[Free Article] So Many Insane Plays -- Exploring Possible Unrestrictions

[FlyFlySideOfFry]

That said, Bert's idea of unrestricting cards that are good in control mirrors (library of alexandria) still strikes me as a safer and smarter way to stop the drain dominance.  The other option is to unrestrict ponder to give a small boost to combo.  As the dci said when they restricted it, its sorcery speed naturally makes it help combo more than control.

I agree with most of what wiley said up until this point. Anyone trying to run Fish against 4xBalance either has a lot of balls or no brains. On another note, I don't see why unrestricting Library would help stop Drains. Library is horrible in every matchup except very slow games (control mirrors). I highly doubt a 4xLibrary deck would come out and start changing the format considering it would likely lose to everything but Drains. I mean so what a deck comes out that if paired with 10xControl Mirrors it can win a tournament? What exactly does that accomplish? Maybe it'll take up SB slots and it will be a metagame call but I highly doubt anything will change drastically. The danger with unrestricting Library is that once (if ever) the format slows down to the point where it is viable as a playset it will likely be way too powerful and demand restriction. Basically what I'm saying is that it won't do anything to solve our problem, but it will be a ticking time bomb.

Balance: everybody dies.  Same cost as Pyroclasm.  The loss of land/cards in hand is probably negligible.

Since when was card advantage and mana development negligible?  In Vintage, the *exact* opposite is more frequently the truth.  The board is negligible but hand and mana are vitally important. 

A pure Balance deck will nuke the hand/lands against decks that don't care about the board and nuke the board against decks that care about it. I mean 4xMox Diamond and 4xChrome Mox are legal how hard is it really to get a turn 1 Balance for your opponent's whole everything possibly backed by Spheres (which become retardedly stupid when your opponent has no resources I might add) while holding on to a draw spell or win condition as your last card? Not to mention late game as has been stated many times it becomes a WoG (possibly backed by a few sinkholes/mind twists) against creature decks. I would rather see Trinisphere legal as a playset before Balance since at least you can tune your deck to deal with Trinisphere with a ton of basic lands unlike Balance which just has no out besides drawing the best possible cards ASAP.

[Smmenen]

Did you see the Balance decks I came up with?  Trinisphere is much worse.  No comparison.   

[Necrologia]

On another note, I don't see why unrestricting Library would help stop Drains. Library is horrible in every matchup except very slow games (control mirrors). I highly doubt a 4xLibrary deck would come out and start changing the format considering it would likely lose to everything but Drains. I mean so what a deck comes out that if paired with 10xControl Mirrors it can win a tournament? What exactly does that accomplish? Maybe it'll take up SB slots and it will be a metagame call but I highly doubt anything will change drastically. The danger with unrestricting Library is that once (if ever) the format slows down to the point where it is viable as a playset it will likely be way too powerful and demand restriction. Basically what I'm saying is that it won't do anything to solve our problem, but it will be a ticking time bomb.

Unrestricting Library hurts Drain because it gives the deck something else it has to deal with. It's not supposed to create a new meta deck, it's supposed to force current drain decks to start running Libraries. If two drain decks are playing, the one with more Libraries has a huge advantage. However, that same deck has a huge disadvantage in virtually every other matchup. The number of non-drain decks that will let a player sit on Library for several turns without having to Force something/otherwise drop below 7 cards is few to none. In other words, since the meta is currently flooded with Drains, playing Libraries is the correct meta call for a Drain deck. Forcing them to play Libraries will give other decks a chance by either keeping them off UU longer, reducing the number of basics they play, or by simply causing the drain player to sit there doing nothing for 3 turns rather than opening with a Vamp for Time Vault, GG turn 2.
 
The problem with Vintage has always been a trend towards being too fast. Ichorid, Flash, and Gifts have all had people ask if we've reached a point of no return. Frankly, if we ever get to the point where the format feels too slow ever again I'll eat my hat. It's not like it'd be hard to fix anyway. Virtually any card on the B&R list could come off to speed the format up.

[Purple Hat]

seriously....you don't play 4x library in a deck with 4x mana drain.  More than 1 or 2 and you have to use a different counter.  Otherwise you're gonna be clogging your hand with libraries you can't drop far too often or losing counterwars inspite of library because you don't have UU up.  If you are using drain as a mana accelerant like gifts decks did it's even more important to get it up early in order to drain into your bombs ASAP.  It breaks up drain dominance because you have to use a completely different control shell to support 4x library.

[wiley]

Did you see the Balance decks I came up with?  Trinisphere is much worse.  No comparison.   

I have seen your lists Stephen, and I think your Loam Balance deck is far from a correct build.  I'm fairly confidant that there can be a gw loam balance build that would put up numbers at tournaments often based of of its oops I win balance play.  You don't need chaff like raven's crime and recoup to take advantage of loam and balance.  The numbers are also questionable with 4 loam, 3 bazaars and only 3 wastes.  I also found it odd that you didn't attack opponent's moxen with anything other than grudge, considering that will be were most decks get their chance to recover from a balance.  :EDIT: This sounds harsh considering you even state that it is a rough draft, but Loam Balance is the only other balance deck besides 5c Stax that would put up numbers and I don't think it recieved enough attention when looking at balance for unrestriction.

Using the knight of the reliquary as a huge beater and tutor for strip mine with loam recursion sets up a game that you almost can't lose.  Even if you make your opponent sac down to 1 bob, 2 land and 1 card in hand, if you have a 12/12 knight and recur a strip mine the game is yours 99% of the time.  This wouldn't be a very hard scenerio to set up for a bazaar deck I assure you.

I do agree that trinisphere can never come off the list because it would push (more) people out of the format, but I think the same is true of balance, which can be just as powerful at any turn after turn 1.

Library makes control decks that prey on other control decks.  Since the format has almost always trended towards heavy control decks, including right now, this seems ok to me.  Library would also keep drain decks from homogenizing like gush decks did.  The gush deck that beat other gush decks, Tyrant Oath, had a good match up vs creature decks thanks to oath.  I would be astounded to see a deck that uses more than 2 libraries that is actually good against creature decks, which leads to a more diverse meta instead of choking to a warped, M C Escher picture of the current format.

[Shock Wave]

Did you see the Balance decks I came up with?  Trinisphere is much worse.  No comparison.   

Steve, while I appreciate your experience with this format, I do not think a deck that you came up with over the weekend and is largely untested is a basis for determining the potential impact of having Balance unrestricted.

I implore people to be cautious with Balance. No, it is not as tragic as Trinisphere, but it carries the same "unfun" potential which Vintage does not need to be subjected to. We've played through the Trinisphere and Flash eras and largely agreed that these were not good times for the format. Why we cannot start with lesser changes, as opposed to meddling with a potentially warping format upheaval is beyond me.

[nineisnoone]

Balance: everybody dies.  Same cost as Pyroclasm.  The loss of land/cards in hand is probably negligible.

Since when was card advantage and mana development negligible?  In Vintage, the *exact* opposite is more frequently the truth.  The board is negligible but hand and mana are vitally important. 

A pure Balance deck will nuke the hand/lands against decks that don't care about the board and nuke the board against decks that care about it. I mean 4xMox Diamond and 4xChrome Mox are legal how hard is it really to get a turn 1 Balance for your opponent's whole everything possibly backed by Spheres (which become stupidly stupid when your opponent has no resources I might add) while holding on to a draw spell or win condition as your last card? Not to mention late game as has been stated many times it becomes a WoG (possibly backed by a few sinkholes/mind twists) against creature decks.

No one runs Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond.  

Also this comparison to Wrath of God isn't really important.  You do realize that Wrath of God is in Standard right?  Aggro decks have shown to be capable of being playable with Wrath of God in the format.  Wrath of God typically never causes the deathknell of aggro.  Usually that would be combo decks that cause the deathknell of aggro decks.  And a combo deck will still probably be faster than a good Balance play and win on the spot.

And if in the late game against a creature deck, you have no lands, no cards, and no creatues, then that means you are in a pretty bad situation.  Sure Balance is great then, but I don't see that as an abusable strategy.

I think people just get too caught up in the hype of Balance in a Timmy loves Leviathan kind of way.  It looks broken (and I'm not arguing it wouldn't become one of the best cards in the format), but it's much harder to abuse than you think.  All these Wrath of Everything plays are highly situational, typically require the player to put themselves in a very bad/risky situation, and tend to be closer to parity than breaking an advantage.  

No combo deck will chose to go for a fast Balance when they could just go for a Tendrils of Agony.
Obviously no aggro deck will play it.
No control deck will see a long term strategy of no hands, no lands, no creatures, to make it a viable strategy.  

It'll see strong play in shop lists.  But I don't think it'll break them.  Mainly because there is no end to the number of cards that hose artifacts that it's almost like Ichorid.  If shops ever got really broken, they could be hated out of the format in a flash.  

I would rather see Trinisphere legal as a playset before Balance since at least you can tune your deck to deal with Trinisphere with a ton of basic lands unlike Balance which just has no out besides drawing the best possible cards ASAP.

Trinisphere is way worse than Balance, easily.  I wouldn't mind it's unrestriction (because I like crazy broken Vintage), but if your complaint is that aggro decks can't handle Balance, I'm curious just what you think an aggro deck is going to do against a first turn Trinisphere....

Unrestricting Library hurts Drain because it gives the deck something else it has to deal with. It's not supposed to create a new meta deck, it's supposed to force current drain decks to start running Libraries. If two drain decks are playing, the one with more Libraries has a huge advantage. However, that same deck has a huge disadvantage in virtually every other matchup.

So basically the idea is to unrestrict a powerful card to give to the dominant archetype and assume they will just be poor deck-builders?  Balancing cards to deal with various match-ups is a part of deck building.  What you said is no different than could be said for hundreds of other cards.  Should I run more Crypts to address the Ichorid match-up?  Or splash red for REB against other blue decks?  Library would not be the first card that would make deck-builders have to decide between how to weigh various match-ups.

[Smmenen]

Did you see the Balance decks I came up with?  Trinisphere is much worse.  No comparison.   

Steve, while I appreciate your experience with this format, I do not think a deck that you came up with over the weekend and is largely untested is a basis for determining the potential impact of having Balance unrestricted.

That wasn't my point.  

Someone said this:

I would rather see Trinisphere legal as a playset before Balance since at least you can tune your deck to deal with Trinisphere with a ton of basic lands unlike Balance which just has no out besides drawing the best possible cards ASAP.

My point was that Balance doesn't function like that.   Trinisphere only has two answers to it on turn one: Force or Wasteland.   Balance doesn't knock anyone out immediately.   The reference to my lists was not to show that my lists were optimal or that we could gauge how balance would work with perfect foresight (although Trinisphere was immediately predicted as a 4 of in Stax and the Stax lists using them were built before the Darksteel pre-release), but to show that it's no Trinisphere.  

In any case, I'm fairly confident, given my analysis of the conditions needed for Balance to be good, and in particular the asymmetry condition and the subconditions it entails, that Workshops and 5c Stax will probably be the best home for Balance.    As I said in my article, the only four real acceleration that can satisfy the asymmetry condition are Shop, Rit, C. Mox and Mox D, and I show in the article, and each of those would compete against Drains, which is why I made a list for each.  

The need for massive format change is evident.   Lesser changes would not help revese the Drain dominance of the format.  Balance would not be anymore warping than Mana Drain, and I guarantee that even if Balance were unrestricted, there would still be more Drain decks per top 8 than Balance decks, which just speaks the underlying problem.  

Did you see the Balance decks I came up with?  Trinisphere is much worse.  No comparison.   

I have seen your lists Stephen, and I think your Loam Balance deck is far from a correct build.  I'm fairly confidant that there can be a gw loam balance build that would put up numbers at tournaments often based of of its oops I win balance play. 

And wouldn't that be a good thing?!!! 

I do agree that trinisphere can never come off the list because it would push (more) people out of the format, but I think the same is true of balance, which can be just as powerful at any turn after turn 1.

If Balance is a mid-game card, how is that not fair?   Ichorid and TPS will kill you by then.   Tezzeret can Drain and Force or Duress the Balance by that point. 

The problem with Trinisphere was that you never got to play a spell, since if you followed it with Stax, Wire, Crucible + Waste, or Juggernaut, you were dead.   

[nineisnoone]

Did you see the Balance decks I came up with?  Trinisphere is much worse.  No comparison.

I implore people to be cautious with Balance. No, it is not as tragic as Trinisphere, but it carries the same "unfun" potential which Vintage does not need to be subjected to. We've played through the Trinisphere and Flash eras and largely agreed that these were not good times for the format. Why we cannot start with lesser changes, as opposed to meddling with a potentially warping format upheaval is beyond me.

I think one of the key "fun" elements of the game is seeing momentum sway and shift.  Trinisphere and Flash both deny momentum shifts by stopping the opponent from doing anything or simply winning. 

But Balance is on the complete and opposite side of the equation.  It is a complete and total momentum shift.  You could say that it is unfair, but that can't be the standard because so many cards are unfair.

So I'd have to disagree with the notion that Balance is an unfun card.  If I had no lands and Balance was the only card in my hand going against a Drain player who had a lands and a full hand, then I top decked a Black Lotus and successfully cast it to wipe out his hand and lands.... I would be having fun. 

And more to the point, I think the opposing player would have fun too.  (Once, he got over it).  Because now he has something to worry about.  Now, he has an actual game to play, rather than just going through the motions of "counter, draw, oops I win".  He has to worry about whether or not the opponent is going to top deck that Balance to completely change the game or not.  And to my mind that creates a level of interaction, rather than non-reaction, which makes it different than those two cards.

[Smmenen]

As I said in the article, there is a fundamental difference between Balance and Trinisphere/ Flash.

Flash and Trinisphere both end games on turn one.   Balance does not.   You still get plenty of opportunity to play spells and interact, and Duress, Top, play Moxen, cast spells, draw cards, etc.   

Balance was restricted back in the day because it was so hard to recover from Balance.   That's the same reason Mind Twist was restricted and even banned.    That's not true today. 

[Stormanimagus]

As I said in the article, there is a fundamental difference between Balance and Trinisphere/ Flash.

Flash and Trinisphere both end games on turn one.   Balance does not.   You still get plenty of opportunity to play spells and interact, and Duress, Top, play Moxen, cast spells, draw cards, etc.   

Balance was restricted back in the day because it was so hard to recover from Balance.   That's the same reason Mind Twist was restricted and even banned.    That's not true today. 

Couldn't have said it better myself Steve.

The fundamental difference between Balance and cards like Flash or Trinisphere is that those cards I like "Oops, I win!" and Balance strikes me more like "Oops, we both Mull and start the game over again." The card truly does what it says, and balances the game-state. If one player is way ahead and sitting on it Balance is lurking in the shadows to even things up.

[Shock Wave]

As I said in the article, there is a fundamental difference between Balance and Trinisphere/ Flash.

Flash and Trinisphere both end games on turn one.   Balance does not.   You still get plenty of opportunity to play spells and interact, and Duress, Top, play Moxen, cast spells, draw cards, etc.   

Balance was restricted back in the day because it was so hard to recover from Balance.   That's the same reason Mind Twist was restricted and even banned.    That's not true today. 

I agree with everything you have said above, except I think that we are drawing hasty conclusions about it being easy to recover from a catastrophic Balance.

My point was not that Balance has the same effect or ends the game in a similar fashion as Trinisphere or Flash, but rather that it may produce a grotesque Stax or all-in Balance deck that are both viable are horribly unfun to play against. Seriously, there is nothing interesting about wiping out your opponent's hand on turn 1. You may not win the game immediately, but it is very possible that you will create conditions that make it very difficult for your opponent to recover, and essentially reduce your opponent to topdecking out of what is essentially a resource lock.

Balance has the potential to do a lot of nasty things: Wipe out basics, create massive card advantage, WoG ... all in one. I am surprised nobody is concerned that we are potentially unleashing a beast.

[Purple Hat]

Balance has the potential to do a lot of nasty things: Wipe out basics, create massive card advantage, WoG ... all in one. I am surprised nobody is concerned that we are potentially unleashing a beast.

I don't think we're unconcerned.  I think we're just willing to accept the risk that there's some unknown broken deck out there rather than continue on as we've been.

[Smmenen]

It's by no means 'risk-free', just as mind twist and doomsday were not risk free unrestrictions.   If I recall correctly, you (shockwave) oppossed the unrestiction of mind twist for similar reasons.

[JDawg13]

I don't think we're unconcerned.  I think we're just willing to accept the risk that there's some unknown broken deck out there rather than continue on as we've been.

Exactly.  I just started following this format again after a long layoff and looking at the top 4's and top 8's of tournaments in my area, the northeast, makes me very uninterested in starting to play again.  The format just doesn't seem particularly fun right now with one deck on top and nothing really able to challenge it.  Unrestricted Balance would at least shake things up and give us a chance at building something that can hang with the top Drain deck in the format.  Is unrestricting Balance the only way to effect this change?  No, probably not, but it's certainly a very efficient change that can easily be undone if it doesn't have the desired effect on the metagame.

[Diakonov]

I would rather see Trinisphere legal as a playset before Balance since at least you can tune your deck to deal with Trinisphere with a ton of basic lands unlike Balance which just has no out besides drawing the best possible cards ASAP.

That wasn't me BTW, you quoted somebody else.

[nineisnoone]

I would rather see Trinisphere legal as a playset before Balance since at least you can tune your deck to deal with Trinisphere with a ton of basic lands unlike Balance which just has no out besides drawing the best possible cards ASAP.

That wasn't me BTW, you quoted somebody else.

Whoops.  My bad. Corrected.

[Smmenen]

Balance has the potential to do a lot of nasty things: Wipe out basics, create massive card advantage, WoG ... all in one. I am surprised nobody is concerned that we are potentially unleashing a beast.

If Balance weren't a beast, then it wouldn't be able to compete with Drains, and we wouldn't be having this discussion, since one of the criteria I set out in the article was that all of the possible unrestrictions I examined had to be able to help fight Drains.   Currently Workshops are about 10-15% of Top 8s, compared to Drains 42.5%-45%.  I don't think anyone thinks that unrestricted Balance would take Shops over 25% of top 8s, where they were a year ago.   It would also open the door to some new archetypes, and I think the dangers, especially to Fish, are greatly overstated.  The high proportion of the field that will remain Drains will still provide plenty of Metagame turf for Fish, which already has to fight Oath, Ichorid, Pyroclasm, etc.     

[Shock Wave]

It's by no means 'risk-free', just as mind twist and doomsday were not risk free unrestrictions.   If I recall correctly, you (shockwave) oppossed the unrestiction of mind twist for similar reasons.

I did oppose the unrestriction of Mind Twist for, more or less, the same reason. It turned out that Mind Twist was not good enough to spawn a competitive archetype, so nothing was lost. In the end, nothing was gained either, since the unrestriction of Mind Twist added next to nothing to the metagame.

So prior to the unrestriction, there were the following possible outcomes:

1. Mind Twist spawns a new archetype which is heinous, unfun, and hurts the player base.
2. Mind Twist spawns a new, fair, interesting archetype.
3. Mind Twist does nothing.

Now let's think about this: What was the probability of Mind Twist creating a new, playable archetype? I would say that the probability of something good coming from Mind Twist was far lower than the probability of it having a detrimental effect or no effect at all. Therefore, my choice was to leave Mind Twist restricted since it likely offered very little in return, but could have potentially made the format awful for a long while.

I put Balance in the same category, except I feel it has a greater potential than Mind Twist to spawn something awful. I am not saying that it will, but rather that it does not make sense to take that risk without exploring other options first. There are at least 3-4 cards that can come off the list without having to touch Balance. Will they lead to the dethroning of Mana Drain? Probably not, but why not start there?

My $0.02.

[FlyFlySideOfFry]

Balance has the potential to do a lot of nasty things: Wipe out basics, create massive card advantage, WoG ... all in one. I am surprised nobody is concerned that we are potentially unleashing a beast.

If Balance weren't a beast, then it wouldn't be able to compete with Drains, and we wouldn't be having this discussion, since one of the criteria I set out in the article was that all of the possible unrestrictions I examined had to be able to help fight Drains.   Currently Workshops are about 10-15% of Top 8s, compared to Drains 42.5%-45%.  I don't think anyone thinks that unrestricted Balance would take Shops over 25% of top 8s, where they were a year ago.   It would also open the door to some new archetypes, and I think the dangers, especially to Fish, are greatly overstated.  The high proportion of the field that will remain Drains will still provide plenty of Metagame turf for Fish, which already has to fight Oath, Ichorid, Pyroclasm, etc.     

Then why bother talking about unrestricting anything but Gush? Gush does what you want done the most effectively. Balance won't dethrone Drains unless it spawns the type of retardedly degenerate deck that me and Shock Wave are concerned about so it shouldn't even bother being discussed for those criteria. A regular Balance deck would theoretically fuel decks that Drains are already good against so why bother?

[JDawg13]

Nobody's hoping to "dethrone" Drain decks and replace them with something else.  The hope is to make other decks competitive enough that they can put up some kind of a fight where they cannot, or at least are not, currently.  Assuming a broken Balance deck does not arise, 5C Stax would hopefully be strengthened enough to compete for more top 8's and tournament wins.

[M.Solymossy]

I really wish people would stop complaining about Mana Drain.  The only reason they're doing well is because the best players in the format usually tend to play drain decks. 

[Suicideking]

I really wish people would stop complaining about Mana Drain.  The only reason they're doing well is because the best players in the format usually tend to play drain decks. 

Because its the best deck.  The best players in the format are smart enough to recognize drains win tournaments. 

[nineisnoone]

It's by no means 'risk-free', just as mind twist and doomsday were not risk free unrestrictions.   If I recall correctly, you (shockwave) oppossed the unrestiction of mind twist for similar reasons.

I did oppose the unrestriction of Mind Twist for, more or less, the same reason. It turned out that Mind Twist was not good enough to spawn a competitive archetype, so nothing was lost. In the end, nothing was gained either, since the unrestriction of Mind Twist added next to nothing to the metagame.

So prior to the unrestriction, there were the following possible outcomes:

1. Mind Twist spawns a new archetype which is heinous, unfun, and hurts the player base.
2. Mind Twist spawns a new, fair, interesting archetype.
3. Mind Twist does nothing.

Now let's think about this: What was the probability of Mind Twist creating a new, playable archetype? I would say that the probability of something good coming from Mind Twist was far lower than the probability of it having a detrimental effect or no effect at all. Therefore, my choice was to leave Mind Twist restricted since it likely offered very little in return, but could have potentially made the format awful for a long while.

I put Balance in the same category, except I feel it has a greater potential than Mind Twist to spawn something awful. I am not saying that it will, but rather that it does not make sense to take that risk without exploring other options first. There are at least 3-4 cards that can come off the list without having to touch Balance. Will they lead to the dethroning of Mana Drain? Probably not, but why not start there?

My $0.02.

Why does it have to be the last card off the list?  I don't really see order mattering all that much.  That there is stuff like Grim Monolith or whatever that is still restricted isn't really important.  The closest analog we had to Balance was Mind Twist, which proved fine.  There is no other card that we could unrestrict (I guess you could Burning Wish for Balance) that would prove anything one way or the other.

So I don't really see this as an argument, but just apprehension.  And as much as people didn't like the Trinisphere era, would you really want a pre-emptive restriction on the card?  Because to me that's what you are asking to happen, because there is not a singular strategy or deck that you are pointing towards.  We really don't know what modern Vintage can do with the card because it never really had the opportunity.  

We don't know if it'll be a positive.  But it could be.  And what exactly be a negative?  Someone plays Balance and and someone doesn't like that?  And what exactly is the future of Vintage if every time a potentially bad card comes down the line, we just restrict it "just in case."  Are we even playing Vintage anymore?

Balance is potentially restriction worthy, sure.  A lot of cards are.  But I don't think it's pre-emptive restriction worthy.

Balance has the potential to do a lot of nasty things: Wipe out basics, create massive card advantage, WoG ... all in one. I am surprised nobody is concerned that we are potentially unleashing a beast.

If Balance weren't a beast, then it wouldn't be able to compete with Drains, and we wouldn't be having this discussion, since one of the criteria I set out in the article was that all of the possible unrestrictions I examined had to be able to help fight Drains.   Currently Workshops are about 10-15% of Top 8s, compared to Drains 42.5%-45%.  I don't think anyone thinks that unrestricted Balance would take Shops over 25% of top 8s, where they were a year ago.   It would also open the door to some new archetypes, and I think the dangers, especially to Fish, are greatly overstated.  The high proportion of the field that will remain Drains will still provide plenty of Metagame turf for Fish, which already has to fight Oath, Ichorid, Pyroclasm, etc.

Then why bother talking about unrestricting anything but Gush? Gush does what you want done the most effectively. Balance won't dethrone Drains unless it spawns the type of stupidly degenerate deck that me and Shock Wave are concerned about so it shouldn't even bother being discussed for those criteria. A regular Balance deck would theoretically fuel decks that Drains are already good against so why bother?

Because this is Vintage.  

[M.Solymossy]

I really wish people would stop complaining about Mana Drain.  The only reason they're doing well is because the best players in the format usually tend to play drain decks. 

Because its the best deck.  The best players in the format are smart enough to recognize drains win tournaments. 

I find this statement to be a downright lie.  If the best players in the format recognize drains are winning tournaments, and thus playing drains, we wouldn't see TK playing Shops, or Fish, or his bastardized U/R deck.  We wouldn't have ever seen Paul play Rituals.  I wouldn't have played GWSx, and you would never play chimpanzee.dec.

[Smmenen]

Soly you are clearly wrong.   Read the post script in the article.     

[arctic79]

Balance x4 = BW Rack ftw

Balance will thrive in a balls to the wall Rack or Pox deck or any deck that thrives on resource denial.  Honestly rack decks have been tier 2 for a long time but they do massive damage when they randomly show up and  giving them a huge weapon in 4x Balance is going/could be problematic for most decks except maybe Ichorid.  Mindtwist didn't do alot because it is mana intensive and weak as a top deck.  Balance on the other hand does 2 more things for a lot less mana.

[policehq]

I find this statement to be a downright lie.  If the best players in the format recognize drains are winning tournaments, and thus playing drains, we wouldn't see TK playing Shops, or Fish, or his bastardized U/R deck.  We wouldn't have ever seen Paul play Rituals.  I wouldn't have played GWSx, and you would never play chimpanzee.dec.

The one that just split for first? And has Mana Drains?

Anyway, it's hard to find data to support any "Mana Drain dominance is a result of best player selection" argument because Vintage operates in USA fro the most part outside of DCI rankings. Who are the best players? Is it true that only the best players are placing top 8 with Mana Drain? How many best players are there? We do have data that show Mana Drain is dominant, though. I don't want to see Mana Drain go, but it'd be great to see some cards put back in or new cards printed to create another archetype.

EDIT #2: And what is Chimpanzee.dec? I always associate James King with, well, King James Oath, which includes Mana Drain also.

[M.Solymossy]

The one that just split for first? And has Mana Drains?

Anyway, it's hard to find data to support any "Mana Drain dominance is a result of best player selection" argument because Vintage operates in USA fro the most part outside of DCI rankings. Who are the best players? Is it true that only the best players are placing top 8 with Mana Drain? How many best players are there? We do have data that show Mana Drain is dominant, though. I don't want to see Mana Drain go, but it'd be great to see some cards put back in or new cards printed to create another archetype.

EDIT #2: And what is Chimpanzee.dec? I always associate James King with, well, King James Oath, which includes Mana Drain also.

Yes, TK's deck had mana drain.  My point being that he can win with any build, because he's a good player.

And Chimpanzee.dec aka oath...  King James Oath does in fact NOT play Mana Drain.   Also, if drain were restricted, you would see a HUGE surge in people playing Storm combo.

[policehq]

Which is exactly why I want to see unrestrictions, not restrictions.