Vintage Adept Q&A #13: Critical Mass

[Demonic Attorney]

Hello Vintage Adepts, I am a long time reader here on TMD and jus recently have become bit more involved. I am unfortunately a man of few words so pardon me as I get to the question plain and simple, "what defines a card as playable in Vintage?" lets say mana cost is not an issue, what else makes a card playable or unplayble? Let me know if I need to give more detail. Thank you.   

[Rico Suave]

To me, the mana cost is the single most important issue in what makes a card playable or unplayable.  I don't see how it is possible to have a complete discussion of this topic if we are supposed to treat the cost of playing a spell as a non-issue.  After all is said and done, what the card does is only half of what matters with the other half being what it took to get it into play.

[Yare]

I fully agree with Rico Suave. There are two major factors that define a card to me: what it does and how much it costs me/how hard it is to get the card to do that thing that it does. I say this rather than just "mana cost" because for many cards, its mana cost is not relevant (Bridge from Below) or it is not the primary concern, though it might matter (Force of Will). You have to weigh your ability to get the card to do its thing against what the card does. Darksteel Colossus is pretty terrible if you intend to hardcast him (though it does happen sometimes). If you have Tinker, suddenly he looks a lot better. It is basically impossible to completely divorce a card from its cost.

Regarding what a card does, I really can only define it as "helping me win," as so many cards have so many different uses. A lot of times the deck's configuration or general goal will significantly influence the cards that are used. Dark Confidant is very good in a number of decks, but putting him in an Oath of Druids deck is terrible because it completely disrupts your strategy. Sometimes you need a utility card, like Fire/Ice, for improved resilience rather than another card that makes your deck win one turn faster 1% of the time. This is really just a question of the expected metagame and your own testing.

One other thing worth mentioning is that there will be times where you might choose an "inferior" card when a superior version exists. If you are afraid of Chalice of the Void, you might run 1 Hurkyl's Recall and 1 Rebuild, even though you never intend to bounce your own artifacts because Rebuild dodges Chalice for 2 (and Rebuild cycles!). You might also run Island and Snow-Covered Island instead of two Islands so you can fetch them with Gifts Ungiven, even though Snow-Covered Island might have a few more undesirable interactions with a handful of cards (I don't know if this is actually the case). This might be considered a variant of "effect" in that Rebuild's effect basically includes "dodge Chalice for 2."

Honestly, I think you could write a treatise on deckbuilding based upon the broad sweep of this question, but I think I've addressed the primary concern of what makes a card playable.

[SpencerForHire]

I agree mostly with the sentiment above.  In general, I think the value of any card in a given format is an undefined equation of cost versus effect.  In vintage more than any other format, we have access to grossly undercosted effects which, when merged together form an elaborate painting of an overall picture.  Historically, vintage has highlighted so called "mistakes" of R&D in which a spell is simply too strong period on top of an low mana cost.  These spells never see reprint and are seldom remade without an additional to added on to the casting cost.  Examples of these are Time Walk, Demonic Tutor, Yawgmoth's Will (sort of), etc...

I do disagree on the "Inferiority" example of Hurkyl's Recall vs. Rebuild.  Both cards have a small unique angle on a same general ability and each has it's one spot in various (or the same decks).  To say that one is better than the other is (I believe), variable to the situation in which you draw them in.

[Anusien]

We value certain effects more than others. The things that make a card Vintage playable:
*) Disrupts the opponent
*) Draws cards
*) Tutors
*) Removes permanents
*) Cheap, powerful beaters (cost less than 4, usually less than 3 and attacks for at least 1 or has a super relevant ability)
*) Generates mana
*) Restricts mana
*) Does something that has never been done before

[meadbert]

Along with Tutors, type 1 is defined by speed, so most good type 1 cards will either be mana accelerants, cheat mana costs are just be undercosted effects to begin with.
In particular costs  , ,  ,  and  are particularly relevant as Steve has pointed out since Blue and Black are the best colors.

Black Lotus, Moxen, Ritual, Drain and Shop are all mana accelerants.

Force of Will, Tinker, Oath of Druids and Goblin Welder all cheat mana costs.

Chalice of the Void, Strip Mine, Wastland, Tormod's Crypt and Bazaar of Baghdad are all free.

Dark Confidant, Brainstorm and Ponder are all efficent and ideally costed.

Another way type 1 decks abuse the rules of magic is the graveyard.  Although Dredge does so obviously, most type 1 decks abuse the yard in one way or another.
Examples are Dredge in General, Yawgmoth's Will, Goblin Welder and even Tarmogoyf.  Because type 1 decks play out their hands so quickly this fills the yard faster than other formats which makes the graveyard that much easier to abuse.
Because the graveyard can be abused certain cards are good because they load the yard.  Intuition and Gifts Ungiven are good first because they are Tutors, but also because they load the yard for Yawgmoth's Will.  Thirst for Knowledge was powerful as a way to load the yard for Yawgmoth's Will or discard an artifact to Weld in.

[Grand Inquisitor]

I'd like to just add that...

*) Disrupts the opponent
*) Removes permanents
*) Cheap, powerful beaters (cost less than 4, usually less than 3 and attacks for at least 1 or has a super relevant ability)
*) Tutors
*) Generates mana
*) Restricts mana

...need to fit very strict mana requirements, while these...

*) Draws cards
*) Does something that has never been done before

*)Uncounterable

...do not.  Good examples of the second group are Yawgmoth's Bargain, Mind's Desire, Dream Halls, Tendrils of Agony, Gifts Ungiven and sometimes stuff like Battle of Wits or Recycle.

[Harlequin]

I would say that they do infact have to fit strict mana constraints.  Looking at a card like Yawgmoth's Bargain, you end up drawing 10-15 cards off just 6 mana.... thats like 1 to 0.5 mana per card.  THAT is good, There are hundreds of draw effects that arn't even close to vintage playable simple because they don't draw enough cards per mana.

Also There are plenty of unique (never been done before) cards that won't see vintage play either... I mean:  Steamflogger Boss, Lucent Liminid, Zoetic Caverns, Leveler, Eater of Days, City in a Bottle.  Again hundreds of unique effects that will not see the light of vintage day. 

Another way to think about it, Immagine if Yawgmoths Will cost 7BBRRG.  Do you think it would see as much play? 

[Grand Inquisitor]

Also There are plenty of unique (never been done before) cards that won't see vintage play either... I mean:  Steamflogger Boss, Lucent Liminid, Zoetic Caverns, Leveler, Eater of Days, City in a Bottle.  Again hundreds of unique effects that will not see the light of vintage day. 

This is very true.  (Although I don't think your Bargain analysis makes sense.  For example, Braingeyser's ROI quickly approaches 1 mana = 1 card, but it's mostly unplayable.)

After thinking more about it, I'd say it falls into these two eschelons of mana consideration:

(1) is quicker than mana drain - these are things that cost 0, 1, 2, or are instants
(2) cost 3 to 6 - these are the large broken effect generators that can be powered out in the first three turns with the help of drain, ritual or lotus.

...a caveat should be added for workshop plays, which usually satisfy both (1) and (2).

If an effect can do something better than any other card printed and fit one of these two mana profiles, it's usually T1 playable.

[Harlequin]

Generally speaking there are very few draw effects that draw more than 1 card per mana spent. Bargin typically does this, as does ancestral recall, ad nausem, and draw7s.   Brain geyser simple cant.  The only cards that go 1:1 in the vintage spectrum have to hit that critical "faster than drain" threshold (ie nights whisper) or be instants (ie fof, thirst, or skeletal scyring).

[TheBrassMan]

It'd be good to mention the major exception to the "mana is everything" rule.  Some decks or strategies are focused on cheating mana costs, the most notable of which are Oath and the omnipresent Tinker.  When looking for a large pricey card to cheat into play, you're usually looking at 3 things.

1. How fast it kills
Obviously this refers to power/toughness, but also haste, and to some extent evasion.  Without Flying, Trample, Protection, or Landwalk, each Confidant and Gorilla Shaman holds you off a turn... and aggro deck or something with Empty the Warrens can hold you off almost indefinitely.

2. How resistant it is to removal
Progenitus takes the cake here, followed by Shroud and to a lesser extent the Indestructible of Darksteel Colossus.  Just as good (sometimes better) would be abilities that make their removal "not that bad", i.e. some kind of persist or leaves play ability (like Sundering Titan, or the long forgotten Pentavus).  Obviously you can only Tinker out artifacts, but being an artifact is a pretty big liability in Vintage, regular creatures are inherently more removal resistant.

3. How it disrupts the opponent
What does the creature do *right now* to change the game.  To make it harder for the opponent to win or execute her game plan.  Obviously this varies based on what you're playing against.  A Sphinx of the Steel wind disrupts an aggro deck with Vigilance and Lifelink, abilities completely useless against Tezzeret.  Likewise a Sundering Titan can devastate a drain player, where it might actually help a Stax opponent.

These three considerations are actually functions of each other.  The faster a bomb is, the less time they have to find removal, and a disruptive card can prevent the opponent from casting an removal spell, even if they find it.  The question you're looking at is simply "How likely is this card to beat the opponent before they answer it or kill me."  Usually this kind of thinking applies to Oath and Tinker targets, but there are a few other historical examples of cost cheating decks.  Your still looking at the same things if you're building a Eureka deck, or Rector'ing into Form of the Dragons.  Note that a fourth factor actually is the mana cost.  Even thought you're planning on cheating the card up, and the cost is not your #1 priority, something more castable is obviously better.  Control Slaver, for instance, built its game around having multiple ways (including hardcasting) to get its overcosted bombs into play.

Back in the world of paying for your spells (what an awful world): I want to note two vintage-unique points.

1. Different removal is important in vintage.
For instance, one toughness creatures are rampant.  Not that you *dont* want your spells to hit bigger guys, but only being able to stop one toughness guys isn't that big a drawback for an otherwise strong removal spell in vintage.  For whatever reason, though the specifics go through popularity cycles, one toughness creatures have been key components of non-aggro decks for a long time.  Right now Dark Confidant is probably the most important creature in vintage, but beyond that Welder, Gorilla Shaman, Noble Hierarch, Cold Eye Selkie, and to a lesser extend Empty and Orchard tokens greatly improve otherwise terrible removal like Fire/Ice and Darkblast.

Also *every* deck runs some form of artifact removal or singular bounce, which means that both artifact removal and singular bounce spells are probably worth looking at, and that cards that are particularly vulnerable to those spells are slightly less valuable.

2. Colorless mana is important in vintage.
This is very important when evaluating cards for most powered decks.  Because of how common and powerful artifact mana is in vintage, and how most artifact mana does not produce on color mana, colorless mana requirements are more important than they are in other formats.  Often while laying out a decklist, I'll split cards by mana cost, and cards that cost 1C go in a different column than cards that cost CC.  The difference between those two costs dramatically affects your ability to play a card on turn one, which dramatically affects the ability of some cards to resolve or disrupt the opponent.  The difference between 2C and 1CC is still important, but not as dramatic, and the difference between 2CC and 3C can come up, but rarely matters (obviously a spell costing CCCC is seriously worse.)  The difference between 1C cards and CC cards, however, is "a big deal", and is worth keeping in mind when evaluating a spell.

[forests failed you]

I think that everybody has addressed the idea of Mana efficiency very well here.  In a format where there are so many cards and deck-builders have so many choices every deck is going to play powerful and efficiently costed cards.  Cards that get cheated into play, i.e. Tinker, Reanimate effects, or Welders are an exception to the rule.

The last category of card that nobody has really tapped into are cards that are simply the only cards that do a particular thing.  Many of these types of cards may be less mana efficient than other cards with similar effects--but specialty is sometimes worth the extra investment--especially if one can predict that the situational bonus will occur with some frequency. 

Krosan Grip costs more than many other spells with similar effects, but sometimes the Split Second effect is really where you want to invest your mana.w

Viashino Heretic - not even close to the cheapest way to kill and artifact, but one of the only ways to kill an artifact every turn, while dealing damage.

Mind Twist is another good example of a card that does something no other card does, but is expensive to cast.  Mind Twist has the ability to make an opponent discard his or her entire hand.  The Deck, for instance, can take advantage of having an effect like that to tutor for.

In the event that you can predict how other decks might attack your strategy, very specialized cards can become a major advantage.  I used to play multiple copies of Solem Simulacrum in my Slaver sideboard because it was such a good card against Fish (and was also good against Workshop decks).  Against a Fish deck I knew that the opposing plan would be to protect a Null Rod and Wasteland my non-basics.  If I could ever get a Solem into play by pitching it to Thirst or casting it early in the game, being able to get a free basic, then trade with one of their monsters (this is back when Fish played with cards like Meddling Mage and Ninja of the Deep Hours), draw me a card, and then be brought back with Welder to fight again.  It was pretty unbeatable in those sort of situations.  Solem, in this instance, was an example of a card that doesn't appear great at first glance, but is made contextually good because of opposing strategies.  4 Mana for a 2/2 and a land isn't exactly a bargain in Vintage--but in certain match ups that is exactly what a player wants to do with their Mana.

That is my two cents on this subject.  That aside from cards that are simply undercosted, there are unique niche abilities that are unique and specialized to be worth paying a little extra for.

When I am building decks I usually come to a conclusion after playing a few games that "I need an effect that does -----."  And then I go find a card that does what I need it to.  If the shell of your deck is competitive, i.e. Drains, Rituals, Workshops, Bazaars, you can afford a few cards that are unique and help you solve really specialized problems with the maximum efficiency. 

[TheBrassMan]

Brian hit upon an excellent point.  Roxas told me once that the reason he enjoyed vintage was that vintage matches were really 75 cards against 75 cards - in a match of Vintage you see more of your deck than any other format, which means every last slot is more important.  With Demonics and Vamps and ludicrously efficient draw spells in every deck, you have huge access to even 1-of cards.  You're more likely to see cards you want to see in any given matchup, and less likely to see cards you dont, and beyond that, as Brian stated, the cores of these decks are so strong, you need less of 75 slots to be dedicated to your engine.  This was obviously far more true when Brainstorms and Merchant Scrolls roamed the earth, but is still worth noting, and I find the effect of Tops and Brainstorms in Legacy to be very similar.  Because of all this, highly specialized cards get a little more mileage.  That means Brian's Solemn Sim, a maindeck Hurkyl's Recall in Tezzeret, one Sadistic Sacrement out of Dark Times, the Duplicant in Stax, all do more while taking up less space in a deck.

[forests failed you]

Roxas' claim that Vintage is 75 cards v. 75 cards is very well stated.  One thing that I have definitely noticed over the course of my time playing Vintage is that I have a significantly higher game win percentage post sideboard than I do in game one.  Yes, obviously experienced players always have an advantage against an inexperienced players, simply because there is a chance that the later will sideboard incorrectly, but also having the right bullets to bring in and having new angles to attack that people are not expecting can put a match up over the edge in one's favor. 

At Vintage Worlds two years ago I was playing the Strategic Slaver deck; firstly, people were not expecting Strategic Planning as a quick and efficient card drawer, but the thing that really put the list over the edge (and Jimmy McCarthy will attest to this) was our exceptional sideboard plan.  People were not expecting Spheres and Wastelands to come in from a Slaver deck.  TPS was bringing in Duress and we were boarding in cards that invalidated their plan.  Secondly, we had Sower of Temptation.  The card may seem obvious now, because it gets played...  But at the time it was a new card, and to the best of my knowledge Jimmy and I were among the first actually playing that guy.  Sower is a good example of the point I made in the previous post--you can afford to pay more for cards that do something special, that you really, really, want to do.  4 Mana for a 2/2 Flying Control Magic is not exactly what people think about when they think about Vintage; in certain match ups that is exactly what you want to do. 
:Other cards that I would consider good examples of paying a little more for something that has enough value when it is good to be worth the cost:

Vexing Shusher*
Boseiju, Who Shelters All*
Gorilla Shaman*
Trickbind*
Viridian Shaman
Shattering Spree
Blood Moon*
The Abyss*
Dwarven Blast Miner*
Balance*
Teferi's Response
Sacred Ground
Crucible of Worlds*
Aven Mindsensor

These are all effects that are not auto includes in decks, but rather specialized effects that can really punish somebody.  They are less versatile than other effects (for instance Teferi's Rat pesponse is  much more situational than Stifle), more situational than other effects (Balance is less useful than other forms of removal against some archetypes--Oath for instance), or more expensive but more devastating than something similar (The Abyss will kill a creature every turn for the rest of the game but costs twice as much as Diabolic Edict).  Dwarven Blastminer can kill a land every turn if you pay three, whereas Wasteland can kill one land for free, but sometimes you don't want to trade 1 for 1, as some match ups are won and lost by generating long term card and resource advantage.

Most people would consider these cards to be for the most part sideboard cards.  I'd like to point out that all of the cards with * next to them are cards i have played in the maindeck at some point in time.  The value of these types of cards are always dependent upon what you anticipate you will play against, which is why if you can accurately predict what your match ups will be, how strategies are likely to attack the game, and how you can counter this pressure, paying a little more for a card that will REALLY give your opponent fits can be well worth the include.

[FlyFlySideOfFry]

Honestly I define Vintage playability solely on cost. I look at what I need in a particular deck slot, then pick the cheapest costed card. If I'm playing green for example and need an artifact/enchantment destruction instant I'll look for the cheapest option. In most decks that would be Nature's Claim. However, in some decks 4 life means more than 1 mana, so I'll pick Naturalize. Krosan Grip isn't even on my radar unless I change what I need for that particular slot to "uncounterable artifact/enchantment destruction instant", in which case it is obviously the cheapest option. Likewise with Seal of Primordium unless I set it as "proactive artifact/enchantment destruction". For a card to be Vintage playable it either has to create a new role (and thus default as the cheapest option) or be potentially cheaper than already available options. Cost is of course always relative to the deck and play style.

[zeus-online]

First of all most format defining cards in vintage is somewhat undercosted - Again, the whole mana thing.

Other then that the most important thing seems to be how well they play with (or against) the powerfull acceleration that is allowed in T1 (mox'en, lotus etc.)
Workshop decks usually play with cards that in most formats would be considered carbage - But when they come out turn 1 instead of turn 4 they are suddenly much better then they normally would be.

Certain niche cards are particular effective in stopping these cards (like qasali against vault/key or null rod against mox'en, etc.) Others just play really well with them (Like thirst, since every control deck has atleast 7 artifacts)

Thus we enter meta-game concerns where cards that interact specificly well against or with certain cards get the nod over other cards that normally would be considered more powerfull (For example: lavadart vs. lightning bolt(welder), fatestitcher + bazaar of baghdad)

There's also a host of combo kills where either part of the combo would not be considered particularly good but the interactions between each part and the basic deck build might make the card much better then it appears (Belcher, voltaic key, painter/grindstone)

So this sums up to basicly:
Mana cost (Again, very important unless you never intended to pay for the card in the first place)
Interactions with other cards. (Grindstone, painter's servant, belcher, etc)
Cards that simply stops commonly played cards or strategies. (Null rod, spheres, etc)
Niche cards that are particularly devastating against certain common cards/interactions (Canonist, Ancient grudge, darkblast, etc)

Hope i'm making sense as i'm pretty tired.