unrestricted, it's quite slow and requires you to have card advantage to make much use of it.
Tendrils should probably be restricted, it'd mean storm decks have to do a little extra work in getting the kill but it wouldn't make the deck too weak.
I wouldn't mind seeing Library of Alexandria made unrestricted if it was given errata to become legendary.

[petergrifindor]

The saddest thing I would see in vintage is banning cards for power reasons.
I think banning Yaw. will is not necesary at all.

Control Slaver: Doesn´t need it to win
Workshop decks: Doesn´t play it.
Oath: Doesn´t play it.
Ichorid: Doesn´t play it

Combo decks: Let them live

[Implacable]

I think Dream Halls should definitely be unrestricted, it's quite slow and requires you to have card advantage to make much use of it.
Tendrils should probably be restricted, it'd mean storm decks have to do a little extra work in getting the kill but it wouldn't make the deck too weak.
I wouldn't mind seeing Library of Alexandria made unrestricted if it was given errata to become legendary.

Tendrils being restricted is not a very meaningful change.  I think that Meandeck is the only Tendrils which runs more than 1.

[chrissss]

Tendrils should be banned or nothing. restricing hardly matters.

yawgmoths will should maybe be banned. its a great card in combo decks, and especially with Power 9 cards its great. without that, its a bit less though.

unbanning entomb would make first turn kills with the dragon easy. I had a deck like that, and first turn kills werent out of the question. animate dead, entomb, worldgorger and an X spell and good to go.

I know misdirection exists, but its not because one color has spells to change targets, that other cards should be unrestricted.
regrowth might be a good idea, although it would be a potential card to make a combo deck with, perhaps with gifts.
mox diamond should be unrestricted. I know its fast, but its also 2 cards for one, and this is major card disadvantage. plus you need to run a lot of lands in order to gain the benefit, unlike chrome mox, which doesnt need lands.

[ErkBek]

Frantic Search is only actually good if you have Academy or Tide going. Otherwise, Careful Study is just better. Academy is simply too inconsistent to be a threat, and Tide is, like Dragon, a combo deck that basically cannot win on turn 1, and often needs to wait until turn 3 or later. That's perfectly fair, and possibly even slightly underpowered.

Frantic Search is a great mana fixer in TPS. Playing a draw7 with only 1 untapped land into frantic search is amazing. Not only does it let you see 9 cards off the draw7, but it also lets you untap all your colored sources. I think unrestricting time spiral is much safer than FS. With that said, unrestricting FS would be really open some new doors for deckbuilding.

As for my restricted list, I'd unrestrict
Dream Halls
Time Spiral
Frantic Search
Chrome Mox
Grim Monolith
Mind Over Matter

I'd never unrestrict 3sphere. The format was slow stale before 3 sphere got restricted and I'd probably quit if it ever got that way again.

[Purple Hat]

unbanning entomb would make first turn kills with the dragon easy. I had a deck like that, and first turn kills werent out of the question. animate dead, entomb, worldgorger and an X spell and good to go.

You're really worried about a 4 card combo that requires at least 3 mana (so ritual, really a 5 card combo) in vintage?  for the love of god, WHY?

I don't see 4 gush gat as the broken gush deck anymore....it'd be good and consistent, I just don't think it's gonna be broken think of what the meta looked like back when it was dominant....everything is more powerful and faster now.  I'm WAY more worried about gush based tendrils, if that's not good enough to be broken then I think unrestricting gush is completely safe.

Alot of people have been saying that enlightened tutor -> Necropotence is way too good, i disagree, that way the opponent will generally have a whole turn to merchant scroll for force, duress the combo player etc. etc.
It is currently possible to include enlightened tutor in combo decks due to rainbow lands, yet i've never EVER seen anyone do this...!

if you could play 4 you would....being able to drop necro turn two consistently would be overwhelmingly broken.  do you really think that "they resolve necro so I tutor up a counter and they lose" is really the way that game goes?  if so why aren't you arguing for the unrestriction of necro?  (obviously I'm assuming you're not saying you can tutor up a counter for the necro cus that's really dumb)

[EnialisLiadon]

I can't think of anything I'd do to the B/R list...  I want Gush unrestricted, but that may be due to the fact that GAT is one of my all-time favorite decks.  I'm on the fence about Entomb.  I think it sucks in Dragon, since a turn 1 kill would have to be something like, "U-Sea, Ritual, Mox, double Entomb, Animate Dead."  Same goes for reanimator, because it'd be worse than Oath.  But with Crucible, Entomb finds Strip Mine or Academy.  With Yawgmoth's Will, it's a 1cc Demonic Tutor.  The card has a variety of applications so I'm just not sure if it can come off.

Regrowth, however, I'm sure about.  Keep it restricted.  Sex.dec could probably be viable with 10 regrowth effects.  Intuition for Ancestral, Time Walk and something and just go to town.

I could see Mox Diamond MAYBE coming off, but it could be powerful with Crucible.  Chrome Mox should definately be restricted, though.  It would just be to insane in combo, methinks.

And finally,keep Yawgmoth's Will legal.

[Cross]

Referring to Menendian's article about banning Yawgmoth's Will, some of his arguments are clearly wrong in his article so it is not the end all of why you should ban will, if anything the things that have happened since then support the reason not to ban it.

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

This has clearly not happened, and is of intricate importance to all the other points in his article. The most damming part of this is that Steve is pressing for the restriction of ritual and grim tutor because of will, neither of which happened (mind you this is an old article and combo has only gotten better since then, refuting this even more).

Also his claims section at the end of the article does not make reference to good deck building, like running crypt main board, or more importantly good decks that don't even run the card. Adding to that argument, his section about the development of the format being bent around yawgmoth’s will, is more about the development of combo and control decks, not about the development of stax, oath aggro and dragon (all of which are arguably large portions of the metagame [not including dragon]).

Finally his slippery slope argument does not address the issue of Black Lotus, clearly the best card in the format, and if anything vintage has been about the development of lotus, not Will. So why would we ever ban Yawgmoth’s Will when Lotus is clearly the “problem� card of the format.

[M.Solymossy]

The banned list would stay the same, obviously
    * Any ante card
    * Chaos Orb
    * Falling Star
   
what I would UNRESTRICT in vintage:
    * Chrome Mox
    * Demonic Tutor
    * Dream Halls
    * Entomb
    * Mox Diamond
    * Trinisphere   
    * Voltaic Key
   
What I would add to the Restricted list (and why)
    * Oath of Druids:  Lets face it.  Combo cards get restricted all the time.  What is better than a combo that costs 1g and requires only a land on top of htat, and can be split by multiple turns?  The card requires 4 oath, 4 orchard, 2 creatures, and 1 blessing to really run effectively.  That's FOURTY NINE cards that can be whatever you want. 
    * Gifts Ungiven:   The card is honestly the strongest card printed in a very long time.  This card seals the game, even in decks that arn't central to the card.
    *  Grim Tutor:  Lets face it, tutors get restricted all the time.    Burning Wish got restricted JUST because of old long, why wouldn't Grim Tutor get restricted when both IT and Long play it?
    *  Crucible of worlds:   Lets face it, this card is ridiculously broken when combined with other cards in vintage.  I honestly feel like THIS*** was the problem, NOT trinisphere.
    *   

[Roxas]

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

This has clearly not happened, and is of intricate importance to all the other points in his article. The most damming part of this is that Steve is pressing for the restriction of ritual and grim tutor because of will, neither of which happened (mind you this is an old article and combo has only gotten better since then, refuting this even more).

Gush.  Lion's Eye Diamond.  Burning Wish. 

----

Also his claims section at the end of the article does not make reference to good deck building, like running crypt main board

Jacob has refuted this already. 

As for Crypt (and Extract), running a card that does basically nothing but neutralize Will is not an adequate answer to the card, because Will (unlike most restricted cards) is strategically broken, not tactically broken. Decks with Will can afford to deal with Crypt or even Force an Extract, because that Will is generally going to be strong enough to overcome whatever sacrifices they had to make to cast it. Crypt helps several decks fight Will, but the Crypt itself sets you behind a card, which can sometimes be just enough of a disadvantage that they can leverage it into dealing with Crypt and resolving Will.

Edit: also, saying that "every deck" can play crypt is extremely misleading. Most decks in the format cannot afford to give up space and cards just to get Crypt out there to fight Will. Crypt just does not do enough on its own for anything but CS (which has Thirsts anyway, and Welders) to really be able to run it.

----

Finally his slippery slope argument does not address the issue of Black Lotus, clearly the best card in the format, and if anything vintage has been about the development of lotus, not Will. So why would we ever ban Yawgmoth’s Will when Lotus is clearly the “problem� card of the format.

Black Lotus is, in reality, clearly not the "problem" card of the format - it does not win the game upon resolution like Yawgmoth's Will.  In fact, a large part of its brokenness comes from the fact that it is so good during a Yawgmoth's Will turn.  What is this "development of Lotus" that you speak of?  I don't really see how you can "develop" using the card past "yay I get three mana."  The only "development" the card has experienced is becoming part of Gifts Ungiven piles to - yes, you guessed it - be involved in a Yawgmoth's Will. 

[Cross]

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

This has clearly not happened, and is of intricate importance to all the other points in his article. The most damming part of this is that Steve is pressing for the restriction of ritual and grim tutor because of will, neither of which happened (mind you this is an old article and combo has only gotten better since then, refuting this even more).

Gush.  Lion's Eye Diamond.  Burning Wish. 

You misunderstand. What I meant was that this has not happened since this was written and more importantly he was extremely wrong about cards like ritual and grim tutor being restricted because of their interaction with will.

Black Lotus is, in reality, clearly not the "problem" card of the format - it does not win the game upon resolution like Yawgmoth's Will.  In fact, a large part of its brokenness comes from the fact that it is so good during a Yawgmoth's Will turn.

I think you have this backwards.

What is this "development of Lotus" that you speak of?  I don't really see how you can "develop" using the card past "yay I get three mana."

Wait, what about like … the entire format?

[zeus-online]

@ Purple hat:
Turn 1: Tutor Turn 2: necropotence =  turn 3 kill. Thats not particularly fast! I know necropotence is extremely good/broken, but giving the opponent a turn to get the defenses up should compensate for that! land, mox will buy you merchant scroll, mana leak, duress ...If you cant get a counter up by turn 2, your deck probably isnt viable unless it can race turn 2 necropotence (I.E. Storm comb, belcher etc.).
And why, oh why, dont people play this card as a one-off if its THAT good? Its not hard to play a solitary white spell in a deck with 8 rainbow lands.

@ 13nova:
I assume its some kind of error that you put demonic tutor on the suggested list of unrestrictions?
And if not, then why do you suggest grim tutor for restriction?

EDIT: Also, why would you run enlightened tutor, when Unrestricted grim tutor is probably Straight up BETTER?

[Pyromaniac]

What is this "development of Lotus" that you speak of?  I don't really see how you can "develop" using the card past "yay I get three mana."

Wait, what about like … the entire format?

So what you're saying is that essentially we're developing all our decks to be based on Lotus, not just including it because it's a very good mana source that speeds stuff up significantly?

[chrissss]

    * Oath of Druids:  Lets face it.  Combo cards get restricted all the time.  What is better than a combo that costs 1g and requires only a land on top of htat, and can be split by multiple turns?  The card requires 4 oath, 4 orchard, 2 creatures, and 1 blessing to really run effectively.  That's FOURTY NINE cards that can be whatever you want. 
 

I do see your point, its just that most combo cards cannotbenefit your opponent at all. oath in theory could. if your opponentt would play with haunted creatures, he could use oath. ( I know this doesnthappen in vintage, but if you look at the list of restricted cards, most dont favour your opponent appart from draw 7s.

plus, its not like oath wins a lot anyways, ( I base this statement from looking at the top decks at www.morphling.de)


ps since when did grim tutor become the best card in vintage? everyone seems to keep playing with it, and I dont really see why its so good compared to others. Is it because of the fact you can have 4 of them in your deck?


funny story, about me having a good draw. (perfect draw)

opponent: plays swamp, grim tutor, and dark ritual.

me: mox ruby(proxi) and mountain, 2 jackal pups.

opponent : swamp, mox, nulrod. sol ring.

me: mountain,  lightning bolt, chain lightning, lava spike, fireblast.

him: "my turn?"

me: no, your dead, I did 17 damage,and you were at 17.

him: "luck"

me: *thanks tutor*

[arj]

While the Oath combo is stupidly simple it is also slow. Sure it only costs two mana but the combo is relatively slow (takes at least two turns to kill, after resolving Oath) and doesn't really disrupt the opponent (except life). Combo can race that any day and other decks should have plenty of possibilities to do something about the threat. The same could be said about tinker->colossus.

[AngryPheldagrif]

Is there a point to restricting Oath? It forms to basis of an archetype, just as Drain, Ritual, Workshop, and to a lesser extent Null Rod do. In terms of prevalence, it should not be restricted without axing most of those along with it. Oath has yet to achieve dominance even approaching that attained by Drain and Shop decks.

[EnialisLiadon]

Unless Crucible is really what's keeping things like Entomb, Crop Roation (though it's nutty enough without it) and other stuff restricted, I don't see a point in restricting it.  I can't think of other decks besides Stax that use, aside from the occasional slaver (but they only run 1, so it's a moot point).  I think Stax would be pushed further into hibernation if Crucible were restricted.

[AngryPheldagrif]

Unless Crucible is really what's keeping things like Entomb, Crop Roation (though it's nutty enough without it) and other stuff restricted, I don't see a point in restricting it.  I can't think of other decks besides Stax that use, aside from the occasional slaver (but they only run 1, so it's a moot point).  I think Stax would be pushed further into hibernation if Crucible were restricted.

Entomb was axed because of Dragon and Crop Rotation has been on the list because of Academy, long before Crucible was printed.

[Toad]

Entomb was restricted in T1 in order to get it banned in T1.5.

[Jacob Orlove]

Turn 1: Tutor Turn 2: necropotence =  turn 3 kill. Thats not particularly fast! I know necropotence is extremely good/broken, but giving the opponent a turn to get the defenses up should compensate for that! land, mox will buy you merchant scroll, mana leak, duress ...If you cant get a counter up by turn 2, your deck probably isnt viable unless it can race turn 2 necropotence (I.E. Storm comb, belcher etc.).
And why, oh why, dont people play this card as a one-off if its THAT good? Its not hard to play a solitary white spell in a deck with 8 rainbow lands.

4 Enlightened Tutor would let people get Black Lotus with insane amounts of consistency. That turns stuff like Reconstruction into a second set of Rituals (only blue!) Building a combo deck where you are almost certain to have Lotus by turn 2 (faster if you're playing enough cantrips) lets you play very differently. It's possible that it wouldn't be broken, but I'm not convinced yet.

[Purple Hat]

my point isn't so much that winning on turn 3 is too fast, my point is that ALWAYS winning on turn 3 is too fast.

[mrieff]

What about the unrestriction of Library of Alexandria? Is there really a deck that would use multiples, given the fact that its mostly played in control decks who really want to get UU in turn 2?

[Roxas]

  Let me try and clarify myself. I beleive beyond whatever is banned right now nothing else should be banned. That is why I play vintage, so I can play with everything and anything. As my earlier post showed, I think the restricted list is way too long as it is right now, and at one point or another each of these cards had a place, but if you take them off, and whittle it down to just the most broken, than we will have more choices on our deck building. We will have more decks that do different things.

I'm sure Smmenen has probably addressed this elsewhere before, but I think it's worth repeating.  The whole "so I can play with all the cards" isn't the reason most people play the format; we play the format because we enjoy playing with the cards too broken to be legal in other formats.  While those two statements might seem the same, there is an important distinction - it is still a competitive tournament format that we play, and that should take precedence over "being able to play with all of the cards."  If having the best possible competitive environment means banning something like Yawgmoth's Will, then so be it.  (Not that I think it's absolutely necessary right now or anything, just in case you somehow come to the conclusion that I meant such a thing.)

Remember that "more cards available = more options" is not necessarily true; if anything, something closer to the opposite is true.  Look at Yawgmoth's Will again, for instance.  Because of its presence, the variety of playable control decks and the win conditions used in them is severely limited; who would use something like Morphling when the vastly superior Yawgmoth's Will "kill" is simply that much better?  Yawgmoth's Will also just about forces all good control decks to play black, because it is just that good.  Would you stick Underground Seas in your Drain deck solely for Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, and possibly Duress?  Maybe, but it's not as easy to say "yes" as it is to Yawgmoth's Will.

[Harlequin]

I would like to see a bit more correlation in the R/B List.  There are 2 pairs of cards that strike me as "different but same power"  that I would like to see on the same side of the fence ... either way.  They are:

Gifts and FoF.
Both cost 4 mana and are instant.  FoF is faster and acts more like a power drawspell.  Gifts is slower, but is basically a tutor on sterioids.

Mana Vault and Dark Ritual.
Both are 1 mana that give 3 mana, and become "spent" (unlike Sol Ring or Mana Crypt).  Mana Vault can be 'saved', But Dark rit is instant speed.  Mana Vault costs colorless and gives , Dark Rit costs colored but gives BBB.  Dark Rit is empowered by Yawgs Will, and it is fundamental to Tendrils decks.  Mana vault is less fundamental but has noteable synergy with a wider spectrum of cards (welder, tinker, key, Thirst).  And lastly Vault has a minor life paying drawback, but can be untapped and reused in a long game.

I'm not sure If I think these pairs should be restricted or not but I think they should at least follow the same rules.
I guess I'm leaning towards restricting Gifts and unrestricting Vault.



Finally, I would not loose any sleep over seeing Dark Steel Collosus Banned.  Here is why. DSC totally breaks the idea of "Artifact Creature"  an Artifact creature should be the easiest card to destroy (in that it can be killed by artifact hate, creature hate, and leathal damage).  But in actuality he is one of the formats HARDEST creatures to destroy.  He forces decks to run blue for bounce or forces decks to run Swords to plow or Edict, which have thier own faults.  Basically it single-handedly destroys any mono-green or mono-red deck (welder is a consideration I guess).  The arguement about "well there are plenty of nasty artifacts out there like Sundering Titan..." Is not very good because Titan (even though he is nasty) can still be destroyed useing normal artifact OR creature destruction techniques (which all colors outside of blue have abundant access to).   

I can't see how DSC is doing anything but narrowing the meta-game.

[Spacebalzz]

Howdy.

I rarely play magic anymore as I've lost my play group and further just really don't have the time.  Thus, I've abstained from posting over the three plus years that I've been reading the drain.  However, I will post here because I have something to say.

First off, I agree with Smennen's list of unrestrictions.  None of the cards on it seem to be too powerful in the current format, however, I've always felt that Dream Halls had the possibility to be some sort of crazy, I win sort of deal.  But, if Steve and other great deck-builders haven't found that yet, it probably doesn't exist.  Also, I have some 15 Mind Twists--unrestrict them so I can maybe make a few bills for the bar.

My biggest problem is the heralding of the banning of Yawgmoth's Will.  I understand that it is a ludicrously broken card and makes way for ridiculously fast combo decks, but I don't think banning it is the answer.  The problem with banning cards in vintage is that I believe that it opens a floodgate of card banning that needs to remain shut.  As of now, there are no cards banned because of their power, but rather because they don't fit the format (i.e. ante cards) or because they penalize players for the way they set up their board (i.e. Chaos Orb/Falling Star).  I've always seen vintage as a format where all cards can be played, even if that only means one.  I feel that banning one card could start a chain reaction of banning that could be catastrophic to the format.  After one banning, every time a card becomes dangerously powerful, people will cry for banning.  Not to mention, look at the people that do the B/R list--WotC.  We give them the power to ban Yawgmoth's Will, then Tinker will be next, and who knows what after that.  So lets not ban anything.  If you want to make will less powerful, ban dark ritual.  While I love the card and my four badass looking 5E ones with colored in black borders, it's restriction kicks storm combo in the jewels.

About Entomb.  I think it could possibly be restricted, possibly not.  Ironically, I don't fear Dragon with its unrestriction (I do agree that it could be alot better with 4 Entomb), I fear other reanimation type decks that could arise.  I know that ritual-entomb-shallow grave-nicol bolas isn't the most viable combo in the world, there's other potentially scary stuff out there that can be reanimated, and its just looking for a 1cc way to the grave.

Anyway, I'd write more, but exams are calling.  Peace.

-Spacebalzz
"Big Smennen Fan"

[Harlequin]

I too agree that Yawg's will doesn't need to be banned.  Basically, the reason I think this, is because when designing a deck, you don't need cards that ONLY hate out yawg's will.  Every good deck will have graveyard hate in one form or another if it needs it.  Simply put, decks don't nessisarily need to run card X simply because of Yawg's will.  Also hurting Yawgs goes beyond simple GY hate.  Many decks run Chalice for 0, Spheres, and Null Rod as "Anti-Will Turn" cards.  Knowing that limiting the spells the will owner can play will limit the cards effectiveness.  So the game has addapted to control Yawgs, because it can be controlled by a diverse range of sollutions.

As for Entomb, Entomb is probably one of the most power tutor's there is.  Its no great secret that there are decks that win via the graveyard.  Entomb may be the most conditional tutor, but it is empowered by a range of un-restricted cards.  Spesifically: Animate enchants, Welder, and Crucible.  Sticking to the theme of "restriction with reason" I think Entomb should be restricted because its an "any card" tutor for 1 at instant speed.  Where this card goes is nearly irrelevant to the power level of this card.

[Vegeta2711]

So I'm not really buying the "there are plenty of tinker targets and/or wizards will inevitably print more" arguement.  DSC is good because he kills in 2 turns and is completely indestructable.

I didn't know DSC was printed in the same set as Tinker.

No seriously, what the hell? Tinker was around for years and then they printed Mindslaver, DSC, Goblin Charbelcher, etc.

I pretty much can't imagine them NOT printing another insanely broken artifact that's fun with Tinker in the near future.