Note: I wrote this for my article next monday. However, this segment ballooned to nearly 20 pages. When I was done writing it (and I still hadn't finished editing it), I realized that no one but Vintage people would want to read it. I will concisely summarize some of the points made here for my article next Monday (which is also about GroAtog).
The Vintage Restricted List
I’m going to review all of the restrictions since 2001 for three reasons. First, it will help you see the full significance of the unrestriction of Gush. Second, it will provide a backdrop against which to evaluate the restriction of Gifts Ungiven. Third, this historical review may give us a sense of future DCI action.
There have been 12 restrictions in Vintage since late 2001.
1) Announced December, 1st 2001, effective January 1st, 2002: Fact or Fiction is restricted.
Fact or Fiction was restricted almost entirely on the word of Darren Di Battista. Darren first argued that it should be restricted 6 years ago here:
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/1556.html Then, six months later, he proudly boasted how he convinced Mark Rosewater to restrict Fact here:
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/2311.htmlThen, six months after that, he argued that Back to Basics should be restricted.
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/3413.htmlSeriously.
Ok, so Fact was restricted on the word of a terrible Vintage player. Was there any tournament evidence?
You have to understand that Vintage in 2001 was a total joke format. There were no Vintage tournaments that could tell you anything meaningful. There was a non-existent metagame, very few tournaments of more than 30 players, if any, and the major decks were Keeper, Sligh, Zoo, and Suicide Black. This was the tail end of the dark age of vintage. No one played it and those who did were terrible. What few tournaments there were did feature Fact decks doing well. Take a look at this sample of 2001 tournament results from Germany here (
http://www.trader-online.de/turniere/siegerdecks.htm). Scroll down to the 2001 tournaments and click the top 3 decklists. This is a representative sample of the range of decks that ran Fact.
Fact or Fiction reached its zenith in mono blue Aggro-Morphling decks that abused Back to Basics to destroy multi-color control (remember, this was pre-Fetchland era), and Powder Keg and early Morphlings to beat the Sligh and Suicide Black decks on the other side of the metagame spectrum. Here in the United States, Ed Paltzik and his friends ran over a small Vintage metagame at Neutral Ground, in New York City with this mono blue deck.
One reason offered by Aaron Forsythe for the restriction of Gifts is that Fact or Fiction is on the list. As Aaron said: “Powerful spells that tutor for a single card are generally restricted in this format, so what about one that tutors for four cards? Seems natural, especially as the card's cousin, Fact or Fiction, also resides on the Restricted List.”
The great irony of this is that one of the reasons cited for the restriction of Fact was that Braingyser and Stroke of Genius were restricted (cards that are now very obviously unrestricted). You be the judge.
2-3) Announced March 1st 2003, effective April 1st: Entomb and Earthcraft are restricted.
The reaction is puzzlement until people realize that it was done to ban these cards in 1.5. Evidently, Earthcraft and Squirrel Nest were too good in 1.5.
4-5) Announced June 1st, 2003, effective July 1st: Gush and Mind’s Desire are restricted.
This is the first instance in modern Vintage where a deck has truly dominated, and I have the data to prove it -- to my knowledge, the first major analysis of tournament data ever conducted in Vintage:.
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/5636.html I ran an analysis of the metagame leading up to the restriction of Gush and found that Gush was making 40% of top 8s from roughly Feb. 2003 through its restriction point.
GroAtog dominance was briefly interrupted by the emergence of Stax and Rector Trix. But no sooner had Stax emerged, then GroAtog evolved around it. The same was true of Rector. To achieve a 40% top 8 performance rate in Vintage over the long term over many continents is incredibly difficult. This feat has not been repeated. This would be the last restriction in Vintage based on format dominance.
In the same month, Scourge is released and Mind’s Desire is pre-emptively restricted. Note that this is the first instance of pre-emptive restriction in Vintage. Four Desire wasn’t legal for even one day.
6-8) Announced December 1, 2003, effective January 1st, 2004: Chrome Mox, Burning Wish, and Lion’s Eye Diamond are all restricted.
Randy Buehler explained the restrictions here:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/rb102 I recommend you read the entire article because it’s fascinating and because it provides insight into their thought process.
Three items are salient:
a) They gave serious consideration to cards like Chalice of the Void based upon player feedback and Cunning Wish based upon principle.
b) Randy explains that the move to restrict Chrome Mox is simply a consequence of the fact that fast mana of that nature in Vintage will see restriction. Also note that Chrome Mox was in the format since October, but this was the first opportunity to restrict it.
c) He also explains that Burning Wish and Lion’s Eye Diamond were restricted on account of Long.dec. Note that Long.dec, while incredibly powerful and certainly the best deck in the format, was far from dominant. Far too few players actually piloted the deck and it never really enjoyed a major tournament win. It was restricted more on account of what it could do (goldfish on turn one 60% of the time) rather than what it actually did.
This is the first instance since Gush, aside from pre-emptive restrictions based upon objective power, that they will restrict cards not based on format dominance. Note that a poll of Vintage players found that most Vintage players thought that only LED and Chrome Mox should be restricted, not Burning Wish:
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/5980.htmlNote my position in that Chart – compare my vote with Brian Weissmans. Also, look at how many people thought Burning Wish should be restricted, almost no one.
Restricting LED was the right move, but I think restricting Burning Wish was not right.
9-11) Announced March 1st, 2005, effective April 1, 2005 and Sept. 1st, 2005 (respectively): Trinisphere, Imperial Seal, and Personal Tutor are restricted.
Aarony Forsythe explained the decision here (
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/af56 ) and here (
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/af65 ).
Trinisphere was legal for an entire year. It was released with Darksteel and spoiled in Feb. of 2004.
Little known fact: it wasn’t until Fifth Dawn with Crucible of Worlds that Workshop Trinisphere decks took off. You can see this trend in my 2004 Vintage year in review:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/feature/245 And the surprising strategy to emerge with the most success at abusing Trinisphere was Beatdown Mishra’s Workshop decks. We saw Juggernauts and Mask-Naught perform very well for the next 4 months.
By the fall, Workshop Trinisphere was half of the top 8 at the Vintage Championship that fall. Two of the Workshop Trinisphere decks were Juggernaut based and the other two were more traditional Smokestack based. However, Control Slaver won the whole thing. In addition, I played a mono blue deck that preyed upon the Workshop and Fish metagame and went undefeated in the swiss.
Then, Forbidden Orchard was printed and Oath of Druids became the perfect foil to Aggro Workshop. Here was the top 8 at the next major SCG Event:
Star City Games Power Nine II
Top 8:
1. Meandeck Oath
2. Workshop Aggro with Smokestacks
3. Meandeck Oath
4. Workshop Aggro
5. Control Titan
6. Meandeck Oath
7. Meandeck Oath (me)
8. Workshop Aggro
However, within the space of a month, Workshops were back on top. They found ways to foil the Oath strategy:
Starcitygames, Power Nine III, Nov. 2004
The Top 8 was:
1. 5/3
2. 7/10 Split
3. Meandeck Doomsday (Me)
4. Stax
5. Control Slaver
6. Psychatog
7. Workshop Beatdown
8. U/W Fish (Phish)
While I made top 4 on an anti-Workshop combo deck, Workshops clearly owned the day.
The final straw apparently was SCG Syracuse, where Kevin Cron won SCG IV with Trinistax designed to beat Control Slaver. The irony was that Kevin only ran 3 Trinisphere’s maindeck since Control Slaver had fully adapted to winning around Trinisphere.
Here was the January and February metagame breakdown preceding the restriction of Trinisphere (as calculated by supercomputer Phil Stanton):
10 Trinistax (1,1,1,1,3,3,4,7,8,8)
10 TPS (1,1,2,2,2,3,3,5,8,8)
7 Mud / Welder Mud* (1,2,4,4,4,6,7)
7 Control Slaver (2,3,5,5,5,7,7)
7 Landstill (2,2,2,3,4,7,7)
7 Oath of Druids (3,3,5,5,6,6,6)
5 Dragon (2,4,7,7,8)
5 4C Control (3,4,4,7,8)
5 Fish (5,5,7,8,8)
Although Trinistax could not be said to dominate the Vintage metagame, it clearly distorted and shaped the metagame much like Flash did at GP Columbus. The TPS decks that you see next to Trinistax were combo decks built specifically to beat Trinistax. In addition, Control Slaver was pretty much the Trinistax foil.
The Vintage metagame had pretty much adapted to Stax and was by now used to the concept of 4 Trinisphere Stax. The outrage had peaked in the fall of the previous year, but with all of the format upheaval around Trinisphere, the move to restrict it lost a lot of momentum. It came as pretty much a shock to everyone when the DCI announced it restriction on March 1st.
Although Aaron says that they were tempted to pre-emptively restrict Trinisphere on principle alone, much as they did with Mind’s Desire and Chrome Mox, they ultimately waited to see what happened to the metagame. Trinistax didn’t dominate, but it did shape the metagame around it.
Most importantly, Aaron explains the move to restrict Trinisphere on a ground that was pretty much unvoiced at that point: Fun Factor. Here is how he puts it:
Trinisphere is a nasty card, no bones about it. It does ridiculous things in Vintage, especially combined with Mishra's Workshop. As I've said in a previous column, we almost restricted it before it was even released.
Now that it has been floating around for a while, the Vintage crowd understands that the card does good things for the format, and bad things to the format. While it does serve a role of keeping combo decks in check, it also randomly destroys people on turn one, with little recourse other than Force of Will. And those games end up labeled with that heinous word—unfun. Not just “I lost” unfun, but “Why did I even come here to play?” unfun. The power level of the card is no jokes either, which is a big reason why I don't feel bad about its restriction.
Vintage, like the other formats with large card pools, always runs the risk of becoming non-interactive, meaning the games are little more than both players “goldfishing” to see who can win first. Trinisphere adds to that problem by literally preventing the opponent from playing spells. We don't want Magic to be about that, especially not that easily. If combo rears its head, we'll worry about it later. But for now, we want to people to play their cards. Really.So, while Trinisphere didn’t dominate, it did make things unfun, non-interactive, and did ultimately warp the metagame around it. As a side note, I was against the move on the principle that Trinisphere didn’t dominate, but in time I’ve come to see this decision as a good move, even if the timing was odd. The move freed up a lot of the resentment that players had towards Mishra’s Workshop. It made the format fun for a lot of players, once again. Most ironically, the restriction of Trinisphere led to the most successful run by Stax ever seen in Vintage. Stax proceeded to win most of the major SCG tournaments that year, the Vintage Championship (the first time a non-Drain deck did it), and a Waterbury. Apparently, the restriction of Trinisphere freed Stax players to think more creatively about how to win and some interesting design space opened up.
Note that the DCI announced the legalization of Portal by the fall. Coinciding with this announcement and the restriction of Trinisphere was the announced restriction of both Personal Tutor and Imperial Seal. This was the third instance of pre-emptive restriction we see in modern Vintage.
12) Announced June 1st, 2007, Effective June 20th: Gifts Ungiven is restricted.
It has been over two years since the last restriction in Vintage was announced. This card has been legal in Vintage for nearly three years.
Gifts Ungiven was printed with little fanfare in Vintage. By December of 2004, some clever German designers came up with the Recoup, Yawg Will, and Tinker combo. This move was largely ignored by American designers until Andy Probasco fused Goblin Welders and Goblin Charbelcher – Mana Severance into the combo. This deck became known as Shortbus Severance Belcher. His Gifts pile was: Mana Severance, Tinker, Yawg Will, and Recoup. No matter what you give him, he wins. Andy built the deck using only 2 Gifts, 2-3 Welders, and 4 Thirst for Knoweldge as the primary draw engine. The European lists turn to using some mix of Thirst for Knowledge, Skeletal Scrying as their draw engine. They only use 2-3 Gifts.
After exploring all of these options, I decided that these lists did not properly appreciate that Gifts Ungiven could be an engine in itself. By relying on Thirst For Knowledge as a mid-game draw engine, these lists were inefficiently utilizing Gifts and become too top heavy. My solution was radical. I write about this here:
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/9963.htmlI decide that 4 Merchant Scrolls and 4 Gifts Ungiven provide excellent synergy. Scroll doesn’t get in the way of Gifts like Thirst does.
After testing the deck for a while, I come up with revolutionary design that drops Thirst For Knowledge entirely in favor of an aggressive synergy of 4 Merchant Scroll, 4 Gifts Ungiven, and 3 Misdirections. It becomes a very simple 3 step game plan.
Initially, most of the Vintage community refuses to play my decklist and after a very brief run, it languishes in obscurity while people continue to play Thirst For Knowledge Gifts lists that do not include 4 Gifts. However, my decklist ends up winning the Vintage Championship in 2006 and suddenly the deck is extremely popular again. Meandeck Gifts variants begin winning and doing very well in lots of tournaments. Unfortunately, Pitch Long and other decks perform almost as well. You can read through my 2006 Vintage Year in review, here is how Gifts fared in comparison to other archtypes:
Here is a tally of all of the decks that made t8 in all of the major Vintage events from 2006:
Gifts (MDG/TFK-Gifts): 21
Slaver (CS/Burning Slaver): 19
Tendrils (Grimlong/Pitchlong/IT): 16
Fish (UW/URBana/SS): 15
Shop (Stax/UbaStax): 14
Bomberman : 8
Oath: 5
WGD: 3
For the same events, here are the tallies for the 1st/2nd place finishers in 2006:
Gifts: 8
Tendrils: 5
CS: 4
Stax: 3
Fish: 2 (all SS variants)
Bomberman: 1
Clearly, by year’s end, Gifts was the best performing deck, but only by a hair. The metagame is extremely diverse and very competitive. Moreover, Gifts had just taken Control Slaver’s spot at the best and most played blue based control deck in the format. Control Slaver came much closer to actually dominating Vintage in 2005 than Gifts did in 2006.
Finally, in January of this year, Andy Probasco comes up with yet another radical Gifts design. For the first time he abandons the Thirst For Knowledge engine in favor of Merchant Scrolls, but he incorporates Empty the Warrens and Repeals into the deck, and he calls it Repeal Gifts.
And that is pretty much where we are today. There have been no major Vintage tournaments since January. Most of the metagame expected that Long and Gifts were probably the two best decks followed by Bomberman, Fish, Stax, and Control Slaver, just as had been the case last year. However, the recent changes in Vintage with Future Sight and Flash threw that metagame out the window.
While Gifts Ungiven has been a player in Vintage since 2005, it is at its lowest ebb. Recent changes to Vintage, specifically Ichorid, Flash, and developments you’ll see next week were pushing Gifts out of the tier one, from a place I do not think it would have returned. It was far from dominant and didn’t really warp the format any more than the presence of fast Mana Drain decks generally, of which Control Slaver is an equally egregious offender.
Control Slaver performed just as well as Gifts did for a long period of time (just like Psychatog did before that), and Thirst for Knowledge was never restricted. Gifts was performing in line with how traditional blue based control decks of the past had.
More importantly, there was some movement to restrict Gifts late last year. The momentum to restrict Gifts seemed to have crested in December and then dissipated almost entirely. And when Gifts wasn’t restricted in March, no one seemed to care anymore.
Based upon the previous 11 restrictions, there very clearly emerges 5 basic, often overlapping, criteria for restriction:
1) Metagame Dominant
2) Objectively Broken/ Restricted on Principle
3) Metagame Warping
4) Unfun – Non-interactive
5) Restricted for 1.5 (Only when the lists were linked
Here’s where the 11 previous restrictions fall:
1) Fact or Fiction: A claim of Dominance (Criteria # 1), which was true based upon the very limited metagame that existed at the time.
2-3) Entomb and Earthcraft. Restricted for 1.5 (Criteria # 5).
4) Gush: Metagame Dominant, clearly so in a vibrant and fluid metagame. (Criteria # 1)
5) Mind’s Desire. Objectively broken/ restricted on principle (criteria # 2). Presumably would have produced a metagame dominant or warping deck and would have been unfun.
6) Chrome Mox. Objectively broken/restricted on principle (criteria # 2)
7) Lion’s Eye Diamond. Objectively broken/restricted on principle and because produces deck that is too fast (criteria # 2 and probably #4).
8) Burning Wish. Objectively broken/ restricted on principle and because produces deck that is too fast (criteria #2 and probably #4).
9) Trinipshere. Unfun (# 4), but it was also metagame warping (#3). Note that it was not restricted on principle, despite discussions about doing so.
10-11) Imperial Seal and Personal Tutor. Restricted on Principle (#2).
Note, that most of the cards that were restricted on principle were pre-emptively restricted: Mind’s Desire, Chrome Mox, Imperial Seal, Personal Tutor. Also note that the one clear exception to this was Lion’s Eye Diamond, which was also cited with Chrome Mox, but was legal in Vintage for nearly 10 years before it was properly abused. Also note that Burning Wish was also restricted to kill Long.dec, but also because it tutored up Yawg Will, and therefore was considered objectively broken. Note that it was no pre-emptively restricted. It was restricted not on pure principle either, but because of a particular deck that didn’t dominate (at least, not yet) nor metagame warp. That deck was cited, however, as being a 60% turn one win deck. Therefore, the restriction of both Burning Wish and LED can also fall under the Unfun-Non-interactive category.
What we see from these restrictions is a very clear pattern. 1) Some cards will be restricted because they lock the opponent out of the game on turn one (non-interactive, unfunness). This is Trinisphere, LED, and Burning Wish. 2) Other cards will be restricted in principle of objective brokeness: Mind’s Desire, Chrome Mox, Imperial Seal on a pre-emptive basis. Buehler warned us to expect these cards to get restricted at the earliest opportunity. 3) Metagame dominance: Gush. 4) Metagame warping: Trinisphere
In most instances, these criteria overlap, as you might imagine.
Gifts doesn’t fit well into any of these. Gifts is clearly not metagame dominant like Gush. It is a much smaller proportion of the metagame, about 15%. Admittedly, there were 4 decks in the last Waterbury Day 1 that ran Gifts in their deckshttp: //sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&t%5BC1%5D=vin&start_date=2007-01-14&end_date=2007-01-14&start_num=100&start_num=125&limit=25 . But that is a feature of the Waterbury. First of all, take a look at the Roanoke decklists a month before:
http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&t%5BC1%5D=vin&start_date=2006-11-19&end_date=2006-11-19 Only one Gifts deck in the top 8. Secondly, the Waterbury always features a very high proportion of Drain decks, regardless of the archetype. Take a look at the same Waterbury results two years earlier:
The Waterbury - 202 Players Jan, 2005
http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=215121) Goth Control Slaver
2) Goth Control Slaver
3) The Perfect Storm
4) Meandeck Tendrils
5) Control Slaver
6) Control Slaver
7) Rector Trix
8) Workshop - Staff of Domination Combo
There were four Control Slaver lists in the Top 8 and eight in the Top 16. Control Slaver, also won that year’s previous World Championship, just as Gifts had in this instance.
In any case, if Gifts was restricted for dominance, which it clearly wasn’t, than the fact that Welder or Thirst For Knowledge wasn’t restricted following the 2005 Waterbury is completely inconsistent. Control Slaver truly dominated that tournament and cinched the previous World Champs.
Moreover, if Gifts was restricted for dominance, wouldn’t that have occurred before now? Perhaps on Sept 1st or March 1st, rather than June? In any case, there is very, very little evidence of dominance.
What about metagame warping? Gifts, unlike other broken decks of the past, did not warp the metagame around it. The dominant force of which Gifts was merely one part was Mana Drain combo decks. Control Slaver, Drain Tendrils, and Gifts are all roughly as fast and all vulnerable to the same things: Null Rod, Red Blast, Tormod’s Crypt, etc. Gifts didn’t really change anything in the metagame. It was so good because it was more resilient to Pitch Long than Slaver, due to Merchant Scroll.
What about being non-interactive or unfun? Quite the contrary, Gifts was considered to be quite fun and often highly interactive. Sure, most of the time if you did it right the Gifts piles didn’t matter. But it required decision-making on the part of both players. Most players thought Gifts added a nice layer of skill to the format.
What about being objectively broken or restricted on principle? In almost all of the cases of this, the cards in question were pre-emptively restricted. Perhaps the closest point of comparison is Burning Wish. Although it was ambiguous, Burning Wish was restricted to kill Long.dec, a deck that was too fast, and because of its power with finding broken Sorceries. We’ll explore this argument in a bit, because it seems to be one of the pillars of Forsythe’s justification.
In short, this restriction wasn’t based on dominance like Gush. Nor was it based on objective power like Desire (otherwise it would have been restricted like Chrome Mox and Mind’s Desire – coterminous with the set release). Nor was it restricted on the grounds of extreme metagame warping un-fun-ness like Trinisphere.
So, if it wasn’t restricted on those obvious grounds, then why was it restricted?
Here’s how Aaron Forsythe justified the restriction:
“Powerful spells that tutor for a single card are generally restricted in this format, so what about one that tutors for four cards? Seems natural, especially as the card's cousin, Fact or Fiction, also resides on the Restricted List.
Gifts Ungiven was, for a long time, used primarily in a deck based around it—"Gifts"—that would control the game long enough to tutor up a suite of win conditions that left the opponent no way out. Recently the card has been creeping into other decks, including Control Slaver and Gro-A-Tog, as its power is undeniable. It should still see play as a one-of.”
Let me evaluate the logic. But first let’s recapitulate in standard form:
Gifts was restricted on the grounds that 1) it was a powerful restriction worthy tutor, 2) that it was akin to other cards already restricted, and 3) that it was popping up in other decks to show how powerful it was.
The Tutor argument
The answer to the tutor argument is awkwardly simple: Gifts isn’t busted because it’s a tutor and finds 4 cards – it’s busted because it is so effective with a particular card and pretty much that card alone: Yawgmoth’s Will. It is hard to imagine designing a tutor with so many built in synergies with Will. Note: do not mistake me when I say that Gifts is good because of yawg Will – that doesn’t mean your first Gifts pile finds Yawg Will, but what makes Gifts strategically viable is that eventually you’ll find Will. For instance, your first “set up” gifts may just find Recoup and three non-Will cards. Then your second Gifts puts Will in the yard. Let me put it this way: Counterfactually, if Yawgmoth’s Will were banned in Vintage, Gifts Ungiven is not restriction worthy and probably unplayed. The veracity of that claim is not contested.
As for the claim that powerful tutors are generally restricted, Grim Tutor is rightfully unrestricted. Academy Rector was not restricted despite a strong push in 2003. Many felt that Rector + Cabal Therapy to not only tutor up Yawgmoth’s Bargain, but put it directly into play was just unfair. Today, that play is much more easily accomplished with Flash, and yet Flash isn’t restricted. Flash + Academy Rector is instant 1U tutor for Yawgmoth’s Bargain and put it directly into play! The inconsistency is too bare to escape notice or to withstand critical judgment.
And yet, in my view, the most powerful unrestricted tutor in Vintage wasn’t Gifts, Grim Tutor, or even Academy Rector – it was and remains Merchant Scroll. It finds Ancestral Recall, Gush, any bounce spell you may need given the situation, and helps tutor chain for Yawg Will with Mystical Tutor for only 1UU. What this shows is that we don’t restrict great tutors in Vintage on principle alone – they have to be more than great tutors; they have to be problematic. Academy Rector, Grim Tutor, and Merchant Scroll have all been given a pass because of this. Burning Wish was not so lucky.
Regarding Forsythe’s argument that the fact that Gifts gets four cards is another supporting justification: Intuition tutors for three cards – one card per mana, just like Gifts. And yet Intuition has been legal for a very long time with no hint of restriction, despite powering the best control deck in the format from late 2003 through most of 2004. The restriction of Gifts now makes little more sense than restricting Intuition back in early 2004. Moreover, Intuition allows you to get any cards at one mana per card – not just different ones as required by Gifts. And yet no one would seriously talk of restricting Intuition.
The Fact Comparison
The other argument for restriction is that how can it make sense to have Gifts unrestricted while Fact or Fiction is restricted? Fact or Fiction is objectively broken in its own right regardless of what you Fact into. In contrast, Gifts Ungiven is only good because of Yawgmoth’s Will. People argue that Gifts wins the game when you play it. This is false. Turn one Mana Crypt, Mox, land, Gifts Ungiven does not equal game over. Sure, you can set up very solid Gifts piles, but if you don’t have the resources online yet to combo out, your opponent will have a chance to win first or disrupt your attempts to make anything of the meager card advantage you just achieved. Even a simple Duress can be a knockout. On the contrary, turn one Mox, Mana Crypt, land, Fact or Fiction on turn one is a much more powerful play than turn one Gifts. That’s because Gifts is a Yawg Will engine while Fact is a card advantage/digging engine.
Some vocal Vintage players, Ben Carp stands out, have repeated ad nauseum that Gifts should be restricted because Fact is. While facially sensible, these arguments miss crucial subtleties because these players never actually played with 4 Facts. One such point is explained in the paragraph above. Another such point is this: the power of Fact in multiples versus its objective power as a singleton. Similar to Mind’s Desire, Facting into Facts is not only extremely powerful, but also not that unlikely. This is because of how deep Fact digs. If you don’t hit a Fact with Fact, you are much more likely to see another one soon thereafter. Gifts, on the contrary, isn’t as synergistic with other Gifts. Sure, a Gifts preceding a Gifts for Yawg Will can make your Yawg Will more explosive, but it’s not the same thing. And Gifting for Gifts isn’t generally the go-to play. The principle for restricting Fact doesn’t apply to Gifts. Fact was an insane engine its own right that synergized enormously with other Facts. Gifts is almost entirely reliant upon Yawg Will. The inherent value of Gifts doesn’t rise dramatically when it interacts with other Gifts. The opposite is true of Fact. Thus, the case for restricting Fact is completely different from the case for restricting Gifts, if we are talking from a purely functional perspective.
Another important point that really undermines the logic of the Fact/Gifts comparison for restricting Gifts: If Gush can be unrestricted, a card that was restricted in 2003 on the strongest evidence of format dominance, then Fact or Fiction’s place on the restricted list is thrown into great doubt. Fact was a card restricted in the twilight of the dark age of Vintage, before the format was cast back into the public eye – as Oscar Tan began writing on Vintage. Fact was restricted on flimsy tournament data and primarily on the word of a few Vintage mouthpieces. If Gush can be pulled off the list, Fact’s place on that list is pretty silly. In terms of safety of unrestriction, I’m willing to be that 95% of the Vintage community would have thought that Fact was safer to unrestrict than Gush. Fact was restricted in 2001 while Gush was restricted in 2003. Gush dominated the metagame for 6 months; Fact dominated a few 30-man tournaments for a few months when people were playing Sligh, Suicide Black, and Keeper. Fact is barely even played in Vintage anymore. In any assessment of head to head matchups, Gush decks have always dominated 4 Fact decks. By almost any measure available, the unrestriction of Gush signals that Fact does not deserve its spot on the restricted list. By that logic, neither does Gifts. If Gush can be unrestricted, then I see no reason to let Fact or Fiction, a card restricted on the most flimsy of evidence, rot on the restricted list. If Gifts is on the restricted list, in part, because Fact or Fiction is as well, then the unrestriction of Gush completely undermines that claim.
Creeping into other decks argument
The final point that Aaron brought up was that Gifts was being played in GroAtog and Control Slaver. What about Thirst for Knowledge which saw much more play in many more decks from Control Slaver, to Gifts, to GroAtog, to mono blue decks, to all sorts of other control decks?
The Timing
The timing of this move is odd, to say the least. Gifts has had peaks and valleys over the last two years. It peaked in March of 2005 then disappeared for a couple of months. Then I innovated Meandeck Gifts and it popped up again. Then it went away, once again. I’ve documented the trend in my Year in Reviews – the general trend is that Gifts re-emerges when new technology is implemented to power it up, but then it fades back away while other decks start to win. The cycle in Vintage over the last 5 years is that there are generally 2.5 decks in the tier one at any given time. One deck is on its way up – a relatively new entrant, another is in the middle of its life cycle, and another is in decline. Last year, Stax was on its way out, Gifts was the middle sitter, and Long decks were the new entrant. This year, Gifts was finally on the decline and most players knew it. If you polled the Vintage community, you might have been able to get something approaching 40% support for its restriction six months ago. Last month? From my read, probably no more than 15-20% of the Vintage community thought Gifts should be restricted. That would mirror the poll I took in 2003 regarding Academy Rector. In the fall of 2003, exactly 20% of the community thought Rector should be restricted (33 out of 165 votes). The push to restrict Rector was stronger than the move to push Gifts now, and that failed with good reason. Even those who called for its restriction have admitted that the timing was bad – you punched the deck when it was already on its knees. And others who once thought it should be restricted no longer thought as much given the changing metagame.
There are a few other reasons that this may have been a bad move. First of all, with Gush unrestricted, Gifts becomes a much smaller metagame player. Second, I’m not at all sure that Gifts could compete with the Flash decks. Third, the restriction of Gifts, now that Control Slaver is pretty much absent entirely, means that Mana Drains are essentially gone from the Vintage upper tier for the first time ever. That is not a good thing, in my view. Mana Drains are an important allure for the format. If it was restricted to ‘shake things up’ – things didn’t need to be shaken, they were already in tremendous flux.
But the most important reasons to be worried is that this is a radical departure from previous DCI restrictions and unrestrictions. The most recent batch of unrestrictions are extremely odd. They unrestricted dangerous cards instead of safe ones. Why is Grim Monolith restricted still when cards like Cabal Ritual and Dark Ritual are not? Why is Gush unrestricted when Fact or Fiction is not? In terms of “safe” unrestrictions, Gush isn’t even close. You could have probably unrestricted 10 other cards before Gush. (see my last article on other cards that could be unrestricted safely:
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/13755.html). For instance, Dream Halls is an awful card that is much less dangerous than either Doomsday or Mind Twist. Dream Halls could never dominate Vintage or even significantly shape the metagame. Doomsday had more potential for dominance than Dream Halls ever will. We have combo decks like Worldgorger Dragon and Grim Long that are lightyears superior to any Dream Halls deck could dream to be.
The Vintage community has always had reason to trust the DCI because they have been cautious and careful. I disagreed but respected the decision to restrict Trinisphere because it truly did distort the format. But restricting Gifts makes very little sense. Not only was there no real evidence for it, but the timing was extremely bizarre. Ultimately, it will end up being irrelevant because of Gifts waning position in the metagame, but the precedent it sets is disturbing. The Vintage format works best when the DCI works cautiously and carefully. I’m very glad they unrestricted Voltaic Key and Black Vise, two cards I’ve been saying for some time should be unrestricted, but I’m troubled that they made such a radical move with Gifts. Also, while I applaud the unrestriction of Mind Twist, it was also far from the safer moves that could be made. Vintage has thrived in the last 6 years because the DCI has been so careful with restrictions and unrestrictions. The restriction of Gifts is inconsistent with the previous 11 restrictions. Making restrictions solely on the ground of comparisons to other cards on the restricted list based on analogical reasoning is not a good reason for restriction, especially when the card that is the basis of comparison is probably not worthy of its place on that list if you were going to unrestrict Gush. The DCI can at least make the unrestriction of Gush somewhat more believable if they unrestrict Fact as well. Unrestricted Fact would also give Mana Drain decks (hopefully) a home in Vintage again. I would have preferred to see Gush and Fact stay on the restricted list, but if they are going to remove Gush, then I hope they do the right thing and remove Fact as well.
Now that I’ve reviewed all of the restrictions in the modern Vintage era, the greatest irony of all is that the one card that was restricted not based upon the theoretical speculation and musing of the DCI or the vocal tenacity of vintage pundits or vintage regulars, but because it actually dominated the oldest and grandest magical format is now unrestricted. Since I’ve already called into question the wisdom of the Gifts restriction, I won’t senselessly batter the logic of the DCI any further. Since the deed is done, I only hope for the best.
Let me say at the outset that I am very pleased with the unrestriction of Voltaic Key and Black Vise. Both cards have been on the restricted list for a very long time. I am also ultimately happy, but wary, of the unrestriction of Mind Twist. In an article I wrote earlier this year, I called for its unrestriction. However, I would have liked to see safer cards removed first. It’s not that I think Mind Twist will be problematic or even see play, but the card is random and is a greater risk than other junk that is still stuck on the restricted list, primarily because of its ability to swing games based on luck alone.
Here’s why I’m concerned: The DCI restricted Gifts 1) without metagame evidence to support it (warping or dominance), 2) without doing it preemptively like they did with Desire/Chrome Mox/Imperial Seal based on principle alone, 3) without any complaints that it was unfun or non-interactive – there was no Trinsiphere effect at work. 4) they let it exist past the point that most observers thought that it would be restricted (December), and finally 5) they did it at a time when the metagame was in the midst of extreme change.
The last two are really the most concerning. I don’t have a problem with restrictions for cards that dominant or warp the metagame, or for cards like Mind’s Desire and Imperial Seal, or even in cases like Trinisphere – where it turns lots of players off the format due to unfunness). My problem is that this restriction was very poorly timed, and thus once again creates the impression that the DCI is not ontop of the Vintage format. If they were going to restrict it, they should have done it some time ago. Moreover, they should have realized that the extreme changes to the format were going to radically shake things up. While I think the restriction of Gifts makes very little sense generally, it makes even less sense when you realize that the format is going to be 80% different after: 1) Future Sight, 2) Flash errata, and 3) the unrestriction of Gush.
The DCI is like a central bank. DCI policy has to be trustworthy, consistent, and most importantly of all, predictable. If the DCI’s decisions really don’t surprise anyone, then the DCI is doing its job. The restriction of Lion’s Eye Diamond, Gush, and Fact or Fiction, when done, really didn’t surprise anyone who paid attention to the format. Moreover, although the timing was a little strange, the restriction of Trinisphere really wasn’t that surprising. Almost all of the previous restrictions were predicted.
This restriction, while hoped for in some quarters, was a very big shock to most of the Vintage community. Gifts wasn’t really a problem, and while some people thought it might be restricted, they passed up the opportunity at every juncture in which it was thought most likely. If the DCI wants to restrict cards in Vintage more aggressively, they should monitor their timing more carefully. The timing on this was just awful. The metagame was in a state of tremendous disarray when this decision was made.
The Vintage format needs predictability even more than other formats. For instance, take Bazaar of Baghdad. Bazaar sells for anywhere from $130 to $225. The Vintage Ichorid deck is based on abusing Bazaar. Moreover, Bazaar is used in lots of decks from Dragon to Stax. In addition, the Ichorid deck, from a certain perspective, is highly non-interactive and wins by turn 2.5 through almost all disruption except specialized cards like Yixlid Jailer and Leyline of the Void. Nonetheless, while the deck is objectively impressive, it will never win a major Vintage event and can never be tier 1. This is for the simple reason that it will never be able to dodge all hate in a top 8 structure. Something will shut it out. Moreover, it isn’t even a turn one kill deck like Trinisphere. Nonetheless, lots of players are beginning to complain about it. We hear rumblings already.
Based upon the criteria for restriction from the last 12 restrictions, you can make a somewhat plausible argument for restriction. It is metagame warping in that almost all decks have to pack hate for it. It also is non-interactive, although it doesn’t win on turn one. I think its fun and awesome to have a sweet Aggro deck in the format, but others don’t like it. It can never be metagame dominant, but it is objectively silly. From that, Bazaar could be restricted. I don’t think it should be, but with the restriction of Gifts, it seems more likely that Bazaar will get the axe, even though I would strongly urge the DCI not to do so, or choose Serum Powder in lieu of Bazaar. Nonetheless, the problem with the restriction of Gifts is that we just can’t trust the DCI to make the right call. I may have to sell my Bazaars because how can I be sure that the DCI won’t make my cards worthless if they don’t do most of their restrictions based on actual tournament data?
Moreover, there have been no major Vintage tournaments (100 players or more) since the one Waterbury in January. The DCI doesn’t seem to care that much about actual tournament results, which is truly unfortunate.
While I want the DCI to do the right thing and continue to unrestrict cards, if the price we pay is more restrictions, that’s a price we can’t afford. The DCI needs to stop messing with stuff. Vintage is so much better when they let it alone because people can never agree on anything.
I want you to look at this chart:
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/5980.htmlI left out this critical part of the narrative in my review of the unrestrictions, but it is high time I added it. I’ve hinted at some of it already – but over the last 6 years, there have been many, many calls for restrictions that the DCI has seriously entertained.
In Randy’s article, he talked about how they discussed the restriction of Cunning Wish, Chalice of the Void, and other cards like that. Consider that there have been concerted efforts to restrict:
Illusionary Mask
Mishra’s Workshop
Spoils of the Vault
Intuition
Cunning Wish
Thirst for Knowledge
Back to Basics
Chalice of the Void
Goblin Welder
Academy Rector
Crucible of Worlds
Grim Tutor
Bazaar of Baghdad
And that’s the short list.
At one time or another, lots of those cards could have been restricted.
In fact, I’ve seen calls for all of those cards by lots of players at one time or another. In one of Oscar Tan’s article, Aaron Forsythe writes him asking if they should restrict Back to Basics.
I’m serious.
It was an honest question.
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/5196.html He wrote that lots of people were complaining about it.
Darren Di Battista was foremost among them:
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/3413.htmlIllusionary Mask was utterly broken for half a year in Vintage, and Mishra’s Workshop has been broken as well. By any sane measure based on analogical reasoning and objective strength, Mishra’s Workshop is stronger than a good deal of the mana accelerants on the restricted list. Grim Monolith is a joke while Dark Ritual and Mishra’s Workshop are legal. And yet both Dark Ritual and Mishra’s Workshop doesn’t appear to be headed for the restricted list despite many, many historical calls and complains to nuke them at one time or another.
Why did the DCI stay its hand when faced with these complaints?
They used their better judgment.
When the DCI makes a restriction, it’s almost as likely to be wrong as it is to be right. Any given restriction is going to make some number of people happy, because some proportion of the Vintage player base is always calling for various restrictions. Yet, in close calls when the DCI has stayed its hand, it has always been the right move.
I’m 100% convinced that the DCI should have stayed its hand with Gifts. It could have stayed its hand with Trinisphere, and I’m sure we’d be fine right now. Seriously: Ichorid decks couldn't care less about Trinisphere and would be mauling Stax right now. Control Slaver would be doing fine, and Dark Ritual decks would be doing just as well as they did when Trinisphere was around – very well, because they have Rebuild. I still think the restriction of Trinisphere was the right move, but only because of how badly Trinisphere warped the format. The same is not true of Gifts.
While it may seem like I’m unhappy with general DCI policy, things could be a lot worse. They could have listened to even a fraction of the players who complained in the past about Academy Rector, Chalice of the Void, or Illusionary Mask, and we’d be worse off for it today.
The truth is that I’m very happy with the last 2 and half years of policy. Going two years without restricting anything in Vintage is a good thing. That’s because the Vintage metagame is vibrant and can handle most changes. Most things that any appreciable number of Vintage players think deserve restriction actually turn out to be just fine in the long run, after a period of adjustment.
My only frustration is that Gifts didn’t deserve restriction. Trinisphere and the Portal cards should still be the last cards restricted in this format.
The point I’m making is that the DCI needs to essentially not listen to players’ complaints unless there is solid metagame evidence to support it or you have a card in the vein of Mind’s Desire.
As I said, while I want the DCI to do the right thing by unrestricting more cards, we just can’t trust them to get the timing right or to not pull the trigger while they are figuring out what to unrestrict. It’s too tempting for them to want to restrict something.
The call to restrict Grim Tutor 6 months ago was very, very fierce. And now I’m sure the call to restrict Bazaar will be similarly fierce.
Yet, it’s no different from the 2002 calls to restrict Illusionary Mask and Back to Basics, and the 2003 calls to restrict Academy Rector and Bazaar, the 2004 calls to restrict Cruicible of Worlds, Spoils of the Vauld, Intution and Mishra’s Workshop, and the 2005 calls to restrict Dark Ritual and Mishra’s Workshop again. Too many Vintage players lack that historical perspective to see the clear parallels.
And yet, the DCI wisely ignored 99% of those calls as they should have. If this had been 1998 where there was no real Vintage metagame, I imagine that a number of those cards probably would have seen restriction. But it would have been the wrong decision. The problem is that no single person, no Randy Buehler, not Aaron Forsythe, not Pat Chapin, not me – no one, is really going to be 100% right. The DCI is not infallible. Things seem to be going best when the DCI tries not to interfere. Since the restriction of Gush, only 8 cards have been restricted, and 4 of them pre-emptively. Only 4 cards have been restricted that actually noodled around in the metagame: Lion’s Eye Diamond, Burning Wish, Trinisphere, and now Gifts Ungiven.
What’s next? Flash? Bazaar? Grim Tutor? Merchant Scroll? Who knows? The DCI 8 ball could land anywhere. I hope the DCI learns its lesson and stops meddling in a format that does just fine without its interference.
Stephen Menendian
