[Premium Article] An Honest Look at the Restricted List

[justaguy]

Assuming that it is correct to change the format through Yawgmoth's Will, would it be effective to errata Will's mana cost rather than it's rules text?  It would not be without precedent:

http://sales.starcitygames.com/carddisplay.php?product=13291
http://sales.starcitygames.com/carddisplay.php?product=15309

I have not tested it, but I speculate that Will would be substantially less broken at something like .  Yeah, you get to replay your Rituals still, but it comes out slower and cannot be simply double Ritualed/Lotused into play.  I am not advocating this particular cost as correct but rather a starting point for further discussion; what is an appropriate cost for Yawgmoth's Will?

[Nehptis]

Consider the scenario this way.  Instead of using MTG decks to play in the next T1 tourney each player uses either 1, 2 or 3 six sided dice.  If you bring 1 then you role once, if you bring 2 then you role both dice and sum their values, if you bring 3 then you roll all 3 and sum their values.  Matches are best of 3 and cut to single elim top 8.  And to raise the stakes, the entry fee is $100 and the prize is a full set of Beta Power to the Winner.  Now I'm no stats major but I'm pretty sure I'm bringing 3 dice.  Sure I can get beaten everytime by someone rolling a 4 on a single die if I roll three 1's.  But I'll take those chances with the odds in my favor and bring three dice.

It's the same thing now with Yawgwill decks.  If you want to have the best chance at winning a tourney, play Will based combo.  Sure you could face Fish all day or some anti-combo decks and not top eight.  But, your Ywill deck has the greatest odds for success.  So, as more players recognize this more players will play Ywill combo.  And the players who have "the balls" to bring new decks (or just 1 die) will simply lose.

The only thing preventing a quicker transition to a format fully plagued by Ywill is that most local tournies don't have high enough stakes to influence deck decisions.  Most players fork over their $20 for a few hours of tooling with their favorite deck.  So, the transition will be slower and boredom and the un-fun factor will usurp the need for higher stakes to influence the transition to an "all Will" format.  But, the time will soon come when Ywill will sit alongside Chaos Orb in your binder.  Or probably sooner you'll be selling off your 3 useless copies of Gifts Ungiven and/or Grim Tutor as they join the rest of the Yawgwill fatalities on the Restricted List.

[Akuma]

Wow, that last analogy was just so way off...wow 

Things are nowhere near what you are talking about. There is diversity in the strategies employed in todays metagame. The so-called dice you talk about are not Yawgmoth's Will, although that case could be made for the Power 9, but they ARE Type 1. They aren't going anywhere...

[Nydaeli]

Assuming that it is correct to change the format through Yawgmoth's Will, would it be effective to errata Will's mana cost rather than it's rules text?  It would not be without precedent:

http://sales.starcitygames.com/carddisplay.php?product=13291
http://sales.starcitygames.com/carddisplay.php?product=15309

I have not tested it, but I speculate that Will would be substantially less broken at something like .  Yeah, you get to replay your Rituals still, but it comes out slower and cannot be simply double Ritualed/Lotused into play.  I am not advocating this particular cost as correct but rather a starting point for further discussion; what is an appropriate cost for Yawgmoth's Will?

Those weren't power-level cost errata, those were misprints.  This is a bad and inelegant solution.

[Nehptis]

Wow, that last analogy was just so way off...wow 

Wow, you missed the analogy big time..wow.  Will is not the dice. The decks that win heavily thru Will are the dice.  So, go ahead and bring your Elvish mono-green tech to a tourney (i.e. 1 die) but the odds are stacked against you vs. the players who bring Gifts or GrimLong, etc (i.e 3 dice).  BTW, I'd call decks like Oath, Ich, Dragon (2 dice decks).

[justaguy]

Those weren't power-level cost errata, those were misprints.  This is a bad and inelegant solution.

I know that these cards were never broken; I just wanted to point out if Will's mana cost wasn't what was printed on the card it wouldn't be the only case of such a thing happening.  Please explain to me why this is worse and less elegant than banning Will outright.

[zeus-online]

Because people hate having to consult the oracle to play their cards?

Erreta is the most frustrating way of fixing a card, imho.

/Zeus

[Katzby]

Those weren't power-level cost errata, those were misprints.  This is a bad and inelegant solution.

I know that these cards were never broken; I just wanted to point out if Will's mana cost wasn't what was printed on the card it wouldn't be the only case of such a thing happening.  Please explain to me why this is worse and less elegant than banning Will outright.

You don't seem to understand what's going on with SCG's image of Fylgja.  This card has always been printed with a mana cost of W.

Check the January 26th Ask Wizards question and answer (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/askwizards/0107) for a clarification of what's going on with this.  SCG is just using an old database image.

This would be the only case of such an erratta, and such an idea would be farcically inconsistent with the very philosophy behind errata.  The only "exceptions" to this are when there exist cards that are printed with a different cost than other versions of the same card (Alpha Orcish Oriflamme, etc).


Katzby