A late birthday and early Christmas all rolled up into one.
This is an awesome announcement for Vintage, in my opinion. I've been arguing for at least attempting unrestricting some of a host of cards, including Frantic Search and Gush for a while now. It's nice that we can discuss the present and the future concerning the management of the restricted list, and leave the past behind.
If I shed my usual modesty for a minute, basically everything in the explanation is an argument I've made in recent months (these quotes are from recent days, though only because I've had to repeat myself each time discussion broke out):
The DCI tries, among other goals, to maintain banned and restricted lists which keep a diversity of decks in competitive tournaments. One way to do this is to ban or restrict cards which are leading to overpowered decks. Another way is to unrestrict cards which may allow new competitive decks, and then hope that those won't crowd out more decks. While the lists for Eternal formats do tend to grow over the long run, the DCI has been making a particular effort to make changes by taking cards off the list more than by adding cards.
I want to make changes within the frame of the format: unrestrict, one at a time, the several safe (and eventually somewhat dangerous) cards currently restricted with the goal of diversifying the meta without creating anew a dominant deck.
and
That the meta is diverse now is irrelevant to a discussion of currently restricted cards that should be unrestricted. What the meta looks like after unrestrictions is what's relevant.
Modern Vintage dates back to a massive change October 1, 2000, after which the list had 59 cards.
-It appears I'm just one of a few willing to argue about it, since it (banning cards in modern Vintage) is a closed book for the DCI, and hence for most players.
It's not though. The statement accompanying Time Vault's change specifically said that if removal of power-level errata led to problems, they would restrict or *ban*. There was never a "birth of Christ" moment in time where old Vintage became what you call "modern Vintage" and placards rained down from the sky reading "We will never ban cards in this format ever." Banning is always an option.
Note that the October 2000 change Erik references is when Channel and Mind Twist were unbanned, leaving no cards banned in Vintage from then forward (errata'd Time Vault notwithstanding).
With Frantic Search and Gush unbanned, the current list drops to 57 cards. This makes it the shortest list in the modern Vintage period. While the current Vintage format is reasonably diverse, we are willing to take some risks to try and improve the format.
Gush, Frantic Search, and Burning Wish all seem fine to come off. Along with, in my opinion, Ponder, Demonic Consultation and Fact or Fiction.
I'd love to get two or more from the first list, and one from the second, though that's entirely unrealistic given the DCI's recent actions. I don't think anything currently unrestricted deserves restriction, and I don't want to see 'No Changes'.
While I said changes like today's were in my opinion unrealistic, it seems that the DCI has adopted a viewpoint more similar to mine than they had previously, allowing for changes like today's. I'm thrilled to have my voice heard.
Both Gush and Frantic Search have been in overpowered decks in the past. However, it is not clear that either fits easily in the best performing decks of late, such as Jace, the Mind Sculptor control or various Mishra's Workshop decks.
The changes to the B/R List come in seven days (counting today). Any predictions about the Vintage restricted list? Other formats? What about the creation of Over-Extended?
What will happen: Vintage - No changes.
What should happen: Vintage - The DCI has decided that starting now, and going forward, only
one card will be restricted or unrestricted at a time in order to allow maximum measurability of the impact of changes to the Vintage restricted list, except in the unlikely event of a complete emergency. Additionally, the DCI has recommitted itself to reevaluating 'older' restrictions given the massive changes in the card pool, meta, and in some cases game rules since those 'older' restrictions were put in place. Some of these 'experimental' unrestrictions look dangerous, and they are, but we believe Vintage can handle it, and that there isn't any serious harm in any mistake, since mistakes will only be temporary. To that end the DCI has targeted the following cards for unrestriction one at a time, provided each does not present a problem during an initial 'experimental' period:
Burning Wish
Ponder
Frantic Search
Fact or Fiction
Demonic Consultation
Gush
The first such 'experimental' unrestriction will be... Frantic Search! If this approach meets with success additional restricted cards may be targeted.
Frantic Search has been restricted for 10 years, and the DCI thinks it is time to see what it can do as a 4-of.
What I'd most like to see though is a statement that they want to reevaluate older restrictions due to the massive differences in card pool between now and whenever those cards were restricted.
Gush was restricted a few years ago. Brainstorm and Merchant Scroll were restricted at the same time, however, and the DCI would like to revisit whether Gush decks can be a healthy addition to the diversity of the format if you can play 4 Gush, but not 4 of either of the other cards.
Gush isn't any particular deck though. There isn't a "Gush deck" as some people would have us believe. It's an engine. It happens to be an engine that fits into virtually any deck that plays Islands, pretty much.
And wasn't dominant at the time, and had access to 4x Brainstorm and 4x Merchant Scroll.
We can also see that there are 3 completely different shells for this Gush engine that succeeded. These different shells will give the Gush engine a great degree of flexibility. Is someone presuming that Workshops will foil Gush? Not in an Oath shell. Is Extirpate a problem? Maybe for Ambivalent Duck's groundbreaking Gush Goblins (GG folks!) but eventually people will realize that every deck which can support Gush will include it, and decks that can't support Gush become obsolete. And all attempts to fight it will be less successful than just playing Gush.
Everything in here could be said about Mana Drain. Mana Drain is a pillar of the format, despite the DCI saying that the pillar is Force of Will. Not to mention that when it was restricted it had access to 4x Brainstorm and 4x Merchant Scroll. How can you say that 4x Gush with 1x Brainstorm and 1x Merchant Scroll would dominate,
when no one has ever played that deck in a real tournament?Does the opponent have a wider array of answers for Gush? Sure. They can Spell Pierce or Mindbreak Trap or Dispel or Iona. But any deck that would be casting those cards would also be casting Gush. Make no mistake - Gush would dominate just as hard today as it did back then.
Because these decks would also be casting two, three, and four Brainstorms and Merchant Scrolls too right?
I also made the same argument regarding Flash:
Though Flash seems fair in terms of power level and historical performance, their justification is that it led to too many 'turn one kills', which I doubt is an opinion they're going to suddenly change. Unfortunately, Flash was restricted along with two of its greatest enablers, Brainstorm and Merchant Scroll, so it's impossible to tell if a 1x BS, 1x Scroll, 4x Flash deck would be any good.
This is why I opened a
thread to discuss making just one change to the restricted list at a time. Here they have unrestricted two cards at the same time, but I don't expect Frantic Search to see much play, so most of the effect on the meta will be attributable to Gush.
At worst, we suspect this is an experiment worth running again with other restricted cards.
If they also say that they're willing to unrestrict cards as an experiment, even if the cards are a little dangerous and end up needing to be re-restricted, I'd be fine with that.
Finally, I fully accept responsibility for ruining the format for three-six months if Gush is wholly out of control, though that is not my expectation. Optimistically I would hope that the meta settles down after incorporating Gush, this experiment can be declared a success, and we can begin to discuss the next round of experimental unrestrictions.
