With Tezzeret dominating, what would it be safe to unrestrict?

[Tha Gunslinga]

So, there's a lot of stuff on the current B/R list that could come off as long as it didn't fit straight into Tezzeret, like Gifts and Fact or Fiction.  Here's a preliminary list:


    * Crop Rotation
fetching Orchard in Oath isn't overpowered; fetching Strip Mine in Stax isn't that dangerous, and come on, is someone seriously going to rebuild Academy?

    * Enlightened Tutor
Seriously folks?

    * Entomb
Dragon is harmless, and Entomb for Strip Mine is barely a threat.

    * Flash
Not a threat without 4 Merchant Scrolls, 4 BS, 4 Ponder.  Even if it were marginally playable, it would be at most a minor threat to Tez.

    * Grim Monolith
Seriously?

Now, here's the real question.  Would unrestricting Strip Mine hold Tezzeret in check?

[M.Solymossy]

Unrestricting Strip Mine would leave Cruciblex4 the only viable deck. 

[Tha Gunslinga]

We could have a new pillar of the metagame then: Strip Mine.  I mean, seriously, it can fit into more decks than Mana Drain, so it would be good for diversity.  I think Drain stifles the metagame more than unrestricted Strip Mine would.

[wiley]

Ankh of Mishra: The new Null Rod

Sounds like fun doesn't it?

[dicemanx]

I wouldn't mind the unrestriction of Enlightened tutor, Crop Rotation, and Grim Monolith. I'd be on the fence regarding unrestriction of Fact or Fiction or Gifts Ungiven.

I think it's a bad idea to unrestrict Entomb and Flash; we don't need any more very cheap 2 card instawin combos.

What about unrestricting Balance? I think it would create some interesting powerful archetypes.

[nineisnoone]

Ankh of Mishra: The new Null Rod

Sounds like fun doesn't it?

Or at least Pithing Needle.  Beats Time Vault and Strip Mine!

I think tutoring for Strip Mine is overrated.  It's not like we don't already have 4x Grim Tutor, 1x Imperial Seal, 1x Vampiric Tutor, 1x Demonic Tutor, 1x Crop Rotation, 4x Slyvan Scrying, 4x Wastelands, and 4x Stifle.

Honestly, if someone really thought that it was good idea, it would see play.  I think the aversion has less to do with people thinking it would be a great deck to play, but more just they would never in a million years want to play against it, not even necessarily lose against.  It wouldn't even matter if the deck otherwise sucks, it will feel like the most broken thing imaginable to them anyways.

[Devils Advocate]

     Tezzeret is a good deck, it's only dominating b/c of lack of dealing with it properly(not that I would even use the word dominating ). It's not even as dominating as the Flash deck pre-restriction was, where you either played it or needed to dedicate certain parts of your sideboard against it.

-Flash would still be a threat, just a different form of the deck, it would lose speed which wasn't all that it had.
-Unrestricting strip mine is possibly the dumbest idea I've heard a bad idea.

[The Atog Lord]

At least in New England, Tezzeret is not dominating at all. And we love Mana Drain more than anyone else. So, if the deck isn't dominant here, I really wonder whether the deck is so good that we need to alter the B&R list because of it.

[oneofchaos]

I would say we've only had 3 months of tezzeret dominating, it took 2 years to restrict gifts, and a year to rerestrict gush.  Talk to me in june about restrictions.
Unrestrict brainstorm please!

[Purple Hat]

Balance seems like it could be interesting, although I feel like it's unlikely we'll find a better use for that than stax.

unrestricting something that's really broken but poses massive logistical problems like mind's desire would be interesting.  UU4 is a somewhat restrictive manacost in an aggressive combo deck.  I'm not saying it wouldn't be overwhelmingly broken because I think it probably would be, but that's the type of thing we'd need to try to break out of the mana drains make up 50% of the format problem.

one thing I think we should have learned by now is that restrictions of blue draw engines are a futile gesture.  You restrict engine A and everone switches to engine B.  the only way to have more diversity is to allow more viable options, not less.

Then again regardless of the engine 4 mana "I win" combos that go in any deck seem to be pretty good.

[John Jones]

I would love to see balance get unrestricted. With balance unrestricted I don't even think a deck without FoW or turn one counter would have a chance.

Think about Balance for a second, it is a 2 mana Mindtwist, Wrath of God, and Armageddon all in one card. Lol. GGsir.

Also, I believe that Vault-key combo is dominating not tezz. Tezz would not be played without the combo. Also, some of the lists for the tezz decks have cut Tezz

[zeus-online]

I doubt tezzeret is strong enough to deserve restrictions...Atleast i don't feel it's good enough for that. But one thing is for sure, restricting anything from the deck would likely not do much...It's highlander with 4 Thirst, 4 Drain and 4 FoW...Looks like keeper to be honest

And unrestricting something to keep something else in check seems rather illogical, but i still think that keeping the list as short as possible is preferable in my opinion so unrestricting grim monolith because it sucks and burning wish because it's just not good enough to be on the list would be the first two things to do.

The problem with unrestricting stuff is that you risk creating something worse...like unrestricting balance and then getting crushed by it afterwards...or unrestricting necropotence just to see it dominate.

Another problem is that most people who are not satisfied with the current metagame want to see blue on the chopping block...and most restricted cards comes from previous dominating blue decks.

The only card i can think of that might help non-blue decks and i think is reasonable safe to unrestrict is trinisphere....But that card is horribly swingy and very powerfull. (And yes it's way worse then sphere/thorn for anyone who wasn't around the first time or have forgotten)

Getting rid of tez.dec would require getting rid of time vault which is already restricted.

/Zeus

Edit: Oh yeah, and for all those who want this deck gone, ask yourself...what does this deck do that previous blue decks couldn't? It's draw-engine isn't better, it's disruption is about the same...The goldfish rate isn't really that much better the hulk smash, control slaver, painter, oath, gifts or any other drain deck you may think of. And yes i've played most of those decks a reasonable amount of time.

[Bongo]

Tezzeret is not the problem. VaultKey is not the problem. The huge presence of Mana Drain is the problem. Even Anti-Tezzeret decks like Painter use Drain.
While players might shift from Draw Engine A to Draw Engine B, there is no Mana Drain B.
The card is played in over 50% of the Top 8 decks, and according to deckcheck.net, is the second most played non-land card behind Force of Will. The numbers speak a crystal-clear language.

That aside, I think the following cards are candidates for unrestriction:

- Burning Wish
- Channel
- Crop Rotation
- Enlightened Tutor
- Grim Monolith
- Regrowth

Interestingly, all those cards are non-blue and non-black.

Burning Wish I'm not sure about, but is it really broken without LED? If BWish turns out not to be broken, it could be a fine addition to Slaver or similar decks, allowing for a toolbox sideboard. In Legacy, Burning Wish and LED are playable as 4ofs, yet combo is not a problem in that format. Again, I could be wrong here, but at least it's worth thinking about.

Channel would be immediately used in Belcher, but it doesn't remedy any of the fundamental weaknesses of the deck. GG is also hard to get without Manamorphose, and it doesn't really combo with Empty the Warrens, leaving only Belcher. There might be a new combo deck with Lich's Mirror, but it's got the same weaknesses as Belcher and is highly disruptable, since Lich or Channel alone are not useful. I also doubt that Banefire + Channel is a viable strategy in modern Vintage, especially with Misdirection around. Getting GG in Storm is also quite hard and probably not worth the trouble and manabase instability it brings. I feel this is pretty safe to unrestrict.

Crop Rotation would probably more a role-player than a central piece. It would help Stax and something like Turboland. There are three drawbacks that hold this card in check - getting it countered is a 2 for 1, it's green, and graveyard hate takes out it's most abusable targets. Not to mention the splash damage from Moon effects and the need for Crucible/Loam to be any good.

Enlightened Tutor seems a little dangerous, it can fetch out the most powerful cards in Vintage after all. However, it's card disadvantage (especially if the tutor target gets countered) and it's in the worst colour in Magic. Maybe would make something like WhiteStax playable and be a nice addition to Parfait, but I can't see ETutor being broken in a Storm deck. Topdeck tutors have been seeing less and less play for a good reason. Personal Tutor doesn't get played at all, and Imperial Seal (which has can search more than ETutor and is in the right colors) is only marginally played. At least Mystical and Vampiric are the only ones played frequently (although I've seen a lot of players boarding them out against control).

Grim Monolith is a card I can't understand. This is worse than Cabal Ritual, which at least gives coloured mana and is good with Threshold. I wouldn't even play this in Belcher. I think it's absurd that chaff like this is restricted, while a game-breaker like Mana Drain is unrestricted.

Regrowth is also legal as a 4of in Legacy, and hasn't see much play there. Granted, the existence of Ancestral changes this, but that's still a combo with a 1of that is susceptible to graveyard hate and counters. IntuitionAK with Regrowth seems decent, but nothing I would call broken, as it has the same problems as with Ancestral. Like most engines, it's also really slow without Mana Drain. Would probably see uses in various decks, but I see it more as a role-player, similar to Reconstruction or Argivian Find in other decks right now.


That would only leave Balance and Wheel of Fortune as the only non-blue, non-black cards on the Restricted list. Balance I feel would make White Stax instantly a contender and obsolete any creature-based strategy, so I'm a bit cautious there. Wheel of Fortune could also be easily abused in a Storm shell, so I think it's better for those two to stay on the list.

With the possible exeption of Burning Wish, none of these unrestrictions would shake up the meta. There would be some changes, but nothing earth-shattering like the last restriction wave. If you want a real change, there is no way around restricting Mana Drain.

[zeus-online]

- Burning Wish
- Channel
- Crop Rotation
- Enlightened Tutor
- Grim Monolith
- Regrowth

- Burning Wish
It's crap, at best used in control...fine with me.

- Channel
GG is not hard to come by...lotus, petal, 4 ESG, 4 Manamorphose...that's rather easier and we're talking turn1. I just don't think 19 mana for GG will ever be remotely reasonable.

- Crop Rotation
Might be very good, might be unplayable. Not really sure, as a 1-of some stax decks have used it.

- Enlightened Tutor
Fetches Time vault, key, necropotence and lotus..that's about it, i think it's safe.

- Grim Monolith
Is worse then alot of the unrestricted accelerants.

- Regrowth
Not really sure just how bad regrowth.dec would be..it does have alot of strong interactions in a format where filling your yard up is this easy, and the cards that can be regrowth'ed are pretty busted.

And now to the final problem: Burning wish, regrowth and potentially E. tutor could easily end up in a blue deck, i'm not sure how this would adress the issue that some people have with tezzeret?

/Zeus

[nataz]

oh man, crop rotation, such a cool idea. Think about it, most blue decks are going to hate the loss of a land + a card to pay rotation, not to mention that they would have to run green. Most of the Blue based decks seems to be either combo/control (painter and vault), or pure control (remora), and which one of them wants to run a tropical (or gasp, a forest), out there to fetch a strip mine?

Storm would prob run it to fetch academy, mana ichorid I suppose could run it to fetch bazaar, but both of those seem like reasonable problems.

Tempo decks would be the real winners. Decks that expend resources to mini-lock the board. Stax, fish-esq, whatever. I mean, what exactly is out there running strip mine anyways?

[Akuma]

How about we go back to the pre-June 20th B/R list (add Merchant Scroll, remove Gifts Ungiven, Fact or Fiction, Grim Monolith, Enlightened Tutor and Crap Rotation) and go from there...

[nineisnoone]

Tezzeret is not the problem. VaultKey is not the problem. The huge presence of Mana Drain is the problem. Even Anti-Tezzeret decks like Painter use Drain.
While players might shift from Draw Engine A to Draw Engine B, there is no Mana Drain B.
The card is played in over 50% of the Top 8 decks, and according to deckcheck.net, is the second most played non-land card behind Force of Will. The numbers speak a crystal-clear language.

If it's the second most played card behind Force of Will, why don't we discuss restricting Force of Will?  

If the numbers are truly speaking, and we are truly listening to the numbers, then Force of Will (not Mana Drain) is the obvious card to cut.  But in reality, we are putting words in the numbers mouth.  We all have a sense that "something is wrong," but we can't put our finger on it.  So we attribute symptoms with causes.  

I'm not advocating restricting Force of Will here, but we've let it run around as the #1 cards for years and never seriously considered restricting it.  So claiming that Drain should be restricted purely on the point of it's commonality to me sounds silly.  I mean, so what?  Most decks don't vary that much.  You'll likely see SoLoMox, Demonic, Vamp, Mystic, Merchant, Brainstorm, 4x FoW, Yawgwill in most decks too.  That's 17 cards already.  What difference does it make if there are 4 more added to that list?  We might not like it, but fundamentally there is no substantive problem with it.  

The huge presence of Mana Drain is the problem.

I just wanted to point this out specifically.  Realistically, I don't think people lost against a Drain deck think that it was Mana Drain that did them in.  But we might look at the field and think there are a lot of Drain decks, but it something we only see in the abstract.  In game, I've never felt that way against Drain.  In any match-up, I don't think I've ever felt it as being as specifically determinative as much as something like Brainstorm or (in decks that used it well) Ponder was.  

[Tha Gunslinga]

If you're looking to beat Mana Drain, wouldn't Strip Mine be a solid call?

[nineisnoone]

If you're looking to beat Mana Drain, wouldn't Strip Mine be a solid call?

If you unrestrict Strip Mine, the question is how do you beat 4x Strip Mine.

[Tha Gunslinga]

Well, right now the question is how to beat 4 Mana Drains, and no one seems to be able to do that.  At least Strip Mine you can Pith.

[LordHomerCat]

FYI, the overall presence of Mana Drain is not off the charts or anything.  It is usually around the highest percentage of any field, but that's because there's so much other stuff people play (Oath, shops, Dredge, Fish of all kinds, etc).  It's rare that outside of NE you see 50% of the field running drains.  Just wanted to point out a small error people seemed to be making.

[hitman]

The Gunslinga - I disagree with the unspoken insinuation of your thread title.  Your title seems to indicate that you think Tezzeret decks are overly powerful and something needs to be done about them, that "something" being unrestriction(s).  I don't have a problem with reasonable unrestrictions but I don't agree with your apparent conclusion that Tezzeret decks are overly powerful and something needs to be done to remedy that problem.  I think the problem that needs to be addressed is the inconsistency among other decks due to the restriction of Brainstorm.

I want to preface this post by saying that I sold my Mana Drains months ago and haven't played a Drain deck in several months.  My opinions are not influenced by any preferences for Mana Drain.

I think the reason Tezzeret decks are as successful as they are is because Brainstorm, a central card to the strategic consistency of many decks like Oath and Slaver, was restricted.  With the restriction of Brainstorm came many strategic inconsistencies.  Tezzeret decks aren't affected to the same degree as Oath or Slaver because it plays Tezzeret, which just tutors up the win condition.  

I don't think Tezzeret decks are overly powerful, just more consistent than other Drain-based strategies.  Because Vintage players have such a propensity for playing Mana Drain decks, we could naturally conclude that many players would play a Mana Drain deck, even after Brainstorm's restriction.  Tezzeret sees so much play because it's currently the most consistent while retaining pre-restriction power levels.  

I'm all for unrestriction but I think this discussion needs direction for unrestriction.  I think unrestricting Strip Mine could exacerbate the inconsistency problem and potentially add new problems yet unforeseen.  

[JACO]

Well, right now the question is how to beat 4 Mana Drains, and no one seems to be able to do that.  At least Strip Mine you can Pith.

That's because they're either lazy, or stupid. Cards like Duress, Xantid Swarm, Goblin Lackey, and even Extirpate all invalidate Mana Drain. It's REALLY not that hard.

That being said, on a slightly unrelated note, I would be all for the unrestriction of these cards:
Flash
Brainstorm
Ponder
Grim Monolith
Enlightened Tutor

And start with with that and see where the metagame takes us. Balance is incredibly broken, and would be really fun to play with more than 1 of.

[Tha Gunslinga]

It is usually around the highest percentage of any field

And generally 50-75% of top 8s.  Drain has almost constantly been THE dominant pillar in Vintage for the last what, 5 years?

[Nehptis]

I don't have any solutions to tame this Drain meta.  Maybe unrestrictions are the answer.  But, I do know from playing in the last Blue Bell that it feels like we are in the middle of a Drain vs. Fish meta game.

Drain is a problem.  But, I think the errata of Time Vault is not helping.  Time Vault simply was not designed with our modern meta game in mind (duh!).  Yes, the interaction with Twiddle was planned and understood.  But, I find it hard to believe that taking infinite turns was part of the Vault equation.  Maybe the creation of another Pillar like Strip Mine.dec is the answer.

[nataz]

well, ben is right except for the Gush/flash era.

[sWoRdFiSh`]

I think the problem that needs to be addressed is the inconsistency among other decks due to the restriction of Brainstorm.

QFT.
For someone who's been playing/testing against Tezzeret.dec on a regular basis and still losing horribly to it in a major tournament, I think the people who still underestimate its consistency and brute force are greatly underexposed to its monstrosity.
It's ability to run a third, even a fourth, color to shove up potentially weak matches especially for games 2 and 3 ain't helping the format either.
But then again as everybody has mentioned, it's been out for only a few months, probably the meta is still adjusting, probably people are still looking for tech, so IMHO restrictions/unrestrictions for the sole sake of nerfing the deck is too hasty at this point (see Ichorid).

That aside, of the mentioned cards in this thread, I think it would be most interesting to see Balance go unrestricted.
Balance willl push mono-W or Wx stax-like archetypes to some level of consistency and thus, competency. (and heck, 4 Balance.dec is fun!)

Enlightened Tutor would be very dangerous to unrestrict, especially in this era of TimeVault + Key.
Crop Rotation, although I would love to see it become a 4-of, cards like Bazaar, Shop, Strip/Waste, Academy and what-not will continue to make this no more than a dream.
Burning Wish is a potential monster, I'm not sure how safe it is to let the monster loose.
Ditto with Flash. It'll be less consistent with BS, Ponder and Scroll restricted, but the huge potential of warping the format will always be there.

Strip Mine, I would have to disagree.
It's as close as it can get to giving Workshop back its Trinispheres, really.
4 StripMine.dec will pose a threat to control.deck, sure.
The problem is, combined with Workshop, it can now take down any.deck. (maybe even aggro)
Bold words, I know, but I'm more afraid of the meta that 4-Strip Mine will give way to.

Grim Monolith should've been unrestricted with Key a long time ago.

[Almighty]

Threads like these make me appreciate the great job the DCI does for keeping Vintage as a format healthy. Virtually every suggestion in here boggles my mind.

It seems that when making these suggestions, people apply these new cards to decks that are being played RIGHT NOW, as opposed to the decks that will surface and serve as a reminder as to why these cards are restricted in the first place.

[neotrophy]

Crop Rotation, probably not.  While, yes, there are other cards that let you seek out land, there are none that let you do it for 1 mana and put it directly into play.  That costs at least 3 times as much.  I don't think that the biggest problems are the restricted lands, but the powerful, unrestricted ones. 5x Academy and Strip Mine are probably able to be coped with if the deck that plays them must be able to produce on turn one to find them, but 8x Workshop or Bazaar will almost certainly lead to bigger problems than Mana Drain has ever caused.

Before the Time Vault un-errata, I would have agreed with the unrestriction of Enlightened Tutor immediately and wholeheartedly.  Now, I'm not so sure.  It might be okay, but I don't think that it opens up anything interesting enough that it's worth the risk.

Entomb is definitely a possibility, in my mind.  The combos that it enables are really not that bad, and still require a few cards to support them.

Flash - Go for it.  Without 4x Merchant Scroll, Flash would not be in any danger of dominance.

Grim Monolith - I don't think I've heard a single thing said against this idea.  I see no reason to be a lone voice of dissent.  Give us our 4 monoliths already! (it's not like anyone's going to play them).

Edit, Strip Mine - No.  No No.  No No No.  I've played in 4 strip mine environments, they aren't fun.  Much worse the Trinisphere ever was.  And this was before Crucible of Worlds was printed.  7 Sphere, 4 - 9 strip (with unrestricted Crop Rotation), snore.  The DCI knows that people like to play spells, you're setting up an environment where only player gets that "privilege".

Now to some other suggested cards from this thread...

Balance is just stupidly powerful.  It is the single most powerful 2 CMC card in the game.  I have little doubt that unrestricted Balance would be format warping in the extreme, and would eliminate pretty much every good feature of the current metagame.  No.

Unrestricting Burning Wish makes as much sense as unrestricting Demonic Tutor.  The reason that it was restricted in the first place was that it was essentially a tutor for Yawgmoth's Will in long.dec, and it would be again.  It's a far better card than Merchant Scroll, and I don't think that too many people are saying that shouldn't have been restricted.

The change in the consistency of decks since the restriction of Brainstorm is definitely something interesting.  I think it's directly responsible for the death of a true control archetype (Tez is a combo deck in disguise, IMHO) and for the rise of both aggro and fish, which play multiple, redundant cards with similar effects.  It surprises me a little that shop decks haven't really made a major showing, as they traditionally haven't run Brainstorm, but I think that's mostly due to other metagame factors, and the current upheaval in the archetype caused by the advent of blue artifacts.  While I think that I prefer the Vintage of consistent decks built around Brainstorm, I think the DCI likes randomness.  I don't think we're going to see Brainstorm come off, as much as it saddens me.

Unrestricting Channel is just a silly idea.  I have little idea what it is, but I have no doubt at all that there is a deck on a par with pre-restriction Long or Flash that can be built around an unrestricted Channel.

Regrowth is definitely quite undercosted for its effect, and I would be inclined to leave it where it is.  It's definitely a card that could be looked at if you were looking for a radical solution to the Mana Drain problem, though.  Regrowth's ability could be just what the doctor ordered, if you get another turn after your opponent's mana boost.  I think it would probably be really bad idea to unrestrict Entomb and Regrowth at the same time.


Since it's yet another "unrestrict these cards" thread, I'm going to go through again with cards that I haven't mentioned yet that I think should be unrestricted.

Fact or Fiction - With the restriction of Brainstorm, I think this could become the cornerstone of a consistent control deck.  At , it's not cheap, but eminently castable.  It's a fair and good card, skill intensive, particular interactive and fun.

Frantic Search - I'm not sure on this one, but the requirement and need for 3 total mana seems to make this significantly worse than the unrestricted Bazaar of Baghdad for the best modern deck to abuse that card, and it's probably not better than Bazaar for Dragon either.

Gush - This is the very card that forced Drain out of the metagame last time.  Without Merchant Scroll in, and possibly with the addition of Fact or Fiction to the format, I do not think that it would be a dominant engine, but probably still a viable one.  If you really want to reduce the prevalence of Mana Drain, I still firmly believe that this is the very first place to look.

Library of Alexandria - While I'm talking about unrestricting draw engines, let's talk about the oldest of the lot.  Vintage Magic has really moved on since Library was really an issue.  The play or draw rule makes a first turn Library far worse than it was in the past; the advent of cheap, good discard such as , and speedup of the game make the seven card condition much harder to fulfil.  It costs a land drop, produces colourless and would not be a problem card if unrestricted, but damn it would be cool.

Imperial Seal - Soooo Sloooow, unless you build around it, which you can't really do while it's restricted.  This is by far my least firm conviction of anything that I've said in this post, but I believe that Imperial Seal would be safe to unrestrict.  I doubt that many, if any decks would play 4, and those that did would be quite limited by being forced to be able to either draw the card, or pass the turn and hope that they don't lose or have to shuffle their deck in the meantime, and to cope with the card disadvantage.  TPS springs to mind, but I doubt it would be able to find room for an Imperial Seal beyond the second, and I don't think that second Seal would push it beyond the pale.
Edit - I went away and thought about this some more for a few minutes, and I think it's probably a silly idea.  Imperial Seal is probably about on a par with Brainstorm, and I think that should probably stay restricted, and if I get my wish, and Ponder is unrestricted, unrestricted Seal becomes far too dangerous.

Ponder - was, I believe restricted as a knee jerk reaction.  Brainstorm, it really, seriously isn't.  Ponder would go a long way to restoring the consistency of Vintage, without enabling the blue mage to play entirely during their opponent's turn until it's time to tighten the noose.  Please give us some compensation for our lost love.

[Rock Lee]

Tanglewire, Duress, Chalice of the Void, and newcomer Tarmogoyf are the best foils to Mana Drain constructed decks and are fairly well known. Efficiency beats Drain, which tries to use tempo gain to compensate for inefficient or over-costed cards.

In New England, where Drains are Bread & Butter, these four cards often make showings in Top8s. But don't listen to me, the results speak for themselves over and over, every deck in the Top 8 of ELD's 21's Mox Tournament ran either 4x Mana Drain or 4x of at least one of the cards I listed.