June 1st Banned and Restricted Changes

[goobafish]

Announcement Date: June 1, 2007
Effective Date: June 20, 2007
Magic Online Effective Date: Thursday, June 21, 2007
(after the regularly scheduled Thursday downtime)
Vintage

Gifts Ungiven is restricted
Voltaic Key is unrestricted
Black Vise is unrestricted
Mind Twist is unrestricted
Gush is unrestricted



Legacy

Flash is banned
Mind Over Matter is unbanned
Replenish is unbanned



We have a new format ladies and gentlemen.

[Zherbus]

Restrict Gifts? But... but... why?

[Sextiger]

So when Gifts is at its weakest, it gets restricted
and Gush gets Unrestricted


INSANE

[andrewpate]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/af173

So apparently the old theory about only unrestricting one potential problem card at a time to see how it does was... not applied this time.  It will probably be fine (I have never been a huge opponent of unrestricting any of these besides Gush, toward which I kept a probably-too-cautious attitude of "better safe than sorry."), but still, this is an unusually big shift.

As for axing Gifts at the same time, I did build a 4-Gush, 3-Gifts Turboland list some time last year that seemed extremely strong and which I'm sure was woefully suboptimal.  Perhaps this was the fear, and Forsythe actually mentions GAT in his column with reference to it.  Still, I'm not sure about it.  Gifts seemed pretty manageable.

Oh well, no more Gifts for an Empty package.  I've been running a lot of 5c Stax lately, so no complaints about that part from me.

@Sextiger
Yes, -3 Gifts, +3 Gush does seem like an odd move, esp. given the timing.  Agreed.

[Titanium Dragon]

I can't say I'm surprised by Flash's banning; the format -could- take it, but I doubt people would enjoy it in the long run. I don't think the deck is fundamentally too broken, but I do think people wouldn't enjoy playing against it as long as they would have to.

And Mind over Matter and Replenish seem like interesting unbannings; they're powerful, but at their ccs they seem eminently hatable.

As for vintage...

Gifts being restricted is to be expected, I suppose. Its a tutor and CA and is quite strong, and Fact or Fiction is restricted, so it seems reasonable that Gifts should be as well, and restricting tutors is one of the first places they look.

Black Vise's unrestriction is very interesting, as is the unrestriction of mind twist. Those are hardcore cards, and both hit hard decks that like having stuff like cards in hand and having games last multiple turns. A good twist can ruin a lot of game plans, and hit the slower combo-control decks hard. Conversely, neither card has any effect at all on decks like Ichorid. I don't think either is broken, but both seem like they are strong enough to be at least interesting, especially behind a chalice for 0.

Gush is extremely powerful, and being able to pull ahead two cards is quite nasty; is it still a part of a broken deck though? It will see play, I think; its too strong not to. But it might be reasonable and not broken, now; I'm not sure that groatog is going to be a problem now, as the format has a lot of very nasty decks now that seem more capable of dealing.

And Voltaic Key will continue to see no play whatsoever.

Chalice + Twist is nasty, as you have a good chance of hitting mana and really cutting them out of the game, and chalice + vise seems similarly effctive.

One thing that seems fun is chalice + twist + vise - they play out their 0ccs to try and avoid taking lots of damage from vice, but then your twist owns them? Of course, if they don't play out their hand, then they take lots of damage just from the threat of twist...

[Dxfiler]

As being one of the more vocal 'restrict gifts' people, I can't say I'm sad to see it go...

but I think they picked an odd time to whack it.

The format is in a state of flux where lots of decks are vying for the top spot and gifts is clearly not at the top of the food chain anymore.  If it is, it's barely clinging for dear life.  I honestly believe it was a matter of time before gifts was going to get restricted, but I felt it would be down the road when a new build rose up.

I think R&D used some foresight and just decided that even though the card isn't wreaking havoc at this moment, it was dominant for a very long time and would undoubtedly be dominant again.  Forsythe even used one of my arguments in explaining why gifts got the axe: If FOF is deservedly on the restricted list and gifts is clearly better than FOF, how could gifts run free?  No one ever had a good answer to that when I asked it. 

Now to the unrestrictions, which I'm already debating with many people at once while typing this:

Mind Twist- Eh.  I feel torn on this.  I'm definitely not in the Menendian camp of 'it should have been unrestricted a long time ago.'  This is still a dangerous card.  Time has most likely passed it by but the card still scares me.  More than likely this fear will pass and the unrestriction won't do much of anything.

Voltaic Key: This scares me but not to the degree where I think taking this off was a bad move.  Time has definitely passed this card by and while it can still be a threat, it needs an entire deck worked around it.  You can't just plop 4 of them into a stax deck and expect results.  In a gilded claw-type deck where this is the focus card I see potentially broken things, but again you have to build around it.

Black Vise: R/G BEATS IS COMPETITIVE ONCE AGAIN.  YAUS! 

I wish :p

This is the one unrestriction that I agree with 100%  There's just no reason for Black Vise to waste away on the restriction list for years like Kird Ape and Juggernaut did.  Now Black Vise is free to roam in obscurity with his other underpowered friends.

Gush: Oh boy. 

This is the un-restriction I disagree with 100%

I can appreciate the reasoning behind the unrestriction in that this card was dominant in a completely different format many years ago and that the time of tog has been passed by since... but did it occur to Forsythe or anyone else on R&D that tog's complete and total dominance hinged on four of this card?  :p
I'll admit I didn't really play vintage when 4 gush tog/gat ran wild, but good god did I hear stores.  I also saw top 8 lists... I really REALLY don't want the format to go back to that.  I don't know if it will, but there's no doubt in my mind that GAT will definitely and immediately rise up to tier 1 status.  I think this deck will be ichorid-dangerous in that it will own you if you aren't prepared for it but it will be really good most of the time because all the tools for it to consistently win are there.

Time will tell on the gush un-restriction but it just feels completely wrong.

This is overall a less-angrier Feinstein than usual.  I agree with most of the moves made here and it looks like R&D actually had a sit down meeting at some point to
*shock* actually discuss the state of vintage and what B&R list changes would do to it.

Once again we have a total format shake-up but I think it's probably for the better in the long run... but good luck figuring it out :p

- Dave Feinstein

[Zarathustra]

Restrict Gifts? But... but... why?

The mind boggles.  I can't even understand this.  Granted the deck has lost some it's 'Go Getta' qualities...  But, why?

Talk about a trip to frown town.  I wonder what I'll play now...

-DShell

[TopSecret]

Although I'm not exactly sure what to think about the announcement as of yet,
I can say one positive thing about Gush: It encourages you to have lands in play.

Also, Black Vise was obviously unrestricted to keep Gush in check. 

[Titanium Dragon]

I think R&D used some foresight and just decided that even though the card isn't wreaking havoc at this moment, it was dominant for a very long time and would undoubtedly be dominant again.  Forsythe even used one of my arguments in explaining why gifts got the axe: If FOF is deservedly on the restricted list and gifts is clearly better than FOF, how could gifts run free?  No one ever had a good answer to that when I asked it.

I think so as well. I'm not sure I agree that it is better than FoF though, just different; FoF plays differently. FoF is far less hosable, whereas gifts has a more powerful effect which is more easilly circumvented. Gifts also makes you run some random cards to recur your spells with, whereas FoF doesn't require those.

Mind Twist- Eh.  I feel torn on this.  I'm definitely not in the Menendian camp of 'it should have been unrestricted a long time ago.'  This is still a dangerous card.  Time has most likely passed it by but the card still scares me.  More than likely this fear will pass and the unrestriction won't do much of anything.

I think the reality is that turn 2 twist is still scary as heck, and it makes Sol Ring and similar colorless mana accel that much better. It is on the border of too efficient; you're looking at paying 1 per card plus B, and that is what makes it deadly, the huge CA it can grant early in the game, and the possibility of mana denial.

This is the one unrestriction that I agree with 100%  There's just no reason for Black Vise to waste away on the restriction list for years like Kird Ape and Juggernaut did.  Now Black Vise is free to roam in obscurity with his other underpowered friends.

I don't think Vise is underpowered; it can deal a lot of damage, especially in multiples, and is especially punishing in conjunction with Chalice for 0, something it didn't used to have. At worst it generally is going to deal 4 damage for 1, and that's not a horrible deal, and oftentimes it will be more. If you can follow it up quickly or slow them down somehow, that can lead to a pretty brisk clock. I don't think its a problem though, and it may not even be good, but it may make dealing damage the hard way that much better.

I can appreciate the reasoning behind the unrestriction in that this card was dominant in a completely different format many years ago and that the time of tog has been passed by since... but did it occur to Forsythe or anyone else on R&D that tog's complete and total dominance hinged on four of this card?  :p
I'll admit I didn't really play vintage when 4 gush tog/gat ran wild, but good god did I hear stores.  I also saw top 8 lists... I really REALLY don't want the format to go back to that.  I don't know if it will, but there's no doubt in my mind that GAT will definitely and immediately rise up to tier 1 status.  I think this deck will be ichorid-dangerous in that it will own you if you aren't prepared for it but it will be really good most of the time because all the tools for it to consistently win are there.

Is GAT even good anymore? The format has changed pretty significantly since it was, and a lot of tools have been added, not to mention Jotun Grunt, a card that makes GAT a lot less able to recycle used cards to grow a tog. Also, Black Vise and Mind Twist both interfere with such strategies, assuming they see play. I don't know if it will be a problem. Gush is certainly nasty, but is it still overpowered to the point of needing to be restricted?

[LotusHead]

Black Vise: R/G BEATS IS COMPETITIVE ONCE AGAIN.  YAUS! 
I wish :p
This is the one unrestriction that I agree with 100%  There's just no reason for Black Vise to waste away on the restriction list for years like Kird Ape and Juggernaut did.  Now Black Vise is free to roam in obscurity with his other underpowered friends.

Kird Ape or Jugg got restricted ever? Really?

[Titanium Dragon]

Black Vise: R/G BEATS IS COMPETITIVE ONCE AGAIN.  YAUS! 
I wish :p
This is the one unrestriction that I agree with 100%  There's just no reason for Black Vise to waste away on the restriction list for years like Kird Ape and Juggernaut did.  Now Black Vise is free to roam in obscurity with his other underpowered friends.

Kird Ape or Jugg got restricted ever? Really?

They weren't ever restricted. They were banned from extended for a while though.

[Smmenen]

Gush was restricted the day Scourge became legal.

Let me rephrase that.  Gush was restricted the day Storm became legal.   

In short: 4 Gush and Storm have never existed in Vintage.

[policehq]

Aren't Doomsday players more threatening than GroATog players with 4 Gush? Now they have 8 free ways (with Gush and Street Wraith) to win on the same turn as a resolved Doomsday.

-hq

[Dxfiler]

GroAtog?  Please.  No one will play Quirion Dryad.

People still play it randomly to this day everytime waterbury rolls around and one random guy ALWAYS makes top 8 with it... keep in mind this is with 1 to no gush.

With all due respect Steve, I think you're underplaying the significance of gush's unrestriction.  I'm surprised you aren't jumping for joy at any of these, because correct me if I'm wrong but weren't you lobbying for months on virtually every single card that became unrestricted today?

I know you were big on mind twist and key.  I don't recall how you felt on gush but it sounds like you are happy with it being unrestricted because you don't view it as particularly powerful anymore.  Could you please elaborate?

- Dave Feinstein

P.S. 4 Gush seems incredibly nutty in doomsday, as already pointed out by people and I'm sure you were already aware of that.

[Smmenen]

GroAtog?  Please.  No one will play Quirion Dryad.

People still play it randomly to this day everytime waterbury rolls around and one random guy ALWAYS makes top 8 with it... keep in mind this is with 1 to no gush.

With all due respect Steve, I think you're underplaying the significance of gush's unrestriction.  I'm surprised you aren't jumping for joy at any of these, because correct me if I'm wrong but weren't you lobbying for months on virtually every single card that became unrestricted today?

I know you were big on mind twist and key.  I don't recall how you felt on gush but it sounds like you are happy with it being unrestricted because you don't view it as particularly powerful anymore.  Could you please elaborate?

- Dave Feinstein

P.S. 4 Gush seems incredibly nutty in doomsday, as already pointed out by people and I'm sure you were already aware of that.

You completely misinterpreted my post.

I made the point that Storm and 4 Gush never existed together as a way of demonstraing that the reasoning that Tog is no longer a problem is a joke.   

No one will play Dryad because 4 Gush.Storm deck will almost certainly be the best deck in the format.   Gush is miles better than both Fact and Gifts.   I think this was a palpable error.   

Mean.Deck (Gush.Storm)
By Stephen Menendian

4 Duress
4 Force of Will
4 Misdirection
4 Gush
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Brainstorm
1 Regrowth
1 Fastbond
1 DT
1 Vamp
1 Imperial Seal
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Time Walk
1 Mind's Desire
1 Tendrils of Agony

3 bounce spells

22 mana sources

Good luck beating that.  I can't imagine this deck loses to anything but Ichorid game one, if that.  Suffice to say, I'll be writing about this on Monday.

I'm glad they unrestricted Key and Mind Twist, although I completely disagree with the restricting of Gifts and the unrestriction of Gush. 

[EnialisLiadon]

I too disagree with the restriction of Gifts, but I think I'm bias since it was the only deck ever to get me into a top 8...

GAT is one of my favorite decks of all time, so I'm happy Gush is off the list.  I don't care if the dek isn't good anymore, I'm just happy I can play it again.

[CranialX]

Here's my take on this:

Mindtwist:

1st turn: swamp, dark ritual, dark ritual, and manavault, mana crypt or another dark ritual cast mindtwist.
            Discard 7 cards, resolve slash gg you practically won your first game
                 since your opponent wont be doing anything.

Gush: Will see a lot of play from now on. More combo, and the return of any variant of tog.
         It might even replace street wraith.

Black Vise: Surely stax will be using this as an alternate winning condition
               or maybe just maybe someone will be crazy enough to play stasis again 

Gifts: This is where I really get pissed why the hell would they restrict this card.
        Now my favorite deck will die and I'm sure of it.
        Could it be possible that there is a way a gifts deck win could win running only one gifts?

mods: pls merge my post. I accidentally hit the post button, thanks 
Done. Also cleaned up some spelling problems.  Work on it.
-Klep
Toshia for correcting my grammar

[Dxfiler]

You completely misinterpreted my post.

I misinterpreted your original un-edited post :p  The original didn't really spell out that you felt gush was broken.  Anyway, thank you for clearing up your position and posting your list.

No one will play Dryad because 4 Gush.Storm deck will almost certainly be the best deck in the format.   Gush is miles better than both Fact and Gifts.   I think this was a palpable error.   

Mean.Deck (Gush.Storm)
By Stephen Menendian

4 Duress
4 Force of Will
4 Misdirection
4 Gush
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Brainstorm
1 Regrowth
1 Fastbond
1 DT
1 Vamp
1 Imperial Seal
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Time Walk
1 Mind's Desire
1 Tendrils of Agony

3 bounce spells

22 mana sources

Good luck beating that.  I can't imagine this deck loses to anything but Ichorid game one, if that.  Suffice to say, I'll be writing about this on Monday.

Bold statements definitely made on both gush clearly being better than gifts and gush/tendrils suddenly being the best deck in the format, but I respect your opinion. 

I think it's too early to tell on both accounts.  Your list looks strong but I question how powerful it is in comparison to pitch long.  It looks consistent but you have no street wraiths in here.

Also are you counting dark ritual/cabal ritual as mana sources?  From first glance it appears you aren't running any ritual effects whatsoever.

I'm leaning towards your view that gush being unrestricted as a bad move, but I'm willing to wait and see if it being gone for 4 years has any impact on this completely different format.

Finally, and this question is open to anyone-

What are your thoughts on Forsythe's apparent joke paragraph?  For those who don't know what I'm talking about, R&D member Aaron Forsythe usually does a  companion article explaining r&d changes, and in the latest one he has a paragraph that talks about trying to make the B/R list as short as possible but if there's a clear mistake, "we'll be sure to fix it."  Then immediately under the paragraph is a small disclaimer stating, "*This paragraph is a total fabrication."

I don't understand the need to put that joke paragraph up in the first place.  He's obviously poking fun at R&D having a reputation for not wanting to fix things (he made multiple references to R&D not wanting to deal with the process of restricting/unrestricting), but they got that reputation for a reason.  Time and time again R&D seems to miss things that shouldn't be missed, or just ignore things that appear to be blatantly wrong and act after the fact.   

*legacy quick mini-rant*

Hulk Flash is an obvious example of the latter statement.  I'll briefly comment that as far as the legacy banning goes, it takes alot of balls to say that the grand prix was a success and Hulk didn't ruin it.  That tournament was completely geared around Flash.  Period.  The turnout, while very good at over 800 players (and this honestly surprised me), cannot be viewed as a success when the format rotated around preparation for one card.  Were there multiple archtypes?  Yes.  Did they all have 12+ cards dedicated to flash?  Yes.  A Healthy format that does not make.

*end mini-rant*

Forsythe's comments definitely make me hope that Gush doesn't end up being totally broken (again), because I don't have faith in R&D to quickly fix the situation.

- Dave Feinstein

[Dozer]

Also, Black Vise was obviously unrestricted to keep Gush in check. 

I think this deserves less *wink*. This is an example of faulty logic employed by R&D, I think. Both Black Vise and Gush have been argued in the past to be too powerful to actually unrestrict either one, and they have -- on the surface -- entirely opposite effects. I wouldn't put it past R&D to have thought along the lines of "ok - Gush fills your hand and takes away one turn in land, so there will be an upkeep where Vise can hit hard". Flawed logic. The Gush-decks will not be hit by Black Vise, which is a mid-game card. Black Vise hurts "real" control decks like we used to have back in the day, namely Keeper/ 4cc, BBS, even Tog.

Those decks are gone. I have been out of the Vintage loop for a while, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but Fish-style decks should get hit hardest by the Vise. Decks that take longer than five-six turns to win will suffer. Those are not the top decks, though. Black Vise, of course, is also a possible win condition in lock-decks like Stax (or Stasis, as has been briefly mentioned before). It will not keep the new generation of Gush decks in check. In fact, Gush may prove to powerful in the end to remain unrestricted, but Black Vise may not. I sense a problem coming from flawed logic on R&D's side, although it is a nice shake-up.

This restriction may even be a new try to use the restriction list more as a tool to shake up Vintage than in the past. Standard profits from rotation, as we all know, Vintage doesn't. Since Vintage is only refreshed by the B&R announcement, this may even be a shake-down (-up?) on purpose.

On Mind Twist and Voltaic Key, I have no problem with either one. Especially Mind Twist will allow some randomly broken openings that generate stories, but which are not distorting in any way. In slanted light, Mind Twist looks like a Gush solution on paper, too (if well-timed, it can really set a player back who just Gushed), but again: Before Mind Twist becomes active in that respect, proper Gush decks will already have won. I'm looking forward to Stephen's article on Monday to read in-depth thoughts on the subject.

[The Demon]

Someone explain this to me, how does gift ungiven get restricted but Bazaar does not.  Before I go any further at all I was of the opinion that no card needed to be restricted, but this makes no sense at all.  If they where looking to restrict a card that is busted then bam Bazaar is the only sensible choice.  It enables a deck (Ichorid) that plays by totally different rules, casts very few spells and is widely considered the least skill intensive deck to play. Go to a tournament in the Midwest and you will be hearing "Bazaar of Baghdad is the best draw engine in magic". and they are right.  There is not a single card that isn't restricted that is better then Bazaar of Baghdad is right now, and the aforementioned Ichorid deck really only needs one activation from it.  Seriously Gifts Ungiven was actually good for this format, it was a control deck, remember those things?  Sure, it could occasionally go insane on someone, but even with the "just win" piles it actually was a deck that was more then just balls to the walls insane stupid brokenness.  I just really think that while both cards should be unrestricted, if any card had to go it was by far Gifts.

[Vegeta2711]

Neat. Now something else can join the Flash / Ichorid / Bomberman cabal of decks.

Of course this is assuming Flash Gush or Flash Tendrils doesn't just kick the crap out of everything. Honestly I see that as hard to do considering the current strength of Flash and Ichorid anyway.

This B/R announcement was amusing in a way, I like that they started 'cleaning' some of the possibly not so safe cards off the list. The Gifts restriction was about 6-9 months too late though if they seriously thought it was an issue. I expected Bazaar to get hit sooner than Gifts.

[The Demon]

I expected Bazaar to get hit sooner than Gifts.

I agree one hundred percent, at no point in time was Gifts "really" worth being restricted.  It was a very good deck, and it dominated for awhile but most of the top decks at least had a decent game against it.  Bazaar of Baghdad is so unbalanced that people will mull to one looking for it, hell Ichorid runs a card that allows them to mulligan better just for that purpose, and how is gifts busted again?  They both probably should have stayed unrestricted, but Bazaar is far far far more powerful then Gifts is...er was?

[zeus-online]

Hmm i'm really puzzled...i agree on restricting Gifts ungiven...but the timing is as poor as it could have been...With both flash and ichorid tearing everything up...

Unrestricting gush seems kinda dangerous, and i'm sure it'll enable several decks, obviously including storm and probably GAT.
Wondering why they didn't pull FoF off the list along with gush?
Mind twist looks dangerous, but i really doubt it will have any impact at all right now.

I thought they'd have done something like:
Restrict:
Gifts ungiven
Grim tutor
Serum powder
Flash
and possibly a few others.

Wonder if they just missed both Flash and Ichorid? Or dismissed them because they haven't put out results yet?

Oh, well....Time will tell how they nuke flash and ichorid 

/Zeus

[Titanium Dragon]

Smennen, much as I like your decklists, I don't think throwing together a deck at 2am is the best way to prove this point. That deck doesn't have enough islands (what, 10, max?) to make Gush all that great. You need two, and while (assuming you're running rituals and moxen and similar) you have some (on the order of 11-12?), a wasteland or strip mine could potentially cripple your ability to use Gush at all that game with a very low land count. I also have to agree that it doesn't look better than Pitch Long and similar combo decks; obviously it'd need tuning. If that is the worst Gush can threaten, I'm not exactly scared.

Those decks are gone. I have been out of the Vintage loop for a while, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but Fish-style decks should get hit hardest by the Vise. Decks that take longer than five-six turns to win will suffer. Those are not the top decks, though. Black Vise, of course, is also a possible win condition in lock-decks like Stax (or Stasis, as has been briefly mentioned before).

As cute as it is in Stax, I'm not sure that's where it is at its best. To be honest, I think a tempo deck that is Fishesque may be the best place for it; if you're putting them on a short clock and making them suffer more from having lots of cards in hand, that puts pressure on your opponent to win before they lose, and under such pressure you may be stuck in a situation where Fish may or may not have the second counter in hand necessary to cause you to lose by trying to go off, but they may or may not kill you the next turn as well. That's assuming it is good, and assuming there isn't some owlesque stax build that exploits Black Vise and locks down the opponent while dealing them large quantities of damage.

There's lots of cute things you can do with black vise, but I'm not sure how many are actually good. There are dozens of ways to assemble prisons which can take advantage of it and are solid anyway; Rule of Law/Arcane Laboratory can slow down combo decks while simultaneously filling hands for the Vice to squeeze; sphere of resistance has similar effects, and is already in many stax builds. ect.

Mind Twist is a lot more obvious and brutal, but what will run it? Turn 1 Duress, Turn 2 Twist is pretty savage, and there are plenty of ways to set up a turn 1 discard followed by a turn two twist. If your opponent is relying on going off on turn 3, that's a lot they have to stop. Unfortunately that leaves you with no clock, so you need something to kill with.

It enables a deck (Ichorid) that plays by totally different rules, casts very few spells and is widely considered the least skill intensive deck to play.

Ichorid is a powerful deck, but the deck is not broken. It is extremely strong, but I don't even know that it is the best deck in the format, and it isn't as if decks don't run hoser cards. Yes, you have to be aware of the deck, but while it is strong and fast, it has no countermagic and only limited amounts of proactive discard. No major tournaments with the new Manaless Ichorid have even been run yet, and thus they have no reason to restrict Bazaar. And I think people saying a deck is not skill intensive is nothing but blaming something other than yourself for losing. It does require decisions, and in any event, being too easy to play is not a reason to kill a deck. We'll see if the deck is overpowered this summer, but I don't think it will cause problems.

Go to a tournament in the Midwest and you will be hearing "Bazaar of Baghdad is the best draw engine in magic". and they are right.

Maybe the best unrestricted engine card, at least as far as Vintage is concerned.

There is not a single card that isn't restricted that is better then Bazaar of Baghdad is right now, and the aforementioned Ichorid deck really only needs one activation from it.

Gifts is as strong as Fact or Fiction, which is a card which pretty unambiously deserves its spot on the restricted list. I think the reality is that Gifts was going to go eventually; the card is extremely powerful and sets up a win. Being a tutor, it was even more likely to get restricted eventually. I think R&D decided it was time and nailed it; I think the timing may have been off, but I think the card ultimately deserves restriction.

Wonder if they just missed both Flash and Ichorid? Or dismissed them because they haven't put out results yet?

They do like people to play with cards, and they aren't going to ban them when they haven't put up problematic tournament results yet. I haven't really seen vintage flash in action, but as strong as it was in Legacy, that format could handle it; it seems like Vintage would be much more able to deal.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Finally, and this question is open to anyone-

What are your thoughts on Forsythe's apparent joke paragraph?  For those who don't know what I'm talking about, R&D member Aaron Forsythe usually does a  companion article explaining r&d changes, and in the latest one he has a paragraph that talks about trying to make the B/R list as short as possible but if there's a clear mistake, "we'll be sure to fix it."  Then immediately under the paragraph is a small disclaimer stating, "*This paragraph is a total fabrication."

I don't understand the need to put that joke paragraph up in the first place.  He's obviously poking fun at R&D having a reputation for not wanting to fix things (he made multiple references to R&D not wanting to deal with the process of restricting/unrestricting), but they got that reputation for a reason.  Time and time again R&D seems to miss things that shouldn't be missed, or just ignore things that appear to be blatantly wrong and act after the fact.   

Forsythe's comments definitely make me hope that Gush doesn't end up being totally broken (again), because I don't have faith in R&D to quickly fix the situation.

- Dave Feinstein

The "This paragraph is a total fabrication." sentence is a footnote from the third paragraph of the article. The one here he describes himself as the team's stenographer and mentions the giant holographic globe of current tournament hot spots. I thought that earlier paragraph was hilarious, and it was in no way connected to the serious paragraph at the end which its footnote status put it next to. Saying they would fix things if something broke was totally on the level, which is good because...

Gush. Unrestricting free draw spells that were format-dominant even before Storm was printed? Bad idea. But I guess we'll see. [troll]Honestly guys, it's not like T1 wasn't already combo/control-combo vs. fish anyway.[/troll] I am about 75% sure that someone, either Steve or another mad combo artist, will bust this card again in a whole new way, doubtless in combination with the most broken keyword in Magic.

[pyr0ma5ta]

Yikes.  Someone set up us the new format.  Gush.dec is looking mighty dumb, and the format speeds up yet again.  I would have liked the format to slow down a turn or two, but instead of slowing down, we've just added yet another fast deck to the mix.  4Gush storm decks will probably be able to compete with Turn 2 Ichorid wins, which scares the pants off me.  The irony is that Gifts is just barely fast enough for T1 right now, and not really seeing too much play.  It could have used the hammer 6 months ago, but right now Bazaar is the bigger offender.  Where's the unrestriction of Fof?

Looks like T1 is getting a shakeup.  Start your engines, boys and girls.

[The Demon]

Ichorid is a powerful deck, but the deck is not broken. It is extremely strong, but I don't even know that it is the best deck in the format, and it isn't as if decks don't run hoser cards. Yes, you have to be aware of the deck, but while it is strong and fast, it has no countermagic and only limited amounts of proactive discard. No major tournaments with the new Manaless Ichorid have even been run yet, and thus they have no reason to restrict Bazaar. And I think people saying a deck is not skill intensive is nothing but blaming something other than yourself for losing. It does require decisions, and in any event, being too easy to play is not a reason to kill a deck. We'll see if the deck is overpowered this summer, but I don't think it will cause problems.



Maybe the best unrestricted engine card, at least as far as Vintage is concerned.



Gifts is as strong as Fact or Fiction, which is a card which pretty unambiously deserves its spot on the restricted list. I think the reality is that Gifts was going to go eventually; the card is extremely powerful and sets up a win. Being a tutor, it was even more likely to get restricted eventually. I think R&D decided it was time and nailed it; I think the timing may have been off, but I think the card ultimately deserves restriction.

I really do not think that either cards should have been restricted, but the power level between Gifts and Bazaar is extremely different.  Right now Gifts is a deck that was earlier described as "clinging on for dear life" or something to that effect.  Yeah, Gifts is a tutor, but it is conditional, if being a tutor is enough then why not restrict grim tutor?  Decks that use those are by far superior then decks that use gifts at this current moment.  I see restricting Gifts as a "well, MAYBE we should have done it then, so we may as well do it now".  And if setting up a win is such a big deal, then please explain to me why Gifts decks dont also run serum powders to find Gifts Ungiven?  The reality is that an entire deck is so hellbent on ONE card that it runs serum power to increase the chances of mulling into it.  In other words Ichorid doesn't do much without a turn one Bazaar, in fact it has to have it to really have a chance.  One more time, neither card should have been restricted, but if one had to go it was bazaar.  Restricting a card because of being dominant for time is one thing.  But when Gifts Ungiven was at its height a lot of other decks had decent or good games against it, and the top eights where pretty balanced.  Bazaar has more "restrict" weight to it then Gifts does.

Thank you for sharing your opinions with me, it was actually insightful

[Wollblad]

Where's the unrestriction of Fof?

Hopefully in your dreams only. It seems like DCI tries to minimize the effect of Yawgmoth's Will and create other means of winning besides Will. Gifts is perhaps the single most powerful card setting up a Yawgmoth's Will and Fact or Fiction isn't far behind. Voltaic Key can potentially be used in some kind of wierd combo and Black Vise will give aggro a powerful weapon. Perhaps they want Ichorid to be in the format to force people to increase the graveyard hate count. In that way they hamper Will even more.

[Kowal]

I'm amused that in a thread about the unrestriction of Gush, people are arguing about FoF being too broken.

FoF is trash.  FoF is less than trash.  Trash is something I might consider for my sideboard if it's funny.

I don't like unrestricted Mind Twist.  I don't think it's going to dominate the format or anything.  I just don't like it.  Mind Twist is at its best quite randomly, and adding effects that are as random as multiple Mind Twists degenerates the format in the same way four Trinispheres does.

I also don't like unrestricted Gush.  Gush combo is fucktardedly diculous.  The fact GroaTog was even mentioned demonstrates they didn't think this through enough.

I also don't like Gifts being restricted.  This makes no sense at all.  It's not format distorting.  It's not too powerful.  It's certainly not dominating top eights with multiples in every deck like was implied.  And shit, at least if it were, Gifts is a player intensive deck often enough it adds legitimacy to our format.

Overall, I feel like this announcement really punches Vintage's dignity right in the balls.  We get a bunch more random brokennness at the expense of good decks that demand solid players.  I'm pretty disgusted.

[Smmenen]

@ TD:  I envisioned 12 lands and 2 Rituals.

You completely misinterpreted my post.

I misinterpreted your original un-edited post :p  The original didn't really spell out that you felt gush was broken.  Anyway, thank you for clearing up your position and posting your list.

My original post unedited simply said that 4 Gush and Storm had never been legal together before.   I thought the inference was clear

I'm amused that in a thread about the unrestriction of Gush, people are arguing about FoF being too broken.

FoF is trash.  FoF is less than trash.  Trash is something I might consider for my sideboard if it's funny.

It's very clear that Gush is more stupid than Fact.   I also happen to think it is much more broken than Gifts as well.

To your point that Fact is trash: If Fact was unrestricted, I find it hard to imagine that you wouldn't be playing 4.    Fact is broken as an engine in its own right.   Gifts is only broken because of Yawg Will.   Fact is a broken card, but just lost most of its power restricted.   Unrestricted, it is a complete powerhouse again.    I won almost as much power with 4 Fact as 4 Gush decks.   If you have never played with 4 Fact decks in Vintage, then you wouldn't understand why Fact needs to be restricted, but that's just a feature of the card.