[Premium Article] Notes on NuVintage and SCG $5K Breakdown

Demonic Consultation is actually a very nicely balanced card for a format with a restricted list rather than a banned list. Decks such as Drains and TPS reliant on singleton win conditions can't risk it. It does fit nicely into the very powerful Ad Nauseam lists, but those are quite fragile compared to TPS. Enabling decks that win with creature beatdown tends to be a good thing for the format.

DT is actually not so bad in a format with a banned list rather than a restricted list. I'm not saying it should be unrestricted in Legacy, because DT is too powerful with LED. However, in a format my friend and I play for fun, where most of the good fast mana is banned (including LED), it's not so bad. Sure, it's great in Gush Bond and Storm, but Gush Bond got its nice Time Walks axed, and Storm is missing Vintage's restricted fast mana, thus DT is fair. In the black aggro-control decks, Consult proved better than DT because it's cheaper and those decks don't care much about removing a bunch of cards.