[Premium Article] An Honest Look at the Restricted List

[Imzakhor]

I might point out that Lotus does not give ALL decks an advantage, because of the extremely limited supply of the card itself.

I would like to see a [mox *] restriction, but going even further based on your post, adding Lotus to that group restriction would CERTAINLY be quite a boon to the format.

You would still have access to all your toys. You would just have to pick which ones.

[yespuhyren]

I honestly can't believe that lotus was ever mentioned.  I will go as far as saying that Lotus IS the card that makes T1 what it is as fra as definition.  If you tell anyone what T1 is they will immediately think of Black Lotus.  I mean its the most expensive card in the game, its insanely strong, and it is what makes T1 the real deal in my opinion.  If Black Lotus was banned honest to god I would quit magic.

[Akuma]

I think a lot of peple who provide their "opinion" on banning cards don't understand the nature of an eternal format. This is how it works, the PLAYABLE card pool grows very slowly whenever a new set is printed and nothing EVER rotates out. That means that the most powerful strategies will always be identified by the best players.

When you ban or restrict something, the only thing that happens is that we lose a powerful strategy, only to have it replaced by whatever is next in line. Then the Vintage complainers can start to whine about how the new strategy is strangling the format.

I agree that if a certain strategy DOMINATES the environment, then action must be taken to preserve interest in the format. Being broken, distorting, or "unfun" are all lame arguements. This is Vintage, all of the best decks, strategies, and interactions can be considered broken, distorting, and "unfun" (depending on which end you are on).

That is the nature of a format that allows all of the design errors to co-exist, even as 1 ofs. It exists so we can play with them if we so choose. If you are not into these interactions, you can choose to try other formats. Legacy gets rid of all of those cards people complain about. Try that, it's fun, it's different and you won't get wiped out by a Yawgmoth's Will, because that is reserved for the Vintage player.

Bannings are (much like Sphere of Resistance) GARBAGE.

LESS restrictions, NO bannings!

[Imzakhor]

I agree that if a certain strategy DOMINATES the environment, then action must be taken to preserve interest in the format.

I wish someone, arguing against banning Will, would do so without using the fallacy of a slippery slope argument. Does anyone really think that if Will is banned, then the dynamic of vintage would be worse? Or is it always because the argument inevitable slides down the slippery slope to having EVERYTHING banned?

It exists so we can play with them if we so choose. If you are not into these interactions, you can choose to try other formats. Legacy gets rid of all of those cards people complain about. Try that, it's fun, it's different and you won't get wiped out by a Yawgmoth's Will, because that is reserved for the Vintage player.

More slippery slope. From a single card that begs to be banned, you have gone to "getting rid of all of those cards people complain about." Then, you again equate that to getting "wiped out by a Yawgmoth's Will".

I don't want to play Legacy. EW. I want to, and do, play Vintage. It is patronizing, even insulting, to suggest that anyone who doesn't share your vision of Vintage should play a format that most serious Vintage players (like me) would not consider.

I also want to play my full Chaos Orb set, but that's banned, as is the (much worse) falling star. Banning cards in Vintage is nothing new. The fact that I believe Vintage would benefit greatly from a banned Y. Will (and a Mox/Tutor restriction, but that is a different crusade of Imzy) cannot be countered with an argument that is eerily like fanatical adherence to religious dogma.

Again, banning cards in Vintage is nothing new. The sky will not fall. In fact, with Will gone, the sky, and everything else under it, will flourish.

Thanks for reading!

[hitman]

The argument isn't about any slippery slope.  It's about definitions.  Vintage is defined by the use of every single card but ante cards and dexterity cards.  This whole banning nonsense shouldn't be an issue.

[Smmenen]

Black Lotus is ominpresent, but it isn't strategically problematic.   Yawgmoth's Will is strategically problematic.   

Also, to be clear: I'm not saying that Will should be banned.  I"m just saying that there is a legitmate case for it to be banned. 

[Moxlotus]

Does anyone really think that if Will is banned, then the dynamic of vintage would be worse?

Honestly, yes.  I see Ritual getting significantly worse in the Shop-Drain-Ritual axis.  I see Long and Gifts getting significantly worse and Fish and Stax potentially taking a major hit with their deck designs focused on Long and Gifts.  I dont really see what decks get that much better or what decks Will is keeping from being able to compete.  I don't see an increase in diversity with Will gone.

[yespuhyren]

Fish and Stax would get better.  Stax doesn't fight against will.  Stax doesn't try to prevent will.  Stax tries to lock down every deck equally the same, with no special attention paid to any deck.  The gameplan merely changes with the decisions of what lock pieces to play with.  The fact that it wouldn't have to worry about a random broken YawgWill would just help Stax.  Not hurt it in any way.

[Smmenen]

Does anyone really think that if Will is banned, then the dynamic of vintage would be worse?

Honestly, yes.  I see Ritual getting significantly worse in the Shop-Drain-Ritual axis.  I see Long and Gifts getting significantly worse and Fish and Stax potentially taking a major hit with their deck designs focused on Long and Gifts.  I dont really see what decks get that much better or what decks Will is keeping from being able to compete.  I don't see an increase in diversity with Will gone.

Putting aside the bare question of whether there would be an increase in the number of viable decks (which is hard to argue since Vintage is so incredibly diverse right now), it cannot be denied that Vintage would be more *strategically* diverse.   VIntage right now is Will v. Anti-Will strategies with sub strategies and tactical battles being proxy fights for Yawg Will.  Take out Will and Vintage, strategically, diversifies dramatically.  Strategies can no longer be faught by proxy but have to be faught out.   It will lengthen Vintage games and make then closer battles to the end. 

[Moxlotus]

Does anyone really think that if Will is banned, then the dynamic of vintage would be worse?

Honestly, yes.  I see Ritual getting significantly worse in the Shop-Drain-Ritual axis.  I see Long and Gifts getting significantly worse and Fish and Stax potentially taking a major hit with their deck designs focused on Long and Gifts.  I dont really see what decks get that much better or what decks Will is keeping from being able to compete.  I don't see an increase in diversity with Will gone.

Putting aside the bare question of whether there would be an increase in the number of viable decks (which is hard to argue since Vintage is so incredibly diverse right now), it cannot be denied that Vintage would be more *strategically* diverse.   VIntage right now is Will v. Anti-Will strategies with sub strategies and tactical battles being proxy fights for Yawg Will.  Take out Will and Vintage, strategically, diversifies dramatically.  Strategies can no longer be faught by proxy but have to be faught out.   It will lengthen Vintage games and make then closer battles to the end. 

It would not be strategically more diverse.  It would be just as strategically diverse as in 2001.  Then it was Drain v. Anti-Drain.  Today's metagame is no more or less strategically diverse than any other metagame Vintage has seen.

[Smmenen]

Does anyone really think that if Will is banned, then the dynamic of vintage would be worse?

Honestly, yes.  I see Ritual getting significantly worse in the Shop-Drain-Ritual axis.  I see Long and Gifts getting significantly worse and Fish and Stax potentially taking a major hit with their deck designs focused on Long and Gifts.  I dont really see what decks get that much better or what decks Will is keeping from being able to compete.  I don't see an increase in diversity with Will gone.

Putting aside the bare question of whether there would be an increase in the number of viable decks (which is hard to argue since Vintage is so incredibly diverse right now), it cannot be denied that Vintage would be more *strategically* diverse.   VIntage right now is Will v. Anti-Will strategies with sub strategies and tactical battles being proxy fights for Yawg Will.  Take out Will and Vintage, strategically, diversifies dramatically.  Strategies can no longer be faught by proxy but have to be faught out.   It will lengthen Vintage games and make then closer battles to the end. 

It would not be strategically more diverse.  It would be just as strategically diverse as in 2001.  Then it was Drain v. Anti-Drain.  Today's metagame is no more or less strategically diverse than any other metagame Vintage has seen.

You are confusing tactics with strategy or are just confused.   Todays is dramaticaly less strategically diverse than it was a few years ago.    That's because Will is a proxy for other win conditions.    You can tutor up Will and then execute whatever other strategy you have without much effort - whether that's Tinker Colossus, Berserk Tog, Tendrils, or now Empty the Warrens + Time Walk.

You take out Will and decks have to actually execute a plan rather than execute Yawg Will in lieu of a plan. 

This point was made, more clearly and effectively, in my article two years ago:

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/10071.html

(4) Yawgmoth's Will Short Circuits Strategy or worse, Substitutes it.
I think this one is the most damning arguments from a mechanical point of view. Magic is a strategy game. Players have a general strategy for winning any given game. In some cases that just will be as mundane as attacking with creatures. In others, it is some victory condition such as Illusion of Grandeur + Donate. Whatever the case may be, in Vintage, far too many strategies strategy that a deck designer would try to build a deck around are inferior to just building your deck around Yawgmoth's Will first and foremost. Just as an example: Why should I build a deck around Psychatog + Cunning Wish for Berserk when I could build my deck around Yawgmoth's Will first? If I play Yawgmoth's Will, then I will have plenty of cards to feed to Psychatog and a million counterspells to backup my Berserk. For example, let's say I am holding Cunning Wish in my hand and I have a nearly lethal Psychatog on the table as a result. I can swing for a turn or so and then blow my hand and graveyard to just kill my opponent. Instead, I am fortunate enough to be holding Yawgmoth's Will. I play Yawgmoth's Will and replay my Accumulated Knowledges for 4 and 3 and Time Walk and Ancestral Recall. Now I can untap and kill my opponent with plenty of countermagic back up and the Berserk is really a formality so I can trample over my opponent's Mishra's Factory. The same goes for Gifts Ungiven. Meandeck Gifts doesn't really have a game plan outside of Yawgmoth's Will aside from Tinker + Time Walk. And Tinker + Time Walk is only so powerful because of the presence of Yawgmoth's Will in the deck.

My point is that a world without Yawgmoth's Will would be a far more interesting world because decks would actually have to struggle to execute their strategies - not play them out by proxy of Yawgmoth's Will. Win conditions don't even have to be powerful if the deck sufficiently abuses Yawgmoth's Will. If your Yawgmoth's Will is sufficiently broken, cards as slow as Morphling can finish the job because you have acquired enormous and overwhelming card advantage.

Good Type One players will often Duress a Yawgmoth's Will far in advance of a likely resolution simply because it is so threatening. It ends the game more quickly than the game would naturally have ended and helps reinforce the perceptions about Type One being less "interactive" than other formats. When Tog plays its second Intuition for Black Lotus, Mana Crypt, and Time Walk simply because it has Yawgmoth's Will in hand, you know that Yawgmoth's Will is a focal point of the deck.

[Moxlotus]

You are confusing tactics with strategy or are just confused.   Todays is dramaticaly less strategically diverse than it was a few years ago.    That's because Will is a proxy for other win conditions.    You can tutor up Will and then execute whatever other strategy you have without much effort - whether that's Tinker Colossus, Berserk Tog, Tendrils, or now Empty the Warrens + Time Walk.
 

No, I'm not confused.  Today decks can do a bunch of stuff, cast Will, then win with whatever they want.  The other decks are designed to fight Will and its set up.  There are 2 types of decks--ones that win with will (Gifts, Long) and ones that fight it (fish, stax). 

In the past, before TNT, it was decks that sat around and didn't do much, cast Mana Drain on something, then played something like Morphling/Masticore.  The entire format was centered around decks with Mana Drain (Keeper, BBS, OSE) and decks without (Sligh, Sui). 

Obv Will is more powerful than Drain was.  But to try to overly generalize the format as "Will v. Antiwill" is like trying to say the past was "Drain v. Anti Drain".  Maybe it is now and maybe it was then.  It just depends on how general you want to be.  But if you're going to be really general, look at the past and wonder "why wasn't a X v. Y metagame a problem then?"

You take out Will and decks have to actually execute a plan rather than execute Yawg Will in lieu of a plan.   

Will IS a plan.  Sure it can randomly happen, but most of the time it takes turns to set up.  You might have to get 4 mana+protection for Gifts.  Then have additional mana for the actual win.  You might need to set up with a triple ritual and a tutor.  Either way, those things usually don't fall into place with no set up.

[Smmenen]

You are confusing tactics with strategy or are just confused.   Todays is dramaticaly less strategically diverse than it was a few years ago.    That's because Will is a proxy for other win conditions.    You can tutor up Will and then execute whatever other strategy you have without much effort - whether that's Tinker Colossus, Berserk Tog, Tendrils, or now Empty the Warrens + Time Walk.
 

No, I'm not confused.  Today decks can do a bunch of stuff, cast Will, then win with whatever they want.  The other decks are designed to fight Will and its set up.  There are 2 types of decks--ones that win with will (Gifts, Long) and ones that fight it (fish, stax). 

In the past, before TNT, it was decks that sat around and didn't do much, cast Mana Drain on something, then played something like Morphling/Masticore.  The entire format was centered around decks with Mana Drain (Keeper, BBS, OSE) and decks without (Sligh, Sui). 

Obv Will is more powerful than Drain was.  But to try to overly generalize the format as "Will v. Antiwill" is like trying to say the past was "Drain v. Anti Drain".  Maybe it is now and maybe it was then. 

You take out Will and decks have to actually execute a plan rather than execute Yawg Will in lieu of a plan.   

Will IS a plan.  Sure it can randomly happen, but most of the time it takes turns to set up.  You might have to get 4 mana+protection for Gifts.  Then have additional mana for the actual win.  You might need to set up with a triple ritual and a tutor.  Either way, those things usually don't fall into place with no set up.

You say you are not confused, but you don't seem to grasp my point. 

Beyond not understanding what I"m saying, you confuse Drain with strategies.   Drain is and will always be a tactic.  It does not win the game by itself.  It is a tactical play used in conjunction with other cards.   Will v. AntiWill actually is a descriptive view of the metagame from a strategic perspective

http://www.starcitygames.com/images/article/02122007menendian1a.jpg

In contrast, Drain v. Anti-Drain may be a description of the metagame, but not from a strategic perspective.   

My primary point, to reiterate, was made, more clearly and effectively, in my article two years ago:

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/10071.html

(4) Yawgmoth's Will Short Circuits Strategy or worse, Substitutes it.
I think this one is the most damning arguments from a mechanical point of view. Magic is a strategy game. Players have a general strategy for winning any given game. In some cases that just will be as mundane as attacking with creatures. In others, it is some victory condition such as Illusion of Grandeur + Donate. Whatever the case may be, in Vintage, far too many strategies strategy that a deck designer would try to build a deck around are inferior to just building your deck around Yawgmoth's Will first and foremost. Just as an example: Why should I build a deck around Psychatog + Cunning Wish for Berserk when I could build my deck around Yawgmoth's Will first? If I play Yawgmoth's Will, then I will have plenty of cards to feed to Psychatog and a million counterspells to backup my Berserk. For example, let's say I am holding Cunning Wish in my hand and I have a nearly lethal Psychatog on the table as a result. I can swing for a turn or so and then blow my hand and graveyard to just kill my opponent. Instead, I am fortunate enough to be holding Yawgmoth's Will. I play Yawgmoth's Will and replay my Accumulated Knowledges for 4 and 3 and Time Walk and Ancestral Recall. Now I can untap and kill my opponent with plenty of countermagic back up and the Berserk is really a formality so I can trample over my opponent's Mishra's Factory. The same goes for Gifts Ungiven. Meandeck Gifts doesn't really have a game plan outside of Yawgmoth's Will aside from Tinker + Time Walk. And Tinker + Time Walk is only so powerful because of the presence of Yawgmoth's Will in the deck.

My point is that a world without Yawgmoth's Will would be a far more interesting world because decks would actually have to struggle to execute their strategies - not play them out by proxy of Yawgmoth's Will. Win conditions don't even have to be powerful if the deck sufficiently abuses Yawgmoth's Will. If your Yawgmoth's Will is sufficiently broken, cards as slow as Morphling can finish the job because you have acquired enormous and overwhelming card advantage.

Good Type One players will often Duress a Yawgmoth's Will far in advance of a likely resolution simply because it is so threatening. It ends the game more quickly than the game would naturally have ended and helps reinforce the perceptions about Type One being less "interactive" than other formats. When Tog plays its second Intuition for Black Lotus, Mana Crypt, and Time Walk simply because it has Yawgmoth's Will in hand, you know that Yawgmoth's Will is a focal point of the deck.

In sum: the key point is that Vintage is much more strategically bereft than it would be without Will because Will subsumes all other strategies due to its absolute trump power.   If Will were gone, the number of paths to victory would diversify dramatically - concurrently, so would plans. 

For more on strategy v. tactics, read my MTG.com article, it may help you not be confused: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/feature/292

[Moxlotus]

What new strategies do you think would be playable if Will was gone that aren't now (besides the Tog example)?  I believe that would help me understand what you are trying to say.  What is Will keeping down?

[zeus-online]

What new strategies do you think would be playable if Will was gone that aren't now (besides the Tog example)?  I believe that would help me understand what you are trying to say.  What is Will keeping down?

Any and every Aggro strategy....I don't believe aggro would overrun vintage without will...but it might, just might have a shot...Not talking about Sligh...but things like Bombs over bagdhad, suicide (Which is really aggro/control but everyone seems to forget that fact) maybe TNT?.

Slow control is pretty much wiped out because of will  - The main reason is that there is no reason for playing a slow control deck, when you can just load up on gifts/intuition and tutor up a will, much easier.

This is what i wrote in another subject:

What do people think would be played?

I'm thinking:

Drains:
U/W Bomberman
U/B 'Tog...maybe with green for Berzerk
U/R Slaver - possibly with blood moon?
U/B TutorTinker
Sensei, sensei combo-control
...Keeper? 
U/R ETW ?
Mono U Masknaught?

Shops:
Stax - With more anti creature measures
Workshop Aggro
Maybe something with metalworker?

Combo:
Charbelcher
Dragon
Willless long ?
TPS?

Aggro - Aggro/Control
U/W Fish
Goblins - Either Food chain or U/R Counter goblins
Bombs over baghdad? (Bazaar madness)
U/R Fish?
Suicide black?
Masknaught?
TNT ?

/Zeus

Ps. i just Copy/Pasted my post from the other no will tourney subject.

 - I know the question was not directed at me.

/Zeus

[Myriad Games]

What new strategies do you think would be playable if Will was gone that aren't now (besides the Tog example)?  I believe that would help me understand what you are trying to say.  What is Will keeping down?

That's the burning question that's generating interest for a tournament to provide answers to this conundrum. Will the format simply turn into Legacy, transmute into "Vintage-Light", or become something else entirely by eliminating a primary and/or secondary win enabler for an entire swath of viable archetypes?

[Brainstorm]

I have posted a suggestion in the other thread on the B/R list.  In addition to this thought what if another slightly unorthodox path was tried? Try vintage with YawgWill banned for a 3 or 6 month period as a test and near the end of the period regroup to see if it worked. Call it a trial separation.  By “worked” I mean was the absence of YawgWill healthy for the format.

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=32268.msg464909#msg464909

[Imzakhor]

Moxlotus asks, "what new strategies would be playable? (If Will were banned)"

My answer is, "few, or one, but probably none."

But, his question does not cut to the core of why banning Will is so important. All strategies would be able to cut cards, main deck/sideboard, that either Get Will, Facillitate Will, Hate Will, or, uh, ARE Will. That's a lot of cards to reclaim in every deck for purposes other than dealing with Will, either for or against. That's a lot of cards that will help synergy of the the deck's strategy, rather than muting it for the copout Will-solution.

I believe all decks will benefit from this, including the ones that abuse Will. Tendrils decks will become more diverse MD, without the Yawgmoth's Copout. Maybe see EtW maindeck, even, among a great many other things to use as kills. More widely varied decks, to me, means a better environment. And that is in the archetype that MOST abuses Will!

You will see less graveyard hate too, and I believe the less hate in a format, the better.

Basically, decks will have to rely on their inherent strategies MORE, and rely on hate-outs and Cop-outs LESS. You will see more interaction between decks, which to me, defines more FUN.

Lastly: banning Will will unrestrict a few other cards, which obviously means more net cards in the continuum. If keeping cards in the flow is important, then keeping Will OUT is even moreso.

Thanks for reading!

[Akuma]

I wish someone, arguing against banning Will, would do so without using the fallacy of a slippery slope argument. Does anyone really think that if Will is banned, then the dynamic of vintage would be worse? Or is it always because the argument inevitable slides down the slippery slope to having EVERYTHING banned?

I'm not using the slippery slope arguement. Just stating that if Will were to be banned, players with the mentality you are exhibiting would be unhappy with whatever powerful card takes its place. I'm not saying that banning Will would cause a domino effect, but you would still not be happy with the environment 

More slippery slope. From a single card that begs to be banned, you have gone to "getting rid of all of those cards people complain about." Then, you again equate that to getting "wiped out by a Yawgmoth's Will".

Why does will beg to be banned? Is it not the other powerful effects that exist in Vintage the reason Will is so good, it wouldn't be quite as good without certain 0cc artifacts or 1cc card draw. Your vision of Vintage is your own, express it, but don't expect to convince very many of us that we should ban Will and limit the number of restricted cards we use per deck.

I don't want to play Legacy. EW. I want to, and do, play Vintage. It is patronizing, even insulting, to suggest that anyone who doesn't share your vision of Vintage should play a format that most serious Vintage players (like me) would not consider.

Your vision of Vintage seems to approximate what Legacy actually is, rather than Vintage. I'm not trying to insult you, it just seems that you are not particularly interested in the broken, degenerate plays that are common place in Vintage.

I also want to play my full Chaos Orb set, but that's banned, as is the (much worse) falling star. Banning cards in Vintage is nothing new. The fact that I believe Vintage would benefit greatly from a banned Y. Will (and a Mox/Tutor restriction, but that is a different crusade of Imzy) cannot be countered with an argument that is eerily like fanatical adherence to religious dogma.

Again, banning cards in Vintage is nothing new. The sky will not fall. In fact, with Will gone, the sky, and everything else under it, will flourish.

It's great that you want to use your Chaos Orbs and all, but we all know that it's banned because it requires manual dexterity to be played, just like Falling Star. Again, this mox/tutor restriction idea just screams Legacy. No fanatical adherence to religious dogma here, just saying that Vintage is the format in which you get to use all of your cards, some of them just as one ofs.

Banning cards in Vintage WOULD be something new, those cards that were banned in the past were banned because Vintage co-existed with other formats. Mind Twist and Channel were banned because they were reprinted and would have been legal in the "Standard" format (Katzby explains this somewhere in greater detail).

[Imzakhor]

Your vision of Vintage seems to approximate what Legacy actually is, rather than Vintage. I'm not trying to insult you, it just seems that you are not particularly interested in the broken, degenerate plays that are common place in Vintage.

My vision of Vintage is exactly what Vintage IS... + exactly 1 banned card (plus the mox/tutor restriction, but hey, while I'm dreaming, I'll ask for a pony). Desiring to ban one card != I should play Legacy. So please, enough of that already.

You are right that I am not particularly interested in broken, degenerate plays... But only when it is applied with Yawgmoth's Will. That is simply not fun. Being defeated by someone WITHOUT using Will almost always comes with a sense of fun, anyway.

As an FYI: the "Mox" restriction means you would be allowed to play one copy of any card with the word "Mox" in its name. I would advocate a "Tutor" restriction the same way. This wish would let you still have access to use all of your cards, but with more fun in Vintage. IMO, obviously. Additionally, this would allow a bunch of cards on the current restricted list, back into the format as 4-ofs.

Thanks for reading!

[zeus-online]

As much as i'd love will to be banned, i just don't get your arguments...
How is getting comboed out by dragon/belcher anymore fun then being comboed out by will?...

I'm mostly just annoyed with the stress will puts on deck building

Oh and that mox/tutor resriction sounds pretty dumb to me, but that's just my opinion

Seriosly, i will quit playing Type 1 the day they start axing the power cards, those cards are what defines type 1 to me, aswell as mana drain, workshops, bazaars and rituals.

/Zeus

[diopter]

As much as i'd love will to be banned, i just don't get your arguments...
How is getting comboed out by dragon/belcher anymore fun then being comboed out by will?...

I'm mostly just annoyed with the stress will puts on deck building

Oh and that mox/tutor resriction sounds pretty dumb to me, but that's just my opinion

Seriosly, i will quit playing Type 1 the day they start axing the power cards, those cards are what defines type 1 to me, aswell as mana drain, workshops, bazaars and rituals.

/Zeus

I wouldn't go as far as saying I'd quit Type 1 if Will was banned - but I would lose most of my interest. If I wanted true strategic diversity I'd play Extended - lots of decks, not bad in terms of power level. But Vintage is where I go to make insane plays.

[Imzakhor]

As much as i'd love will to be banned, i just don't get your arguments...
How is getting comboed out by dragon/belcher anymore fun then being comboed out by will?...

The difference, to me, is subtle, but very important. Dragon/belcher use their inherent game mechanic to win. I don't actually LIKE losing, don't get me wrong. But when a deck's purpose comes through for the win, it doesn't hurt as much as Yawgmoth's Copout. On the flipside, WINNING with a Will has always just left me feeling flat... For much the same reason.

I'm mostly just annoyed with the stress will puts on deck building

This is, of course, my main purpose for getting rid of Will. Everything else is ancillary.

[dicemanx]

I wouldn't go as far as saying I'd quit Type 1 if Will was banned - but I would lose most of my interest.

I very strongly suspect that many that have this opinion will change their minds after Will is banned, if it actually happens. We tend to resist change, especially when something is so familiar to us. However, the change will bring about a different environment - it won't be worse, just different.

Would it not be fair to say that a lot of the interest in magic in general comes from change? I mentioned previously that this is commonplace in every Magic format except for T1. In the next 2-3 years, if no sets were put out, and the B/R list never changed, do you feel that this format would continue to attract strong support?

Look at these forums, or any magic forum. People love to engage in deck construction, they love to come up with new ideas, discuss ideas, playtest, tweak, and perfect their creations. As we inch closer to having a "solved" format, that excitement will inevitably wane, because the primary obstacle is always going to be: "how will this deck do against dominant established archetypes X, Y and Z"? Even for those strong players that do consistently well at events, part of a significant component of skill is deck construction and metagaming. Once all of the secrets become known, you are eliminating part of the reason why many play in the first place and you are eliminating a subset of skills that people use to perform consistently.

T1 used to be just like any other format - wild, underexplored, unsolved, with so much potential for growth and discovery. For formats like T2 or Limited, there was never any opportunity for stagnancy due to constant rotation - in T1 the thought of stagnancy was never really that much of an issue, because of the relative infancy of the format and the massive cardpool to wirk with. However, the moment that we start progressing towards identifying best strategies, we drive our format to either dominance (one unopposed archetype), or distortion (dominant opposing archetypes in balance, but they push all other archetypes/strategies out). We have identified that Will is at the pinnacle of ideal strategy that harnesses the power of this format - brutally fast mana acceleration and very cheap card drawing and tutoring. While getting to that stage might have been exciting, actually playing in a more and more solved format diminishes that excitement because we therefore lose the opportunity for growth.

We need to address this, and it supercedes our definition of T1 as the format where every card is allowable. The presence of Will conflicts with this definition, because its existence makes other cards effectively *not exist* on the competitive vintage radar.

[Vegeta2711]

Slow control is pretty much wiped out because of will

Actually I'm reasonably sure slow control doesn't exist in any format where there's simply a faster kill configuration available that doesn't hurt the overall structure of the deck. Hybrid decks are just better than slow control, because they can actually do something. This is most obvious in Extended for the last couple of years, we may not have Will, but nearly every single control deck has a quick win to end the game with.

The minute people started using Goblin Welder (And probably Tog as well) and all the quicker kill establishments after that was when slow control was dead for our purposes.

We need to address this, and it supercedes our definition of T1 as the format where every card is allowable. The presence of Will conflicts with this definition, because its existence makes other cards effectively *not exist* on the competitive vintage radar.

Peter,

I know what you're trying to say here, but laying it out in such a broad statement almost invalidates the argument from the get-go. Because you well know there's hundreds of cards which are just 'better' then others and invalidate a ton of choices you could make after only a few minutes of thought.

[dicemanx]

I know what you're trying to say here, but laying it out in such a broad statement almost invalidates the argument from the get-go. Because you well know there's hundreds of cards which are just 'better' then others and invalidate a ton of choices you could make after only a few minutes of thought.

You are right - it is tough to come up with the right way of presenting the idea. It is supposed to be a matter of degree - the exisitng vintage cards already limit the "competitive" pool of cards from 5000 to perhaps 500 (a generous estimate), then Will further pares down that list to 50-100 actual playable cards. We cannot do much about the paring down from 5000 to 500 as that is caused by a large combination of cards, whereas Will is just one card that is responsible for a further singificant paring down.

[zeus-online]

Slow control is pretty much wiped out because of will

Actually I'm reasonably sure slow control doesn't exist in any format where there's simply a faster kill configuration available that doesn't hurt the overall structure of the deck. Hybrid decks are just better than slow control, because they can actually do something. This is most obvious in Extended for the last couple of years, we may not have Will, but nearly every single control deck has a quick win to end the game with.

The minute people started using Goblin Welder (And probably Tog as well) and all the quicker kill establishments after that was when slow control was dead for our purposes.

Draw, go! and forbiddian both existed in extended/Type 2 even when better win conditions was present.
Oh and 4CC didn't just auto-loose to Slaver/'Tog the way you seem to suggest, i'd actually wager that i've won over 50% of my 4cc vs. slaver matches.

I do agree that control decks would still need a way to seal the deal fast - But fast is relative to the other decks in the enviroment. Its hard to pin down what fast means, right now goblin welder/mind slaver isn't fast, a few years ago it was very fast. The thing is that right now i'd count Psychatog as a slow control deck, and control slaver certainly ain't fast either.

/Zeus

[Moxlotus]

I have to ask, why is Will a "cop out"?  I mean, is it just because it is a card that, if properly set up, can just win on its own?  What makes Will a cop out win condition?

All strategies would be able to cut cards, main deck/sideboard, that either Get Will, Facillitate Will, Hate Will, or, uh, ARE Will.  

Get rid of Will and Tinker can be a very easy substitute.  Hell, Tinker is even better than Will on turn 1 unless you drew Lotus+recall+walk.

There will always be a card that is "the best" in Vintage.  There will always be "unfair" cards and strategies in Vintage.  I have no doubt in my mind that Will is the most broken card in Vintage, and I have no doubt that it can be stopped with a wide variety of cards from a wide variety of decks in a wide variety of strategies.

then Will further pares down that list to 50-100 actual playable cards.  

I don't want to nitpick on numbers, but that is horribly exaggerated.  Long, Slaver, Bomberman, Stax, ichorid, u/w fish, URBana fish, Dragon, Bomberman, Oath, Ravager, TMWA all use a lot of different cards and any one of those decks can win any given tournament.

Will has simply replaced win conditons like Morphling, Masticore, and Tog.  It hasn't really removed any other cards.

[dicemanx]

I don't want to nitpick on numbers, but that is horribly exaggerated.  Long, Slaver, Bomberman, Stax, ichorid, u/w fish, URBana fish, Dragon, Bomberman, Oath, Ravager, TMWA all use a lot of different cards and any one of those decks can win any given tournament.

Take all of the decks that you honestly feel maximize your chances of getting a respectable finish, and tally up the number of different cards. I doubt the number I presented was so "horribly exaggerated". Would you, for instance, take Ravager, Ichorid or Oath because you feel that you would be maximizing your chances of t8ing or winning, or would you play such decks for the sake of playing something "different"?

I am willing to concede that if Will was banned, *eventually* we would be stuck in a similar scenario where the best decks and strategies would be all worked out again and the diversity would take another dip. However, this is only an issue if you believe that we should work towards some sort of ideal B/R list, and not use the B/R list as a means of shaking things up periodically when the format drifts towards being "solved".

[diopter]

Will has simply replaced win conditons like Morphling, Masticore, and Tog.  It hasn't really removed any other cards.

Well said.

If Will was removed, what exactly is this "strategic diversity" that people expect to appear? Let's think about this:

Control decks will still use FoW, Drain, efficient card draw, and the appropriate finisher.
Combo decks will still use fast mana and insane bombs.
The MO of control decks will still be FoW and Brainstorm in the early game, Drain and card draw in the midgame, drop the appropriate finisher - which, in a Will-less environment would be EtW, Tinker, Tog, or Welder engine. What else could be competitive that isn't competitive now? Three of these four win conditions see play now, and are effective whether executed through Yawg Will or independent from it.

Banning Will won't bring a deck looking to assemble the UrzaTron to win. It won't make engines like Scepter or Life from the Loam viable. It won't bring Keeper back, nor mono-blue control. These new (or old in some cases) strategies still have to compete with the best non-Will strategies around - namely 2U 11/11s, or the Welder engine.

Essentially, I'm saying this. Yes, banning Will will make likely make control decks a turn slower - but the most efficient turn-slower strategies already see play in Vintage!

And yes, you can label this speculation, but it's educated speculation - looking at what non-Will-dependent strategies exist now, and extrapolating them to see what a non-Will environment would look like.