Grafdigger's Cage-Dredge Haters Unite...

[boggyb]

Ah c'mon dude. Every blue deck already runs Hurkyl's MD. Turning on your win conditions just involves running more copies of it, tutoring for it first, etc.

[T00L]

You people are all overreacting. Blue decks will continue being the best deck.

[Smmenen]

No, it won't.  The three marquee cards of Vintage are Yawgmoth's Will, Tinker, and Time Vault.  They are legal in no other formats and they dominate Vintage.  They are hideously unfair and overpowered, but they are Vintage.  Two of those three are virtually useless against this card.

So, you think people are going to stop playing Tinker & Yawgmoth's Will because of this card?  

Let's be real here.   This card is a speed bump for Tinker/Will decks, but a real one.   People are still going to heavily abuse both cards.  They aren't going anywhere.  

But you act as if these spells are some essential part of Vintage.  Before Mirrodin, Tinker wasn't even played in Vintage except in Memory Jar decks.  And, before Onslaught, Yawgmoth's Will was a specialty card.   Regrowth and Gaea's Blessing were more popular recursion spells.  

 That said, and this is one of the things I discuss in my set review, Cage should force big blue decks to diversify strategic finishers.  Remember the days before Mirrodin, where people didn't substitute finishers for Tinker & Yawg Will? When people played cards like Psychatog?  That is what Vintage SHOULD be like.   I'm all for people playing spells besides Tinker, Will & Key Vault.   Hopefully, Cage will motivate people to play other strategic finishers besides TInker, Will & Key/Vault.   But let's not pretend that those cards are going away.

The biggest loser, by far, has to be Oath, which is hyper linear for the most part, and now has to suffer a 1 mana solution in Workshop decks.     I'm fine with that. We are seeing a creature Renaissance in Vintage.  I don't and wouldn't want Oath disrupting that.  Oath isn't dead either, it just has to fight for its wins now. 

[TheShop]

Question for the general populace:  Do you predict that the presence of this card in maindecks or just the possibility that this card could see play causing a change in the way people build their decks?  I am wondering how people will find room for multiples of this card in traditionally tight lists like a workshop list...especially since it is likely to be dead vs aggrocontrol.

[T00L]

The biggest winner here is obviously Repeal

[cvarosky80]

No, it won't.  The three marquee cards of Vintage are Yawgmoth's Will, Tinker, and Time Vault.  They are legal in no other formats and they dominate Vintage.  They are hideously unfair and overpowered, but they are Vintage.  Two of those three are virtually useless against this card.

So, you think people are going to stop playing Tinker & Yawgmoth's Will because of this card?  

Let's be real here.   This card is a speed bump for Tinker/Will decks, but a real one.   People are still going to heavily abuse both cards.  They aren't going anywhere.  

But you act as if these spells are some essential part of Vintage.  Before Mirrodin, Tinker wasn't even played in Vintage except in Memory Jar decks.  And, before Onslaught, Yawgmoth's Will was a specialty card.   Regrowth and Gaea's Blessing were more popular recursion spells.  

 That said, and this is one of the things I discuss in my set review, Cage should force big blue decks to diversify strategic finishers.  Remember the days before Mirrodin, where people didn't substitute finishers for Tinker & Yawg Will? When people played cards like Psychatog?  That is what Vintage SHOULD be like.   I'm all for people playing spells besides Tinker, Will & Key Vault.   Hopefully, Cage will motivate people to play other strategic finishers besides TInker, Will & Key/Vault.   But let's not pretend that those cards are going away.

The biggest loser, by far, has to be Oath, which is hyper linear for the most part, and now has to suffer a 1 mana solution in Workshop decks.     I'm fine with that. We are seeing a creature Renaissance in Vintage.  I don't and wouldn't want Oath disrupting that.  Oath isn't dead either, it just has to fight for its wins now.  

Couldn't agree with this sentiment more. The fact that Gro, Delver, Landstill, and Espresso have been dominating the metagame, and that none of those decks are hit pretty much at all by the Cage as far as their basic strategies are concerned, and that Gro and Delver already have multiple maindeck answers to it means that, at least in the short term, nothing will seriously change as far as current top-tier deck choices go. Over here in the Northeast, Dredge has been effectively "hated out" before this card was spoiled, and all it means now is that instead of 4 Leylines, we'll be running 4 Cages instead. Yeah, Oath gets the shaft, but once again, as it has already been pointed out by many on this forum, they'll just have to pack more maindeck artifact hate. It's as simple as that. What this card does is simply make you have to carefully evaluate your card choices more when building a deck. If you choose to build an "All-In On Broken-ness" kind of deck without a good back-up plan to the Cage, you will get punished for it.

[Commandant]

No, it won't.  The three marquee cards of Vintage are Yawgmoth's Will, Tinker, and Time Vault.  They are legal in no other formats and they dominate Vintage.  They are hideously unfair and overpowered, but they are Vintage.  Two of those three are virtually useless against this card.  I am probably done with Vintage now, and I would assume others will do the same.

After doing some testing against this today I'm inclined to agree. Perhaps I was wrong. I guess time will tell.

JK.

[Saya]

AggroMUD wouldn't like the card.Its purpose is putting pressure to opponent.Cage doesn't contribute to the approach at all.
For fish,it's awesome.Now fish decks have 2 artifacts:cage stops Winning and rod stops Acting.

[T00L]

It gets repealed, it gets misstepped, in stax it doesn't stop you from executing your number 1 game plan against them which is end of their turn destroying all of their relevant permanents and then killing them. People main decked tormod's crypt for years against blue decks to beat will and it usually didn't work and tormod's crypt is better at stopping will than this card.

[Onslaught]

Quitting Vintage over this card would be the biggest overreaction imaginable, lol. When someone drops a Null Rod (which you can't Misstep like this card btw), nobody threatens to quit because their Moxes are turned off. You could make the argument that Vintage is far more about Moxes than it is about Yawgs/Tinker. The fast artifact mana is what separates the format from Legacy, not the bombs IMO.

Anyway, Oath is still good (especially with the current rise of Tarm and Snapcaster), Dredge still boards in a bunch of 1 mana spells to kill hate like it always does, and the world keeps on spinning. This is a cool and powerful card, but it isn't some oppressive fun vacuum. Honestly, Fish deserved something like this and it will be great for the environment if there is yet another consistently viable top tier deck. A one mana Meddling Mage artifact naming Tinker/Yawg's doesn't seem insurmountable for the majority of the currently existing decks.

[vaughnbros]

Honestly, Fish deserved something like this and it will be great for the environment if there is yet another consistently viable top tier deck. A one mana Meddling Mage artifact naming Tinker/Yawg's doesn't seem insurmountable for the majority of the currently existing decks.

Agreed in the last 2 years we have seen shops get lodestone, slash panther, and forgemaster.  We have seen blue decks get bsc, jace, and gush unrestricted.  Dredge has gained Sun titan.  oath has gained emrakul and rune-scarred demon.  Fish has not seen cards nearly at the same power level during this period.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

The biggest winner here is obviously Repeal

I was just discussing this!

[T00L]

Honestly, Fish deserved something like this and it will be great for the environment if there is yet another consistently viable top tier deck. A one mana Meddling Mage artifact naming Tinker/Yawg's doesn't seem insurmountable for the majority of the currently existing decks.

Agreed in the last 2 years we have seen shops get slash panther, and forgemaster.  oath has gained emrakul and rune-scarred demon.  Fish has not seen cards nearly at the same power level during this period.

lol

[LotusHead]

The sky is not falling Ben. Take a deep breath.  Things will be fine in this format.  The format will be better than ever.

Since we're all going to have to play this stupid artifact maindeck, it might usurp mana crypt as the tinker fodder artifact of choice!

[Worldslayer]

How on earth are you going to beat MUD when they have these maindeck?

The same way you beat every other card in their deck. You counter it, bounce it, or blow it up.

Question for the general populace:  Do you predict that the presence of this card in maindecks or just the possibility that this card could see play causing a change in the way people build their decks?  I am wondering how people will find room for multiples of this card in traditionally tight lists like a workshop list...especially since it is likely to be dead vs aggrocontrol.

I've said it once or twice in this thread alone, and dozens of times elsewhere - not only maindeck material, but a flagship for a new Pillar along the lines of "Mid Blue" (or the blue decks that play really unfair cards but win with Goyf/Delver/X). It doesn't totally usurp Null Rod's spot, though if you believe New Pillar to be a bit hyped than certainly splitting Null Rod's area similarly to how Force and Drain split the "Drain" pillar is a reasonable position. You don't just jam it into everything, and it goes in to PLENTY more archetypes than workshop (including one of workshops' worse matchups in Goyf/Delver+spells). I don't see this as a Format Must Have, the way Misstep more or less became in Legacy, but as something a certain genre of deck can utilize to the best effect, and a host of the other pillars splicing in strategies (similarly to how Bazaar and Workshop and Null Rod have overlapped in the past) alongside it, and a host of the other pillars recognizing that it exists and adapting to dodge or beat it.

So to answer the question...both?

[xouman]

Cage is not a bomb by any means. As null rod, chalice, leyline, etc, it's a defensive card. T1 tinker into BSC it's a real bomb. T1 Cage is not a bomb, it's just a way to avoid being easily tinkered or willed.

Do you see blood moon as a bomb because it neutralizes orchard? It's pulverize a bomb because it destroys all artifacts without paying mana? It's aether flash a bomb because it negates all fish creatures but tarmo?

Cage gives fish a good defence against traditional Big Blue decks, so fish could develope a harder MUD approach. MUD shouldn't maindeck it (applies 0 pressure), but maybe can develope a less aggressive, more prison deck without panthers. In any case, a well prepared blue deck with bouncers or trygons should win with tinker and will perfectly, Cage is not uncounterable/indestructible.


Btw, some years ago Oath used to play Chalice of the void, didn't it? COTV at 1 seems nice play against non-mud decks, and beast withing allows destroying Cage while giving a critter to opponent. Or just play noxius to recover solutions for cage. There are plenty of solutions to this card.

[Troy_Costisick]

No, it won't.  The three marquee cards of Vintage are Yawgmoth's Will, Tinker, and Time Vault.  They are legal in no other formats and they dominate Vintage.  They are hideously unfair and overpowered, but they are Vintage.  Two of those three are virtually useless against this card.  I am probably done with Vintage now, and I would assume others will do the same.

All Grafdigger's Cage is going to do is slow the game down by a turn while blue decks, Oath, and Dredge search out their artifact hate to destroy it.  Yargs, Tinker, and Bazaar are still going to be as broken as ever, just slower now which is great for the format.

[Guli]

No, it won't.  The three marquee cards of Vintage are Yawgmoth's Will, Tinker, and Time Vault.  They are legal in no other formats and they dominate Vintage.  They are hideously unfair and overpowered, but they are Vintage.  Two of those three are virtually useless against this card.

So, you think people are going to stop playing Tinker & Yawgmoth's Will because of this card?  

Let's be real here.   This card is a speed bump for Tinker/Will decks, but a real one.   People are still going to heavily abuse both cards.  They aren't going anywhere.  

But you act as if these spells are some essential part of Vintage.  Before Mirrodin, Tinker wasn't even played in Vintage except in Memory Jar decks.  And, before Onslaught, Yawgmoth's Will was a specialty card.   Regrowth and Gaea's Blessing were more popular recursion spells.  

 That said, and this is one of the things I discuss in my set review, Cage should force big blue decks to diversify strategic finishers.  Remember the days before Mirrodin, where people didn't substitute finishers for Tinker & Yawg Will? When people played cards like Psychatog?  That is what Vintage SHOULD be like.   I'm all for people playing spells besides Tinker, Will & Key Vault.   Hopefully, Cage will motivate people to play other strategic finishers besides TInker, Will & Key/Vault.   But let's not pretend that those cards are going away.

The biggest loser, by far, has to be Oath, which is hyper linear for the most part, and now has to suffer a 1 mana solution in Workshop decks.     I'm fine with that. We are seeing a creature Renaissance in Vintage.  I don't and wouldn't want Oath disrupting that.  Oath isn't dead either, it just has to fight for its wins now.  

Couldn't agree with this sentiment more. The fact that Gro, Delver, Landstill, and Espresso have been dominating the metagame, and that none of those decks are hit pretty much at all by the Cage as far as their basic strategies are concerned, and that Gro and Delver already have multiple maindeck answers to it means that, at least in the short term, nothing will seriously change as far as current top-tier deck choices go. Over here in the Northeast, Dredge has been effectively "hated out" before this card was spoiled, and all it means now is that instead of 4 Leylines, we'll be running 4 Cages instead. Yeah, Oath gets the shaft, but once again, as it has already been pointed out by many on this forum, they'll just have to pack more maindeck artifact hate. It's as simple as that. What this card does is simply make you have to carefully evaluate your card choices more when building a deck. If you choose to build an "All-In On Broken-ness" kind of deck without a good back-up plan to the Cage, you will get punished for it.

Just like how decks like R/G beats, Fishy decks, Xmas, ... had to carefully design their decks to have a plan against Tinker because at any time that DCS, Sphinx, Inkwell or nowdays BSC could hit the board and you would simply lose the game without an adequate answer.

Feels very fair to me that the Tinker player should do the same calculations when designing their decks.

You know, Tinker hasn't been a problem for me for a long time now. I have basically adapted all my builds successfully to answer the card. Cage is a curious card, it hits so many archetypes and it feels overpowered. But in reality, this might backfire. If EVERYBODY is hurt by it, then EVERYBODY will run answers for cage. In such a meta, you can't really rely on Cage can you? Just like Dredge is hated out when they pop up their head too much.

I think it is a false assumption to say; 'Oh, I have 4x Rod and 4x Cage in my deck, I covered everything'. The time you invest in real game to play these cards and that they don't get countered/destroyed should not be taken lightly. At the end of the day, Dark Confidant, Snap Mage and Jace are perfectly able to kill you. I am just saying that artifacts with an effect that prevent your opponent from winning are not exactly enough to seal the game. What if they counter your 'real' threats and make some card advantage, find 1 bounce and go off? Of course, the fish player will not sit around to allow all this, but consider yourself warned.

[dangerlinto]

In other news WoTC and DCI announce new sideboarding rules which reduce the number of cards in your sideboard to 5

When asked why the change, they replied: "we got it covered"

[xouman]

Reducing SB cards from 15 to 5 would be a disaster. It would drastically reduce the number of decks available. Every SB would be an all in vs Ichorid, or maindeck a cards quite dead against most of the field.

I know all magic players like to weep, but I can't understand what would improve with a SB of 5 cards.

[BaronSengir]

The biggest loser, by far, has to be Oath, which is hyper linear for the most part, and now has to suffer a 1 mana solution in Workshop decks. I'm fine with that. We are seeing a creature Renaissance in Vintage.  I don't and wouldn't want Oath disrupting that.  Oath isn't dead either, it just has to fight for its wins now.

Tell me about it, and guess what I play the most? Oh well, time to reformat the deck to have more mental missteps and bouncers.

[Shax]

This cards influence stretches so vast that even EDH players will suffer for it's printing.
 On a lighter note, this card makes Mental Missteps, Artifact Hate, and I forsee the rise in U/W Aggro Strategies using this card along with Thalia(?) 1W Thorn Chick. All those become better.. The new Thorn of Amethyst Chick does a really good job at stopping other Aggro decks, so it is only a matter of time before everyone else will catch on and make a new bandwagon... for the aggro players.

[Sarah Angel]

This will create some interesting matchups, I think, not exactly sure what they are going to be yet.   Yet I'm surprised by most of the responses on here thus far.

IMHO, I don't see how "Big" Blue will be adversely affected.  If MUD tries to maindeck this (which it absolutely should not), it is just another pressureless card that gets hurkyled and does not have nearly the effect of Chalice or Null Rod.  Doesnt even seem reasonable to bring this in vs Blue or Storm out of the board.  Chalice and null rod are way better against storm and metamorph is much more proactive vs tinker bot.  Otherwise youre just down a card and it makes it that much easier for them to find bounce or just combo out.

As some others have correctly stated, this does very little against dredge.  Last time I checked, it's a 1 mana jailer and dredge has been playin around that for a long time now.  I suppose it shuts off narcomoeba trigger, which jailer didnt. Neat.  The fact that it now allows all decks to run the jailer effect is nice, and I guess now everyone can enjoy jailer plus void effect in their sideboard.  Still dosent seem that drastic a change.  Dredge has and will still fight through it.

Fish decks don't seem to benefit that greatly either, other than the "I just got a jailer effect" effect, for non black fish.  Agaist blue decks this seems like an awful choice.  You lose a card to shut off their tinker bot, so they just beat you that easier with tutor for vault/key and tinker for the other piece.  People seem to be forgetting that this card dosent shut off tinker, just tinker bot.

If trying to fight Yawg Will, again, it's just a card loss to force them to find bounce, or to force them to combo out with out (gasp!) using the graveyard.

I do like this card in conjunction with quasali pridemage, because both of those on the table can create quite a headache for Big Blue, but that seems a little corner case.  Not to mention this shuts off Green Sun's Zenith, which seemed to be doing a lot of work in BUG or Bant Fish lately (allowing you to run less copies of each creature and essentially allowing you to tutor for the correct play, be it teag, selkie, goyf, pridemage, etc...).

As far as SnapDelverStill-type decks, I don't see them playing this out of the board against blue.  For previous reasons stated, they can't afford the card disadvantage for a card that dosent affect the board when it hits, and furthermore shuts off their own snapcasters.

To be honest, all I really see happening is Oath getting a slight kick in the junk.  And I'm sure it will adapt.  But it's funny to read all of the "OH MY GOD VINTAGE IS DEAD!" posts.  lol.

[Troy_Costisick]

Sarah, your entire post fails to recognize just how central Tinker-DSC has become to blue decks in Vintage.  Go read any tournament report by any deck playing that combo.  It gets them out of every jam and utterly destroys any Fish deck they play.  Take out Tinker-Bot, and blue decks' paths to victory become much more fair.

[DubDub]

Sarah, your entire post fails to recognize just how central Tinker-BSC has become to blue decks in Vintage.  Go read any tournament report by any deck playing that combo.  It gets them out of every jam and utterly destroys any Fish deck they play.  Take out Tinker-Bot, and blue decks' paths to victory become much more fair.

Fixed that for you.  Pretty crucial difference.

Re: Bots.  Might we get some added diversity back?  Myr Battlesphere is not that hard to cast at full price, I'd love for that ball of death to stage a comeback.

Edt: Also, Tezzeret 1.0 could stage a comeback.  He still reads: if your opponent doesn't have any creatures, win with 4+ 5/5 artifact creatures next turn.  AND FOR THAT MATTER, Tezzeret 2.0 could stake his place for the first time (really) in Vintage with his ability to churn out permanent 5/5's.  Maybe the diversification of win conditions in blue will be Planeswalkers.

[Blue Lotus]

I mean its good, but its not that good.

VS dredge this is worse than pithing needle. Yes they can't win when its out but they can still dig for answers and win immediately when they find one b/c their yard is intact.

VS the field this really isn't format warping. Imagine you are playing Oath without tinker. Someone sits down across from you and is playing GW beats. You keep the classic orchard+mox+oath on the play. Then they go land+pearl+True believer t1. Are you going to scoop? Hell no your going to find your one maindeck bounce spell and win handily.

Cage is like that except its an artifact AND you are going to be expecting to see it throughout the day.

The biggest change that this will bring is making dredge decks more honest. They might have to play answers maindeck and become a slower deck in the process.

RE Shop decks. I think they have already hit the ceiling. I don't care what's printed if it costs mana and is an artifact your deck will still lose to hurkyl's recall/rebuild in the main and all kinds of hate, ancient grudge excluded, out of the board. I'm not saying shops aren't ridiculously powerful because they are but I am saying no matter what they print that deck wont get better. Just my thoughts.

[bluemage55]

The biggest winner here is obviously Repeal

Or Gorilla Shaman.

[Delha]

Sure, sure. Again, my point is it's derpy because hate cards are derpy. COP: Red against mono-Red is derpy. Leyline against Dredge is derpy. That's not a statement of fairness, unfairness, or long-lasting impact on the format, that's simply saying it's derpy and coin-flippy.

You actually bring up a great example. This card is COP: Vintage. Does that mean it's game over? Of course, not. I just hate COP. I don't think it's the end of the format or that the sky is falling. If COP: Red is a staple card in a format, then mono-Red is a bad call. Is that bad for the format? Who knows?

Your logic is incredibly flawed. Answers only make a format coin-flippy in the sense that they prevent the opponent from facerolling you all the damn time. You said Leyline against dredge is stupid. So instead, you're suggesting that Leyline shouldn't exist? How is that any better? Sure, Leyline pushes things in the direction of a 50/50 cointoss. That's a big improvement over the 10/90 matchup you had G1.

Also, hate doesn't actually result in the autowins you imply. Instead, it forces depth in metagaming. Opening with Leyline G2 against dredge isn't just an autoscoop. Dredge players know that they can't count on G2 being a free ride, so they scale back the aggression and side in a fuckton of answers to the hate. In more recent cases, they add in a transformational sideboard to dodge the hate entirely. The coinflip scenario you're describing is not enduring, for the simple reason that the person on the losing end of the hate will start running hate for your hate.

VS dredge this is worse than pithing needle. Yes they can't win when its out but they can still dig for answers and win immediately when they find one b/c their yard is intact.

Needle doesn't stop you from digging for answers, it just makes you dig slower. Cage lets you dig at full speed, but makes it so that none of those answers are playable. Needle is a series of speedbumps right in front of you, this is a brick wall a mile down the road. The first makes you take longer to reach your destination, the latter stops you outright.

[vaughnbros]

VS dredge this is worse than pithing needle. Yes they can't win when its out but they can still dig for answers and win immediately when they find one b/c their yard is intact.

Needle doesn't stop you from digging for answers, it just makes you dig slower. Cage lets you dig at full speed, but makes it so that none of those answers are playable. Needle is a series of speedbumps right in front of you, this is a brick wall a mile down the road. The first makes you take longer to reach your destination, the latter stops you outright.

In other words.  A dredge player can still slow dredge with a needle out which most of the time can beat fish decks.  Whereas with a cage the dredge player needs to answer it and the majority of decks running cage are also going to be running magus and/or waste meaning you have other answers to their bazaar.

[boggyb]

Just to respond to some people calling this a new pillar of Vintage. . . I think that's incorrect. It's a very metagame-y card, albeit an incredibly broad and powerful one. Unlike Null Rod, which broadly disrupts key components of the format (ie the mana accelerators), this card only disrupts strategies that have been derived from those components. In other words, I'd say the true power of the format is the mana accelerators and broken tutors/draw spells afforded it, not the win conditions currently employed by them. Blue cards and Moxen are unfazed in the face of this card and can still be used to cheat out different, though slower/less resilient, winning strategies in spite of it. As those other strategies become more powerful, this card will relax in prevalence in favor of others, and then back and forth again as the metagame shifts. But it's essentially a metagame answer. Null Rod however will always be powerful, so long as decks use a lot of fast mana to effect their gameplans.