B&R update?

[FlamingCloud]

If as many people played long as played drains, it might be the format warping, distorting deck worth restricting something in but it is not at those numbers yet.  Will it get those numbers? Maybe.  Is it worth pre-emptively doing something? Maybe.  However, I personally feel pre-emptive restriction is generally stupid and the cards on the list that never proved themselves to be too good (especially chrome mox, and trinisphere more recently, obviously imperial seal however didn't need to prove anything) should be removed from the list.  Cards that were too good 6 years ago but wouldn't be now should be removed as well.

[forests failed you]

Oh get serious...  Unrestrict Black Vise??  Land, Mox Vice Vice... on the play seems pretty insane.

[Disburden]

I honestly doubt any changes are going to be made to the list this time. There is nothing that is currently format warping. Grim tutor is not dominating anyone to an extreme of needing restriction. On the opposite side of things, I even doubt they'll be unrestrictions of cards either. It's really rare when either a card is restricted on unrestricted, so I Think things will be the same for a while.

With that said, I'm pretty sure Trinisphere was restricted primaturely and needs to come off the list. It's possible to work around and is nothing like 4 Burning Wish 4 LED long or 4 fact or fiction BBS.

Also, everytime I see a new post on this forum I get excited. I think there's been a new list revealed from Wizards and then I realize it's just more of us saying what we want restricted and unrestricted. It's very dissapointing.

[taniquetil]

I challenge anyone to make Diamond broken.  The kind of deck you'd want to run the crappy moxes in (decks like combo where you need cheap spells and mana) are by necessity light on land.  Chrome is still shit, and it's a world ahead of Diamond in terms of usefulness.

I doubt the problem is that the players are going to make the card broken. I just think it's a problem with the DCI which doesn't want to deal with the possible repurcussions. Vintage players have been vying for the unrestriction of Voltaic Key, Dream Halls, the two bad Moxen, and TIme Sprial for a while now.
I doubt anyone could make a broken deck with 4x Chrome Mox 4x Mox diamond, or find a use for 4x Voltaic Key, but the fact remains that it's probably a whole easier for the DCI to make no changes and say 'we think the format is healthy now with the current B&R list' then to actually get together, look at decklists, read player recommendations, and decide which cards need to be taken off. Especially in a non-sanctioned format.

[Dante]

Oh get serious...  Unrestrict Black Vise??  Land, Mox Vice Vice... on the play seems pretty insane.

Exactly, and even if it's beatable, it's just stupid and arbitrary.  It's in the same vein in terms of restrictions as Trinisphere (beatable, but random, coin-flippy, and skill-less).

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

I don't think that anything needs to be restricted at the moment.  The format seems to be quite diverse; nothing is dominating and there is a variety of viable decks.

Regrowth IMO can definitly be unrestricted.  When you think about it, the two most powerful cards to regrowth are ancestral and lotus, and even those two aren't really worth it.  The fact that scoll is unrestricted means 1UU for an ancestral from your deck is fair.  1UG for an ancestral from your graveyard is much worse.  Regrowthing lotus is 1G for 3 mana of any colour that gets shut down by graveyard hate, chalice for 0, and null rod, and only works when lotus in already in your graveyard.  Dark ritual and cabal ritual are both better than regrowthing a lotus, especially since they are black and actually do something with Will.  As for Regrowthing a Time Walk, recoup which is unrestricted is arguable better as it is red and also has flashback.  I know that the card gets RFG and thus this can't be done mutiple times, but it is the same cost for a similar effect.  Regrowth is safe. 

As for Grim Monolith and Voltaic Key, neither is very powerful and I think they are both pretty obviously able to be unrestricted.  The bad moxen also appear to be fairly safe, since they aren't even played as singletons in most decks now, diamond being obviously much worse than chrome and probably able to come off for sure.

 I'm not sure about Dream Halls; it costs a lot and looks quite unwieldly at first glance, but I don't really know what it is capable of. 

As for Vise, I never played when 4x Vise were legal but from people who have I've heard that is was pretty ridiculous.  The format has obviously changed a great deal since then, but Vise is the type of card that looks innocuous enough as a 1-of but gets much more powerful in multiples.

I'm surprised to see that people are advocating the unrestriction of Enlightened Tutor.  Personally, I don't see why people aren't playing it in 5c Grim Long for example.  This card fetches Lotus, Necro, and Bargain for W at instant speed, not to mention stuff in 5c stax in can get like Trinisphere or Fastbond.  Just cheaply tutoring for lotus is pretty ridiculous.  Fastbond with Crucible is insane, and 4x tutor means 5x fastbond.  Although fastbond isn't played now, the card definitely deserves its place on the restricted list and so does any card that cheaply gets it.

Personal Tutor is another card I'm not sure about.  No one plays it now, but just paying U to fetch Tinker or Will is pretty good, even at sorcery speed.

Trinisphere I think may have been restricted too quickly (in fact, when I heard of the news I was surprised to see it go, despite all the people who had been complaining about it) , but I seriously have to agree that I hate playing against this card.  It shuts down any fast mana at all besides ESG and is incredibly unfair when played against non-shop decks, especially on the play; however that is certainly not a good argument to restrict the card or to keep the card restircted.  I don't know if it belongs on or not.

I'm not sure about Burning Wish, either; It is certainly a powerful card as it's place in Gifts illustrates (and of course some Slaver builds), but Grim Tutor is arguable much better at Wish's former place in Tendrils combo decks; despite the 1 extra mana it can be cast off rituals with an UB mana base and is also replayable under Will as well as fetching any other card in your deck and still leaving you with the actual Will itself to draw or tutor for.  I don't know what 4x Wish would do to control decks (my knoweldge of the Shining is quite limited), but I don't think that current control decks like Gifts or Slaver would really be improved by running more than 1 copy.  This is one of the cards that you often hate to see in your opening hand, and lets face it, although replaying Will once is nice, if you have to do it more times than that you should be winnning anyways.  Most of the time this card just fetches Tendrils for the win and is only better than a Tendtils because of the combo ability to replay Time Walk after Tinkering for Colossus and having Willed it away or flashed it back; and you only need 1 Burning Wish for that.

[andrewpate]

Time Spiral
Urza's Saga rare. Originally intended as a “fixed” Timetwister, many players consider Time Spiral even more powerful than the original. (Quick Trivia: Did you know the Spiral can be used to untap opponent’s lands?)

Wow.  Can some of you please post here?  I would love to hear why Time Spiral is more powerful than Timetwister (And no, I don't mean why it's better in High Tide or if you have Sapphire Medallion or something.  I mean why it's more powerful.).

@Gandalf
I think that you underestimate the difference between Regrowth and Recoup.  Are you familiar with Sex.dec?  It is an aggro deck that uses Regrowth, Nostalgic Dreams, etc. to cast Time Walk every turn.  With unrestricted Regrowth, a strategy of this nature would become much more viable.  Black Lotus and Ancestral Recall are not the reasons to use 4 copies of Regrowth.  If it were unrestricted, I feel quite certain of my ability to build a Turboland deck that would take enough turns to make the rest of the game fairly academic pretty consistently on turn 2-3.  And I don't even think that's good.

Dream Halls is trash, as has often been stated, on the grounds that any method of getting it into play can also get Yawgmoth's Bargain into play, and Bargain already wins the game automatically (This is a bit of an exception to what I said about comparing cards, for what I think are obvious reasons.).

[Dozer]

Time Spiral
Urza's Saga rare. Originally intended as a “fixed” Timetwister, many players consider Time Spiral even more powerful than the original. (Quick Trivia: Did you know the Spiral can be used to untap opponent’s lands?)

Wow.  Can some of you please post here?  I would love to hear why Time Spiral is more powerful than Timetwister (And no, I don't mean why it's better in High Tide or if you have Sapphire Medallion or something.  I mean why it's more powerful.).

It's considered more powerful because Timetwister wasn't in the broken Urza Block Academy decks. In a Vintage context, Timetwister is obviously stronger, but Time Spiral just did more during the time it was legal in a "current" format. Also, if you don't have fast mana to deploy from your hand (read: Moxen), but rely on Academy instead, the untap-effect of Time Spiral is pretty important. Sure, Twister is the objectively more powerful card, but not in the minds of the majority of players who never had a chance to play with Twister or, indeed, don't even know it exists.

[Liam-K]

If people think Grim Tutor needs to be restricted they need to learn how to play a deck that's not Control Slaver.  Seriously.

Exactly.  CS is just bad in this metagame.  People are finally figuring out scroll gifts is actually good.  People are finally learning to play combo.  CS has never been objectively good and its vulnerabilities are more relevant than ever.

Gifts is weak to fish.  Long is weak to gifts.  I haven't tested it at all but I suspect fish tends to lose to long.  This doesn't look like a metagame out of control to me.  Didn't we used to call this coherancy?  Sorry if your pet deck isn't teir 1, but the format is pretty fair.

[Vegeta2711]

Can some of you please post here?  I would love to hear why Time Spiral is more powerful than Timetwister (And no, I don't mean why it's better in High Tide or if you have Sapphire Medallion or something.  I mean why it's more powerful.).

Hmmm...
One gives me 7 cards for 3 mana.
One gives me 7 cards for 6 mana AND untaps my Academy.

Or in other terms. 7 cards for free > 7 cards.

[The Atog Lord]

CS has never been objectively good

I couldn't read this and not post. Sure, there was a time when I had to work really hard to convince people that the deck was good. But at this point I think we can all agree that while CS may or may not be an optimal metagame choice, it is at least a fundamentally sound deck.

[Gabethebabe]

Grim tutor definitely needs to be restricted. It has the same effect as Demonic Tutor which is restricted and only costs a black more and 3 life.

Har fucking har. "only costs a black more and 3 life". One mana is all the difference in the world.
Demonic Tutor = restricted
Grim Tutor = Well designed balanced card
Diabolic Tutor = unplayable POS

[Liam-K]

CS has never been objectively good

I couldn't read this and not post. Sure, there was a time when I had to work really hard to convince people that the deck was good. But at this point I think we can all agree that while CS may or may not be an optimal metagame choice, it is at least a fundamentally sound deck.

My statement was unfair, and I don't think the deck is "bad."*  But the format is moving towards tutor-focused lists because tutors always, always do exactly what you want them to do.  CS is going to have a hard time in the future because it doesn't run enough cards that say "do whatever you want."  It's designed with synergies coming together in mind, but what it does to make that happen (draw cards) is comparatively inefficient.

But I don't want to hijack.  We can have this fight in another thread if that's what needs to happen.

*my statement was made with 20/20 hindsight, I feel there are better ways to build your deck *now* but CS was probably the best machine around for a long time

[andrewpate]

Can some of you please post here?  I would love to hear why Time Spiral is more powerful than Timetwister (And no, I don't mean why it's better in High Tide or if you have Sapphire Medallion or something.  I mean why it's more powerful.).

Hmmm...
One gives me 7 cards for 3 mana.
One gives me 7 cards for 6 mana AND untaps my Academy.

Or in other terms. 7 cards for free > 7 cards.

You should know better than to think that costing 6 and generating 6 is the same as free.  Your post is like saying Dark Ritual = Seething Song.  Twister is better because it refills you right away.  Most opening hands in combo, independent of card draw, are not capable of generating 6 mana.

[zeus-online]

Oooh i remember doing a Time spiral drawing into mind twist and untapping and then clearing my opponents hand....Yay...

Oh wait, that was years ago, and casual ^^

1R to tutor for a card in your SB is alot worse then 1BB, 3 life to fetch a card in your deck.

I think its unfair to say that CS is bad...Just wait till Stax rises to beat long....

Also...Regrowth isnt broken as a singleton (Yet i'd still run it my control deck for some reason included tropical islands) but regrowing time walks is just soooo unfair.

/Zeus

[vroman]

I am still mystified why ppl are afraid of black vise. if black vise is the biggest threat in their deck, how can you lose? and if it is that scary, is there not force and chalice@1?

[wethepeople]

they should unrestrict lotus

but on a more serious note, vise shouldnt be such a threat. It can deal 3 damage if you are on the play (assuming you only drop one) but so could Lightning Bolt. Maybe if you dropped two that would be an issue, but it isnt very common that such a play occurs [turn one]. Black Vise had already been discussed in the Improvement forum, i really dont think it would do shit if it was unrestricted. It could serve a purpose in prison decks that force one's opponent to build up a hand, but really its not going to do much at all.

Mox Diamond can be unrestricted, in order for them to go broken you must have a hand of like X Diamonds, X Land, and still you only get a few City of Brasses (minus drawback) and no hand out of it.

Chrome Mox i personally think is a little better than Diamond because you can pitch anything, however this still requires you to get rid of a card in your hand.

i cant see any of these cards (as well as Time Spiral) being played in any top tier decks, i can see a fully acceled Dream Halls deck returning but that still isnt something you should worry about.

^all of which is IMO, feel free to say otherwise.

//wtp.

[jpmeyer]

Wait wait wait, are you sure you mean "never been objectively good"?  Don't you really mean "has always been objectively good"?  I'm confused.

[Anusien]

Wait wait wait, are you sure you mean "never been objectively good"?  Don't you really mean "has always been objectively good"?  I'm confused.

Don't mind people, they're just latching onto whatever is being hyped atm.  "People are finally figuring out scroll gifts is actually good.  People are finally learning to play combo."
Sorry for the apparent lack of respect Brassy and JD.

[Evenpence]

With that said, I'm pretty sure Trinisphere was restricted primaturely and needs to come off the list. It's possible to work around and is nothing like 4 Burning Wish 4 LED long or 4 fact or fiction BBS.

I DOUBLE DOG DARE THEM TO TAKE OFF TRINISPHERE.

Sorry for the caps.

Everytime I think of 4x Trinisphere though, I get excited -- in more ways than one.

[Vegeta2711]

You should know better than to think that costing 6 and generating 6 is the same as free.  Your post is like saying Dark Ritual = Seething Song.  Twister is better because it refills you right away.  Most opening hands in combo, independent of card draw, are not capable of generating 6 mana.

You asked why it might be considered more powerful and I gave you the reason.   

Also, when has been making 6 mana in combo been a big problem? Belcher has been based around having 7 mana by turn 1/2 all the time. In addition, the decks Spiral would typically be used in go off around turns 2-4, giving them at least a set-up turn or more. If it was a big deal, combo wouldn't run Bargain or Desire, because it costs too much.

EDIT: Trinisphere, meet Aether Vial. Vial, meet Trini.

[Evenpence]

EDIT: Trinisphere, meet Aether Vial. Vial, meet Trini.

If the card that I have to worry about with 4x Trinisphere is AETHER VIAL, bring it on!

Aether Vial, meet Null Rod.  Rod, **** up Vial.

[Vegeta2711]

Clearly the Solution vs. Fish is Null Rod. How blind we've been for all these years! 

Yeah, because I realllllly want Trini back... About as much as I want Vise back (i.e. never). However 4 Vial Fish along with combo running bounce and fetch/basic combos tend to ruin these types of decks.

[oneofchaos]

I think the format is healthy...
and thus we leave sleeping dogs lie.

[Komatteru]

I don't really see Aether Vial as a fantastic foil to Trinisphere.  If you're on the draw, it will be 5 turns before it's kicking.  Surely, the Trinisphere deck will have played something relevant in that time frame to make Aether Vial not be so useful anymore.  Smokestack, Juggernaut, anything really.  Even if Fish were to  Waste the Shop in there, The Shop deck would have had enough time to build back up 4-5 mana.  Even Vialing out Kataki probably isn't going to do a whole lot.  Stax will have accumulated one or two non-Shop lands in that time to pay the cost on whatever it feels it needs to keep.

Enough with Trinisphere coming back.  It ain't happening. Especially now, with how much we know about how to build Stax.  We didn't have nearly the advances in Workshop technology back in Feb. 2005 that we do now.  Like no one was maindecking Chalices back then even...Chalice Fish didn't become popular until like April or May of that year (Ashok at Waterbury).  How terrible were we back then?  We couldn't even realize what a house Chalice is in Workshop decks...

[Methuselahn]

Oh get serious...  Unrestrict Black Vise??  Land, Mox Vice Vice... on the play seems pretty insane.

Exactly, and even if it's beatable, it's just stupid and arbitrary.  It's in the same vein in terms of restrictions as Trinisphere (beatable, but random, coin-flippy, and skill-less).

Ridiculous.  Since when should cards be restricted because they are pretty insane, beatable, random, coin-flippy, or skill-less? 

So Black Vice would hurt control mages and do nothing but boost budget decks.  Oh No!

What, isn't it like a 6% chance to draw 2 in your opening 7 anyway?  Seems fine to me.

[Whatever Works]

With all the HORRIBLE ideas I have read I am soooo happy none of you decide on the banned/restricted list. Wotc Has done an extremely amazing job over the years with the list, and I expect nothing less in the future.

Taking black vise off could be the worst Idea ever. Give me a deck that runs 4 black vise, and I will give you a dominating tier 1 deck that distorts the format. Burning wish coming off would be almost as bad.

People should realize... fast mana = bad for type 1.

Mox diamand as a 4 of would be very good in type 1. I dont care what ben kowal says about it, but its synergy with life from the loam and combo decks in general is insane. Could the card be fair? Definetly, but wizards isnt going to risk looking like idiots if they are wrong.

Kyle

[diopter]

Burning wish coming off would be almost as bad.

Could you imagine 4x Burning Wish in control? Especially with the draw engines we have now... watch Gifts players make piles of Recall, Walk, Tinker, Lotus and then Wish for either Will or Recoup on a previously countered Will. Nutty.

[Whatever Works]

Burning wish coming off would be almost as bad.

Could you imagine 4x Burning Wish in control? Especially with the draw engines we have now... watch Gifts players make piles of Recall, Walk, Tinker, Lotus and then Wish for either Will or Recoup on a previously countered Will. Nutty.

Yawgmoth's Will doesnt get RFG'ed unless it resolves to my understanding?

[brianpk80]

Burning wish coming off would be almost as bad.

Could you imagine 4x Burning Wish in control? Especially with the draw engines we have now... watch Gifts players make piles of Recall, Walk, Tinker, Lotus and then Wish for either Will or Recoup on a previously countered Will. Nutty.

Yawgmoth's Will doesnt get RFG'ed unless it resolves to my understanding?

I think he means that the Gifts player has two options: Wish for it in the sideboard or Recoup it if it has been countered.