Should Gifts be Restricted? An outsider's perspective.

[warble]

Gifts Ungiven is far less worthy of restriction than fact or fiction, and far less deadly in terms of swinging a game.  While Gifts Ungiven does allow you to win more consistently, Fact or Fiction can swing a completely lost game in your favor and there's nothing you can do about it.

This statements contradict each other.  If Gifts allows for wins more consistently, and FoF only swings games to victory at a fraction of the percentage with which Gifts Ungiven does so, then how is Gifts less worthy of restriction?

Because there is only one Fact or Fiction, it's unable to be as broken as it would be if unrestricted.  I have no doubt that 4 Fact or Fictions would win more consistently than 4 Gifts Ungivens, my statement was with respect to 4 Gifts Ungiven and 1 Fact or Fiction.  Sorry, I did state that badly.  Maybe I'm just so friggin' disappointed that Kerry made such a blunder and may have cost us the senate I mis-speak every time I make a statement now.  Anyway, so GIfts wins more consistently now because of it's support but fact or fiction would do the same without support, hence Gifts is weaker than FoF hands down.

And yes, meandeck gifts is one of the most effective ways to break Gifts Ungiven, but I would go out on a limb and state that CS breaks Gifts Ungiven as well.  In combo decks there are always a number of support cards that synergize effectively and meandeck gifts is no exception.  Because of this, the drawback of running Gifts instead of Fact or Fiction is nonexistent and can't be weighed in meandeck gifts.  In other decks it is definitely a drawback, however.

[Godder]

Fact vs Gifts has come up before, and basically Fact is more powerful in multiples because every one after the first is still good (and may be better if Will comes up). There are some posts here that assume that Gifts is better because a deck built around Gifts can do more with it than the occasional single copy of Fact. I have no doubt that a deck built with 4 Facts in mind would be worse than Gifts, not least because Steve Menendian liked to check these things on occasion himself.

I also think the question of how much skill and how little luck is acceptable in Magic is an interesting one, as games like Chess and Go exist for the all-skill crowd. Consequently, a certain amount of luck is crucial to Magic's popularity and survival, as well as branding. I wonder how much skill is too much...

[RaleighNCTourneys]

A lot of people are talking about how it's ridiculous to ban or restrict a card because it rewards good players for their skill. While I generally agree with that, consider this:

What if there were a card so powerful and required so much skill that only very few people who dedicated hundreds of hours of thought and playtesting knew it well enough to win with it a great deal of the time in tournament settings? Would this be fair grounds for banning or restricting? Such a card would appear somewhat harmless (but still really good) to 99% of the vintage community, but what if 1% of the people have tested the card enough to make it ridiculously broken and always win with it? What I'm saying is that at what point does a card's skill level and hours you put into it and consquently the number of players who are breaking the card equate to a restriction? To me, this is what the person who started the thread was saying. At some point, if enough players know every in and out of gifts ungiven, skill really does become a problem. Because gifts piles effectively have an infinite number of possbilities, only a VERY few group of people are completely breaking the card. What if 50% of the vintage community over time learns how to play Gifts perfectly and they are always winning tournaments with it? Then, people would be begging for a restriction based on skill. I think restriction on basis of skill is feasible under certain circumstances and that Gifts is going to go under the radar for a long time because not enough people know how to break it.

[Mr. Nightmare]

What if 50% of the vintage community over time learns how to play Gifts perfectly and they are always winning tournaments with it? Then, people would be begging for a restriction based on skill.

I think at that point, people would be asking for the Restriction based on power-level, not Skill-level.  When a single card warps the format as much as you suggest (see: Trinisphere), that's the time for the DCI to step in, not when a few people are doing ok in events with the card.  I personally think Gifts is near the threshold of "Too good," along with Grim Tutor, and although I would be sad to see them taken away, would support the decision to restrict them.

[Draven]

The color has a lot to do with it.  Gifts has lent itself well to blue-based decks, while Grim Tutor has a prohibitive cost for blue decks.  Thus, Mana Drain and Gifts Ungiven form a lethal combination, but Grim Tutor and Mana Drain do not.  Mana Drain affords greater protection than Duress or anything Grim Tutor decks play, and thus, it is more likely that Gifts will resolve, which makes its win percentage quite high.  If Mana Drain did not exist, Gifts Ungiven likely would not be a candidate for restriction.  The question is: do we blame Gifts Ungiven for that?

I do agree with you that Mana Drain makes Gifts awesome, but don't forget what Dark Ritual does for Grim Tutor. And Dark Ritual specifially plays into the combo decks game plan.

[dicemanx]

I personally think Gifts is near the threshold of "Too good," along with Grim Tutor, and although I would be sad to see them taken away, would support the decision to restrict them.

I feel the same way. In fact, I might embark on a campaign in the near future to try to generate arguments for the restriction of both Merchant Scroll and Grim Tutor. I don't want to kill Long archetypes or Gifts decks, but soften them up a little and make them a little less attractive for the average player. The motivation here isn't based on any sort of present dominance (which doesn't exist) or "possible" dominance based on potential player mastery of the two archetypes (which is speculative, and doesn't need to be used as a criterion since you can always restrict if it DOES happen; no need to do things pre-emptively). The motivation instead is along the same lines as the campaigns we launched some time ago to restrict Trinisphere. The Long archetype, like Trinisphere based decks, borders dangerously close to a threshhold of acceptability as far as early turn (1/2 turn) kills are concerned. They put too much pressure on opposing decks to include 1st turn answers, or even motivate the narrowing of the archetypes played at an event to deal with the danger of not even getting a chance to play.

However, the 1st turn kill potential of Long archetypes isn't that much of a problem so long as the number of Long players at a given event is low; then arguably the chances of succumbing to a quick Long.dec kill in any one game at an event roughly approaches the probability of likewise succumbing against a Drain deck or Prison deck. In other words, for restriction to occur we need the coupling of several circumstances - typically this includes:

1) significant distortion (forcing decks to deal with the Long decks gameplan directly and take on the reactive role instead of trying to fight it by pushing their own plans instead)
2) ease of play (see below)
3) unacceptably high frequency of 1st/2nd turn kills that limit interactivity (if the game is "won" without actually formally winning) or eliminating interactivity entirely (by winning outright or establishing a hard lock).

Trinisphere qualified under all three of these. Qualifying for two or less wouldn't be enough for restriction.

While a Long variant is anything but "easy to play", the ease with which the frequent 1st turn kills occur is the critical factor. That is, to win or t8 events with Long you have to be quite skilled in maximizing your chances maybe half the time when the opposing deck forces you to interact with them; the other half of the time, you either get shut out of the game unceremoniously or you win fairly easily with little effort. Whether any improvement in playskill will push the deck towards dominance is a different reason for restriction and not relevant here; the present argument is to base the restriction on the fact that half of the time the kills are too straightforward, too quick and too frequent.

Of course, if we are eventually sold on the idea that Long variants are a problem and need addressing, the next question would be what to look at as a candidate for restriction. Dark Ritual, and to some extent Cabal Ritual are the most obvious choices, although restricting them would almost assuredly kill the archetype, something we only want to do as a last resort. The other candidate is Grim Tutor, which is what I'd strongly consider. While restricting GT will not kill the archetype, it might make it inconsistent enough that the number of players willing to play Long will go down and the frequency of the undesireable quick "coinflip" kills will go down. Look at Belcher or MeandeckSX now: these decks are even more serious abominations which boast superior 1st turn kill frequencies, but are so unstable and unreliable (and hence undesireable for the average skilled player who otherwise wishes to maximize his odds of winning games based on skill differences and not opening 7 hands) that the chances of seeing one at an event is slim to none.


The arguments for possibly restricting Merchant Scroll are weaker, although people already intuitively feel that Gifts Ungiven is on the cusp of unacceptability in this format, and perhaps restricting Scroll is a potentially fair compromise - retain Gifts Ungiven in the format, but weaken the archetypes that attempt to abuse it. Note that I'm not even supportive of the idea that a Scroll heavy Gifts archetype is superior to a TfK based Gifts (thats a separate thread entirely), but just feel that Scroll is one of those "binary" cards like trini was: when its working, its almost unbeatable, but it won't work consistently enough. Remember that Trini arguably wasn't even that good of a card because it literally did nothing too often, and yet players of all strengths gravitated towards it because of the ridiculous kills it could potentially generate.

In any case, I'm curious to see what the consensus will be regarding this issue as we get closer to the next B/R date.

EDIT: I want to try and pre-empt one potential counterargument which surfaced during the Trini debates some time ago. The counterargument is that, due to the fact that the format uses inherently broken, undercosted cards, some amount of games will be essentially decided in the first couple of turns anyways regardless of which top tiered archetype is used. For instance, Shop decks or Drain decks can "go broken" on you early and take the game almost out of reach. However, there is an important distinction between succumbing to a quick Long kill or Trini kill and being faced with your opponent going broken and generating a "winning position" for himself.

For us to call T1 a skill intensive format requires that we make an effort to some degree to force as much interaction as possible and to allow for the exploitation of skill differentials between the players. That is, if your opponent plays a first turn Trini and the opening 7 on both sides are such so that they don't permit any chance of recovery, it doesn't matter if your opponent goes on to commit 20 errors thereafter because they are unexploitable. On the flip side, if a Drain deck or Prison deck explodes turn 1, the player still has work to do, and any errors he commits ARE potentially exploitable. We have a saying in chess - one of the most difficult things to do is to win a won game. While that doesn't translate as readily to the game of Magic, it is certainly true that there is plenty of comeback potential especially if there is an appreciable skill difference in the players to start with. In other words, while we enjoy this format because of the brokenness and the possibility of generating explosive unfair plays, we still want to ensure that the format still puts a premium on skill as much as possible. Any "binary" archetypes that at times reduce games to coin flips by limiting interactivity to 0 and do it "too" frequently require some attention.

[RaleighNCTourneys]

The 8 Lotus tourney in Europe was filled with 8 Gifts decks in the top 16! I think restriction may be closer and more realistic than we all think.

[Moxlotus]

The 8 Lotus tourney in Europe was filled with 8 Gifts decks in the top 16! I think restriction may be closer and more realistic than we all think.

I think people need to learn to metagame a little bit.  Besides, that's one tournament and Slaver had been much more dominant and Welder was never restricted (although it was suggested by Menendian).

My position with 3sphere and still holds is that the metagame can deal with almost anything, so restriction should only be when the metagame is repeatedly dominated by an archetype.  PL has many weaknesses.  So does Gifts.  Both can be handled.  Hell, there's a reason why PL was everywhere at GenCon and now isn't showing up too often.  The same will happen to gifts when people figure out how it can be beaten.  Yes, they can just go stupid on turn 1--but that's Type 1.  Granted, there is a limit at how often being stupid on turn 1, but I don't think PL has near that stupidity in real life.  In the goldfish it does, but when you actually have to deal with an opponent's deck it is slowed down enough I think.

[Jacob Orlove]

The problem is not Gifts Ungiven, not Merchant Scroll, nor Grim Tutor.

The problem has been, and continues to be, Yawgmoth's Will. Ban Will, and restore balance to the format.

[wethepeople]

The problem is not Gifts Ungiven, not Merchant Scroll, nor Grim Tutor.

The problem has been, and continues to be, Yawgmoth's Will. Ban Will, and restore balance to the format.

Yawgmoth's Will, as broken as it is, should not be restricted. It may make our format unbalanced, but come on, it's Vintage. The format is different because unlike in other formats, you can go completely broken, making the game much more difficult. Banning the card will cause everyone to start using the Attack Phase and we will be like every other format, nothing but Aggro.

Restricting Gifts won't do anything, you can still Tutor, Scroll or whatever you want to do to get it into your hand, all Gifts is is a Tutor that allows you to pull together a combo or the cards you need for that specific situation, on it's own it does nothing at all. I understand why Jacob says to get rid of Yawg Will, because that is the most common card for Gifts to search for, but I personally don't like the idea of doing it.

[Disburden]

The problem is not Gifts Ungiven, not Merchant Scroll, nor Grim Tutor.

The problem has been, and continues to be, Yawgmoth's Will. Ban Will, and restore balance to the format.

Wait there is a problem? I thought Vintage was more balanced then it has ever been in it's existence? I agree that with Will Banned there would be more decks that don't use Will/No Will strategies (obviously), but to say that the format is having problems with degenerate Will decks is not true. Gencon had an awesome top 8 full of diversity, despite that a lot of decks used Will. Banning Will would cause us to look at how we make decks, not solve a problem.

[Moxlotus]

The problem is not Gifts Ungiven, not Merchant Scroll, nor Grim Tutor.

The problem has been, and continues to be, Yawgmoth's Will. Ban Will, and restore balance to the format.

There's a problem in the format?  I think the format is healthier than it has been in years.

[sean1i0]

Seeing as to where this discussion looks like it might be going, I thought I would give my opinion of the restriction question.  First of all, as far as Long decks go, I do not think that there is anywhere near the level of data collected, nor do I believe it exists, to prove that restriction is needed.  As was mentioned earlier, Long decks are extremely difficult to pilot well and, while the amateur may get some lucky first turn wins from time to time, my hypothesis would be that if all the instances of Long Top 8ing were compiled, you would find that the only instances of this happening would be, statistically, outliers.  My reasoning for this is that despite the ease a turn 1 kill every once in a while, the other portion of the time, the vast majority of the time in fact, you have to have some considerable skill to win games.  Therefore I would claim that this creates a situation where you have to have at least a moderate level of skill to win matches against opponents worth their stuff.  Plus, combo is realistically no better right now than drain archetypes, but for the first time in a while combo is actually nearly on par with drain; I really think that intentionally neutering combo would be a bad move for the format.  Another point is that Long is by no means the only deck type which provides easy first turn wins once out of every handful of games; Dragon, as many people are aware, also sports a decent amount of turn 1 wins, as well as even more turn 2 wins; in fact I believe Dragon is one of the most potent decks in the format right now.

Now, as for Merchant Scroll, I believe that again there is not near enough data nor are there enough complaints about this card to call for its restriction right now.  I will say, however, that I think killing Merchant Scroll without killing Grim Tutor would do major damage to drain archetypes; for contrast I suppose I will go ahead and restate that I believe the death of Grim Tutor, with or without the death of Merchant Scroll, would effectively knock non-Dragon combo out cold.  Really, if anything, I think that the 2 tutors are very possibly balancing each other out in the same way that Drains, Shops, Bazaars, and Dark Rituals balance each other out.

[brianpk80]

It bears noting that any new round of restrictions would be the third, fourth, fifth, or more casualties (after Lion's Eye Diamond and Burning Wish) springing from failure to ban either Yawgmoth's Will or Tendrils of Agony.   It's the Yawgmoth's Will -> Tendrils interaction that is the prime motivator of restricting Gifts Ungiven, Grim Tutor, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, and possibly even Merchant Scroll (the prelude to Gifts for Will, Tinker being a less preferred alt-kill, though still an occasional "no-brainer" random win).  Yawgmoth's Will is not nearly as threatening without Tendrils of Agony and storm combo decks (including Gifts) are far less threatening without Yawgmoth's Will.  Storm decks have several alternate routes to victory that don't rely on Will, even though Ritual, Ritual, Tutor, Will is the exact type of random no-brainer turn 1/2 kill that dicemanx identifies as problematic by negating skill differences and interaction.  Without Tendrils, Yawgmoth's Will becomes a mid to late game advantage tool in control which still requires a player to "win a won game" rather than casting an over-the-top uncounterable 26-point Drain Life for 2BB. 

Assuming there is a problem here, what's preferable: banning Will, banning Tendrils of Agony, or a second float on the parade of restrictions that still may not get the job done?

[GrandpaBelcher]

Second Float!

I'm playing two decks that don't use Will right now (UbaCaps and UB Fish) and I have no problems playing against Will or its supporting cast.  I'm not saying that I win all the time, but I don't mind losing to decks that play Will.

The cards leading up to Will and many times the mana management and tutoring that go into it make it challenging enough to make it fair at restricted.  Certainly there are times when it hits and is automatic, but Tinker can be the same way, so can Strip Mine, so can Library, so can Trinisphere, heck, so can Meddling Mage, Welder, or Force.  Sometimes you are just doomed to lose, whether it's in one turn or seven.  You tune your deck, shuffle well, and practice, practice, practice to reduce those chances.

The cards that support Will (Gifts, Scroll, Grim, et al.) are challenging enough that playing them levels the playing field.  Sure, resolving Gifts should be good game 90% of the time, but if you choose one card in four incorrectly, you might reduce your chances to almost none. Scroll might not find the card you need just at that moment, or you might not have the Ritual to fuel the Tutor, and either might come one turn too late to do any good.

Magic, even Vintage where the cardpool changes comparatively little with new expansions, constantly changes and adjusts itself as decks rise and fall and rise again in popularity and relative strength.  Gifts is on an upward swing right now as Menendian has touted the deck highly recently, but if split second cards or Fish become more prominent (and Fish is on an upward swing as well, thanks to Jotun Grunt but no thanks to Yawgmoth's Will) it will fall again and people will proclaim it dead and stop planning against it, thus seeding its subsequent rise.  Similarly Pitch- and GrimLong are on a downward trend, but when the time is right, they will be back stronger than ever.

Winning isn't decided automatically by a player resolving Yawgmoth's Will, Tinker, Gifts, Trinisphere, or any other card; those are just tools.  Winning is a matter of deciding which tools you want to use at what rate and deciding the best way to facilitate that use.

Personally, I'd prefer things stay they way they are, 'cause I'm having fun.

[Vegeta2711]

I think 'health' has been lumped in with 'we finally have a stable metagame' or at least the two concepts are being freely mixed together.

Like maybe it's just me, but I don't see any deck as particularly dominant at the moment. I don't know if anyone is comfortable having the power level as high as it is, but that seems to be the sticking point here. The actual metagame and format at the moment is healthy unless you think the overall power level is just too high, despite having multiple archetypes being T8 viable.

[pyr0ma5ta]

The actual metagame and format at the moment is healthy unless you think the overall power level is just too high, despite having multiple archetypes being T8 viable.

Is there a problem with having a high power level?  That's the whole reason I play Vintage, because all of the cards are so over-the-top unfair.  But everyone's playing unfair cards, and so long as they're all unfair in roughly the same levels, it's all evens out and it's fine in the end.

[sa-x]

Gifts gets rolled in a heavy fish meta packing lots of grunts, crypts, etc.  There aren't any cards in the vintage pool that need restriction.

[brianpk80]

Is there a problem with having a high power level?  That's the whole reason I play Vintage, because all of the cards are so over-the-top unfair.  But everyone's playing unfair cards, and so long as they're all unfair in roughly the same levels, it's all evens out and it's fine in the end.

It depends.  At the most extreme level, a card reading "Sorcery : You win the game" would be exciting and everyone would clamor to see it in their opening hand (with FoW/MisD backup preferably) but it would overshadow 10,000 other cards so much that the whole format would revolve around resolving and tutoring for that single broken sorcery.  On the other hand, there are other obscenely unfair Vintage staples like Oath of Druids where "My opponent gets a pissed off 6/6 Angel next turn and all I have to show for it is this crummy Spirit token?"  However, an opponent faced with a broken card like Oath of Druids has several options to work around it thus testing his/her skill and giving a chance to out-strategy another player.  By contrast, the broken "you win" sorcery operates independent of skill and throws the balance far too much in favor of arbitrariness and random luck.  

The problem I see people having with Yawgmoth's Will, Trinisphere, and occasionally Tinker is the "ooops I win and you don't even get to play" factor.  Yawgmoth's Will isn't so much a problem in a control deck strategy.  For instance, I don't think there are severe complaints to be made about the solidified winning position Will grants to Control Slaver or a similar deck on the 8th turn.  Rather, Will is more of a problem as a perverse mana and storm engine that enables the sort of early kills that prevent an opponent from having any meaningful input into the game.  This is a problem in a game that tests the skills of both players in adapting to circumstances created by both design and chance.  In the format requiring the most intricate understanding of timing and rules interaction, rapid and nearly unstoppable game endings deny skilled players the opportunity to cash in on their knowledge.  Will, Tinker, and Trinisphere fall a lot more in line with the ": You win the game" idea than something like Crucible-Strip Mine which instead says "I dare you to to outplay this."  

I've refrained from stating a position on this matter for a while now, but for the long term health, diversity, and flexibility of the format, the best thing right now would be to nuke Tinker and Tendrils of Agony.  No further current restrictions would be required (so kids could still play 4 Dark Rituals in their Hypnotic Specter.dec) and Lion's Eye Diamond and possibly Burning Wish may then warrant unrestriction (not much point in investing so much in Will when without Tendrils, it wouldn't be lethal).  Yawgmoth's Will could stick around as a mid/late-game control tool and deck strategy.  The lack of Tendrils and Tinker while still maintaining Will would maintain the Gifts skeleton but mitigate it a bit by requiring less severe win conditions.  The lack of Tendrils-combo would usher a return of a stronger Slaver, Oath of Druids (anti-Slaver), Stax, and restore some viability to aggro, thereby increasing format diversity as a whole.  Fish would be cut back down to size as well because most of its creatures operate on the premise that the format carries only a few narrow win conditions.  True Believer, Orim's Chant, and Children of Korlis would exit the building for a long time.  And what would one do with a Meddling Mage in a Tendrils-free Tinker-free environment, with a newly infused spree of alternate win conditions and deck strategies?  Test skill, to say the least.  

The randomness of Tinker and Tendrils of Agony frequently make a joke out of our format and reinforce every negative stereotype there is about Type One.  I would give them the axe without reservation.  

-BPK

[dandan]

The problem is not Gifts Ungiven, not Merchant Scroll, nor Grim Tutor.

The problem has been, and continues to be, Yawgmoth's Will. Ban Will, and restore balance to the format.

How to kill a format

10  The problem has been, and continues to be, the most powerful non-banned card . Ban the most powerful non-banned card, and restore balance to the format.
20  RETURN

On a side note, Black Lotus almost certainly tops Will in terms of 'I drew card X, I won' percentages.

P.S. If I remember rightly, someone once compared 'healthy' Vintage and Standard cardpools. Both were roughly the same. By banning cards from a format, you create diversity - until the next most powerful cards are found and used. Remember the old 'ban Morphling and I'll win with a Mountain Goat' discussions? Once a card gets banned for power level reasons, it will be very hard to justify several of our Vintage marquee cards.

[dicemanx]

It's unfortunate that that the knee jerk reaction to restriction discussion is: "don't restrict, [those] decks aren't dominating!". Or "the format is balanced!". Why  is it that dominance is the only criterion some would consider? There are other criteria that are used for restriction - the last couple of restrictions weren't even based on dominance (Trinisphere and Burning Wish/LED).

Even if hypothetically the Long archetypes don't post *any* t8s, they can still be a problem in the format. 


And brianpk, what do you mean that you would "axe Tinker and Tendrils"? You would not accomplish anything by restricting Tendrils, so are you suggesting that we ban both? We don't ban cards in Vintage without a very compelling reason to do so.

Also, be careful in your comparison of Trinisphere, Yawgmoth's Will, and Tinker as being "oops, I win and you don't even get to play" cards. Trinisphere is NOT like Tinker/Will. Trini has the capability to eliminate any player interaction fairly consistently from turn 1. YawgWill LETS the opponent play, and it's part of the culmination of a strategy - Will decks create an environment where YawgWill will win the game, whether searched out or top-decked. You cannot, for instance, toss Will into a Prison/Fish archetype and expect to have it produce the same results. You view Will as a problem card, whereas Will is not an individual card, its part of an overall strategy.

Tinker, on the other hand, isn't part of a certain strategy like Will, but its at least typically slow enough (2 turns) that there is plenty of player interaction still possible. It's not that uncommon to simply outrace Tinker. Since Tinker is restricted, it also occurs infrequently enough, and as I outlined above, it seems like frequency plays a big role in restriction considerations. While I'm ambivalent on the Tinker issue and wouldn't particularly miss it if it was actually banned, you have to do much better than that if you actually want to get a card banned in the first place.

And as I already stated in another thread, I think you're barking up the wrong tree entirely if you want to do anything with Tendrils.

Is there a problem with having a high power level?  That's the whole reason I play Vintage, because all of the cards are so over-the-top unfair.  But everyone's playing unfair cards, and so long as they're all unfair in roughly the same levels, it's all evens out and it's fine in the end.

This distorts the argument. We *like* a format with such over-the-top unfair cards, but there's a limit to some cards/archetypes in what they should be able to do. This is why we don't have unrestricted Moxes, or why Trinisphere/LED/Burning Wish were last restricted. There's a better hypothetical than what brianpk suggested - suppose that there was a card like:

Sorcery U: Roll a die. If you roll an even number, you win the game. Otherwise, you lose the game.

Now a card like this would never be part of any dominant archetype. Its also a balanced card. And yet its an extreme example of completely taking any skill out of the equation and having the capability of ending games much too prematurely. Good players will stay away from such a card, while weaker players would flock to it as it is the ultimate equalizer. And yet, it would be entirely unacceptable to have such a card in the format. Trinisphere was an example of such a card, as is any card or strategy that wins based on starting hands only and with sufficient frequency. 

[Vegeta2711]

It's unfortunate that that the knee jerk reaction to restriction discussion is: "don't restrict, [those] decks aren't dominating!". Or "the format is balanced!". Why  is it that dominance is the only criterion some would consider? There are other criteria that are used for restriction - the last couple of restrictions weren't even based on dominance (Trinisphere and Burning Wish/LED).

Well let me ask you another way then. If the format is balanced (I'm not saying if or not you or anyone thinks it is, but bare with me for the question), what's a good reason to then restrict something? Just to shake up the format? I'm curious for your reasoning here.

Like in the case of Trinisphere and the Long pieces, there's at least an argument to be made about the massively distorting force of the cards involved.

[dicemanx]

It's unfortunate that that the knee jerk reaction to restriction discussion is: "don't restrict, [those] decks aren't dominating!". Or "the format is balanced!". Why  is it that dominance is the only criterion some would consider? There are other criteria that are used for restriction - the last couple of restrictions weren't even based on dominance (Trinisphere and Burning Wish/LED).

Well let me ask you another way then. If the format is balanced (I'm not saying if or not you or anyone thinks it is, but bare with me for the question), what's a good reason to then restrict something? Just to shake up the format? I'm curious for your reasoning here.

Like in the case of Trinisphere and the Long pieces, there's at least an argument to be made about the massively distorting force of the cards involved.

Looks like you answered your own question Josh. Cards that create massive distortion can still be a part of a balanced format, albeit not a very fun one.

[brianpk80]

And brianpk, what do you mean that you would "axe Tinker and Tendrils"? You would not accomplish anything by restricting Tendrils, so are you suggesting that we ban both? We don't ban cards in Vintage without a very compelling reason to do so.

Correct, I would support the banning of both Tinker and Tendrils of Agony.  The compelling reasons to do so would be to maximize the effect of skill variation and increase the diversity and interactivity of the formant not just in 2006  but for the foreseeable remainder of Vintage's lifespan.  Given that Pitch Long and to a lesser extent Meandeck Gifts bring us to a power threshold where cards like Oath of Druids, Goblin Welder, Bazaar of Baghdad, and even Mana Drain are comparatively slow and underpowered, the omission of Tendrils of Agony and Tinker would reopen the format to a more vibrant array of competitive decks and card selections.  Excising the most arbitrary and game-breaking first turn plays requires players to sharpen their skills and weather the game rather than unjustly earning a win with skill substitutes like Tinker and Ritual, Ritual, Tutor.  

The move would be bold, unprecedented, and initially bemoaned by a select subset of "powergamers," while privately celebrated by many of the more quiet Vintage voices.  In the long run, it would make Vintage Magic a much more attractive option for Legacy and Standard players who largely dislike losing to coin-flips and have openly criticized our format on that basis for years.  It would also benefit Wizards by aligning the standard of what constitutes a Vintage "playable" card more closely with the types of cards they will be printing from now until the game vanishes (if ever).  

These reasons may not be compelling enough for you or for other players but in my opinion, they seal the deal.  Maximizing skill, minimizing arbitrary losses, increasing format diversity, and broadening the appeal of Vintage Magic are well worth the loss of Tinker and Tendrils of Agony.  

Also, be careful in your comparison of Trinisphere, Yawgmoth's Will, and Tinker as being "oops, I win and you don't even get to play" cards. Trinisphere is NOT like Tinker/Will. Trini has the capability to eliminate any player interaction fairly consistently from turn 1. YawgWill LETS the opponent play, and it's part of the culmination of a strategy - Will decks create an environment where YawgWill will win the game, whether searched out or top-decked. You cannot, for instance, toss Will into a Prison/Fish archetype and expect to have it produce the same results. You view Will as a problem card, whereas Will is not an individual card, its part of an overall strategy.

I think you have misread my comparison.  First, I did qualify Tinker as only "occasionally" arbitrary/non-interactive.  Secondly, I put Yawgmoth's Will in that category only based on its conjunction with an early Tendrils of Agony.  I expressly pardoned Yawgmoth's Will as the culmination of a control strategy in my later paragraphs.  However, I fail to see what makes "Ritual, Ritual, Tutor" any more redeemable than "Workshop, Trinisphere" when cast in terms of non-interactive mindless Turn 1 kills.  If anything, a quick Will->Tendrils is even more unmanageable than Trinisphere for two reasons.  First, the skeletons that support Tendrils now incorporate both Force of Will and Misdirection so the role of one's own FoW as a bastion against random Turn 1 kills/locks is diminished.  Second, with Trinisphere, when it resolves you are largely unable to play spells for a few turns and may or may not lose the game as a result.  With Tendrils of Agony, you lose in no uncertain terms.  

Yawgmoth's Will as the consummation of a drawn out control strategy is a fine thing for the format.  Yawgmoth's Will as an engine for generating an ocean of black mana and 14 storm on the first turn is no less perverse than a first turn Trinisphere.  To that end, I would ban Tendrils of Agony (and yes, I would restrict it instead if there was any chance of that accomplishing anything, which there is not).  In my opinion, the case for banning Tendrils is stronger than that for Tinker.  Nevertheless, an 11/11 trampling indestructible nightmare for 2U, even as a mere tutorable singleton, is very contradictory to upholding the values I outlined above.

-BPK

[GrandpaBelcher]

The thing is every card has an answer.  Right now PitchLong and GrimLong aren't being played very much for whatever reason, and Gifts is one of the more difficult decks in the format to play well.  As people get better with Gifts or Long increases in popularity (so Yawgmoth's Will increases in power and popularity) more proactive answers will be played.  Leyline will start showing up in sideboards more often, if not maindeck, the use of Stifle and Trickbind will increase to counter Tendrils, etc.  Nobody wants to have to have an entire deck based around hating one strategy, definitely, but I don't think we're anywhere near that point yet.  Plus, I have a feeling that even if Will was banned that PitchLong would survive, as it's entirely doable to build storm in that deck without relying on Will.  The strategy would change, no doubt, but it would live on, just with more mulligans.  The possibility of a first turn Tinker or Will combo concerns me, yes, but the possibility that my opponent doesn't have it is much greater than that of him having it, so I prepare for it just as I would for any other commonly played strategy and build a deck to answer a variety of threats.

Vintage doesn't need fewer first-turn wins, it just needs better publicity saying that first-turn wins aren't the norm.  I've experienced and witnessed far more matches go to time than I have seen first turn wins, and I still have more fun losing on the first turn to something amazing than I do drawing something out.  The high power level makes Vintage fun, because all your spells have to mean something.  Why neuter that and turn the format into Legacy?

[zeus-online]

I think you have misread my comparison.  First, I did qualify Tinker as only "occasionally" arbitrary/non-interactive.  Secondly, I put   However, I fail to see what makes "Ritual, Ritual, Tutor" any more redeemable than "Workshop, Trinisphere" when cast in terms of non-interactive mindless Turn 1 kills.

Because it happens at a greater frequency....getting 2x of a card is already alot to ask for...even if its a 4-of, and you need more then just ritual, ritual, tutor to do the whole will - dead thing afterwards...Also..its alot easier to mess up with tutors then with just throwing two cards on the table and ask the opponent "FoW?"...And no, unless you are packing wastelands, you are gonna loose to that 3sphere...only other chance of recovery involves ESG.

Yawgmoth's Will as the consummation of a drawn out control strategy is a fine thing for the format.

You assume people will play it "fairly" if the other cards got nuked? Take a look at old Hulk Smash and GAT, both decks abused Yawgmoth's will pretty badly, although not AS badly as gifts and long variants.

/Zeus

[diopter]

(S)uppose that there was a card like:

Sorcery U: Roll a die. If you roll an even number, you win the game. Otherwise, you lose the game.

If there was a hypothetical card that read something like this:

Sorcery 1U: Flip a coin. If you win, do nothing. If you lose, flip another coin and the winner of that flip wins the game.

Or perhaps:

Sorcery 1U: Roll a six-sided die. If you roll a 1, win the game. If you roll a 2, lose the game. Otherwise, do nothing.

Would this be acceptable in T1? Because this is roughly how I see most archetypes, Long in particular, playing out. I don't particularly view this as a bad thing - yes, there will be countless games where luck completely determines the outcome of the game, but I view this as being similar to manascrew. There is still very much room for skill to take effect, not necessarily in every game, but many times over the course of many games.

I think a card like this would be more unacceptable for the format:

Sorcery U:
Roll a twenty-sided die. You win if you roll X or less, where X is your skill level with goldfishing this deck on a scale from 1 to 15.

That's pretty representive of Meandeck Tendrils, which thankfully doesn't have such a high probability of victory.

...

On the topic of distortion, I am shocked than only dandan mentioned Black Lotus. The true distortive power in this format are the Power. Every deck in T1 is seeking to abuse the Power, fight against them, or in the case of Stax, do both. Unpowered decks are forced to run cards like Null Rod and Chalice of the Void to fight the mana advantage that powered decks have. Even Fish, the king of unppowered decks, has been pushed in design to incorporate Power. If anyone wants to blame anything for problems in T1 (assuming there are any), then they should blame the Power. But nobody seems to want to do that (certainly not me), because everyone loves playing with Moxen.

[zeus-online]

You can't remove the power and still have a T1 enviroment...for the same reason i'd rather restrict cabal therapy then dark ritual, no one wants to kill Type 1 (or well, not anyone who visits these boards i'd imagine) just weaken a few decks.

There are alot of cards that are of restrict-worthy power, but probably won't get the axe simply because they are what makes this format Type 1.

/Zeus

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

On the topic of distortion, I am shocked than only dandan mentioned Black Lotus. The true distortive power in this format are the Power. Every deck in T1 is seeking to abuse the Power, fight against them, or in the case of Stax, do both. Unpowered decks are forced to run cards like Null Rod and Chalice of the Void to fight the mana advantage that powered decks have. Even Fish, the king of unppowered decks, has been pushed in design to incorporate Power. If anyone wants to blame anything for problems in T1 (assuming there are any), then they should blame the Power. But nobody seems to want to do that (certainly not me), because everyone loves playing with Moxen.

Everyone seems to love playing with lands, too, but I wouldn't advocate their banning.  Moxen are merely more powerful mana sources because they are faster without a significant drawback.  Given their nature, why wouldn't most decks run them?

@BPK: Banning Tendrils of Agony without banning Yawgmoth's Will wouldn't prevent people from winning instantly with Will with control strategies, because they could use cards such as Brainfreeze or Grapshot.  It might neuter Dark Ritual based combo decks simply because of the coloured mana issue, but on the other hand they might adapt so it's uncertain what would result.  The point is that Will isn't ever really going to be a 'tame' card, and without drastic other actions fast Wills will continue to be possible and almost certainly result in victory.

I seriously don't see what the problem with Tinker is, either.  I would MUCH rather have my opponent resolve a turn 1 Tinker for Colossus than a turn 1 Trinisphere.  Tinker/Colossus can be raced, bounced, stped, mazed, etc.  Turn 1 trinisphere says "You can't do stuff, but I can."  Tinker allows for interactivity aftweward, whereas Trinisphere totally prevents it.  I don't see people suggesting to ban Trinisphere so I don't see why we should ban Tinker...

On the subject of the restriction of Gifts: I really don't think this is necessary.  Is the card skill-intensive?  Yes, but as many people have stated that is a fairly poor argument to make it a candidate for restriction.  It is quite powerful, but a significant mana cost of 3U helps to keep it in check. 

People keep saying that  a resolved Gifts wins the game but I think forget about the other cards involved with the Gifts.  A significantly developed mana base/board and/or grayeyard is necessary for Gifts to equate the win.  The control deck has to use various plays to get into a position in which it can resolve Gifts and win.  Gifts is a powerful draw/tutor spell, but it's not as insane as Fact or Fiction because it doesn't develop resources in the same way.  Fact or Fiction can get both mana and counters/business (depending on splits) while Gifts can generally only get one or the other. 

Fact or Fiction also becomes even better in multiples because of the ability of Facting into another Fact (much like Mind's Desire is better in multiples in other formats because it can flip over another Mind's Desire). 

Gifts also reveals information when it is cast.  Sometimes, this may be irrelevent if the player resolving it is already in a winning position, but if the game is close the signs the Gifts pile reveals to the other player can be significant, whereas with Fact or Fiction the only information the opponent gets is the board state.  As has been already said, Fact or Fiction is easy for the player casting it to use than Gifts, which I feel is a good argument to show that Fact is in a way more powerful.

I think Merchent Scroll and Grim Tutor are both fair cards in the current environment.  Scroll being a 1U sorcery that can only get blue instants makes it balanced (as opposed to Demonic or Mystical), while the 1BB mana cost and -3 life loss balances Grim Tutor (as opposed to Demonic or Vampiric).

You can't remove the power and still have a T1 enviroment...for the same reason i'd rather restrict cabal therapy then dark ritual, no one wants to kill Type 1 (or well, not anyone who visits these boards i'd imagine) just weaken a few decks.

There are alot of cards that are of restrict-worthy power, but probably won't get the axe simply because they are what makes this format Type 1.

/Zeus

I agree with you that some of these cards define Vintage in such as way that it wouldn't really be the same format after restricting them except in name (although we must keep in mind that the format is constantly changing anyways except in smaller ways), but what do you mean by cards being restrict-worthy power level.  What makes a card of a power level worthy of restriction yet still OK for the format?  I don't really understand; if a card is worthy of restriction, doesn't that mean that it ISN'T OK for the format?

As a side note, if anyone wants to slow down the format, the best candidate for restriction would probably be Brainstorm.  I am not advocating the card's restriction, but it is WAY more powerful than Gifts.  Brainstorm is part of what gives Combo and Combo/Control decks consistent brokeness by optimizing draws as far as business and mana and disruption is concered, all at extremely cheap cost.  The card is insane.

Also: I'm bothered by unrealistic hypotheticals and they don't really seem to prove anything.  The 'skill card' hypothetical mentioned earlier and also the instant win for U and coin flipping win cards; what are they supposed to prove?  Obviously the instant win and flip win cards should and would be banned if they existed, because they are absolutely stupid and invalidate the point of the game.  The hypothetical skill card; is it even possible for a card like this to exist?  I realize it's a hypothetical but it's totally unrealistic for a card to work this way IMO.  Some cards are more complex to play than others and some cards are difficult to break, but most of the time once something has been broken by one person it can be utilized by pretty much any itelligent player who takes the time to learn about it (and I don't see how it could possibly take "hundreds of hours"

Also, this is a question I want to ask: What's the difference between a card "distorting" the format and a card merely "influencing," or "defining" the format.  Cards like Brainstorm, Mana Drain, Force of Will, Dark Ritual, Wasteland, Mishra's Workshop, Bazaar of all the Power, Duals, Fetches, Basic Lands; all of these cards define the format and it would certainly change drastically if any of them were restricted/banned; not simply would it change, neuter, or kill the archetype that (ab)used them, but certainly almost every other deck in the meta would change because they have all in a way adapted to these cards or the strategies surrounding them.  Where do you draw the line?

[diopter]

You can't remove the power and still have a T1 enviroment

There are some people who are of the opinion that you can't remove *any* card and still have a T1 environment, because T1 is the format where "you can play anything" (ante and dexterity cards aside). Others don't share this opinion and advocate banning. My point was merely to question the reasoning for banning cards like Yawgmoth's Will, Tinker, and Tendrils. There are a few arguments that these cards contribute to decks that are too distortive, whereas my point is that the Power cards exert significantly more pressure on decks to execute a Turn 1/2 winning gameplan or lose.

Everyone seems to love playing with lands, too, but I wouldn't advocate their banning. Moxen are merely more powerful mana sources because they are faster without a significant drawback. Given their nature, why wouldn't most decks run them?

Moxen enable mid/late-game plays to happen in the early game, and they also turn card advantage into direct board position because of the ability to play them more than once per turn. Most of the so-called "unfair" or "distortive" decks being discussed here are predicated on playing high-cost effects on Turn 1. The fact that Moxen are present in almost every deck is not just something to be brushed off if one is trying to argue about the distortive effects of cards. If every deck is running Moxen, it creates an environment where every deck is trying to execute an "I-win" strategy on Turn 1. Whether that strategy involves actually winning, or creating a crushing advantage through either lock pieces or a counter wall, is irrelevant. The point is that a player has to either pack narrow hate to fight it(which may not be effective against every single strategy) or play their own unfair strategy. That's distortion. Blame Will, blame Tinker, blame the tutors, blame all the other broken cards in this format, but at the end of the day, it's the fast mana that allows all those "insane plays" to happen regularly on Turn 1.

Note that I am not advocating the banning of Power, just saying that if something had to be banned, I'd look at other things before considering Will/Tinker/Tendrils.