Grafdigger's Cage-Dredge Haters Unite...

[dangerlinto]

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.

I don't know about you, but i LIKED Vintage's win-conditions.  Personally taking out the "vintagey" win conditions and replacing them with, for lack of a better term, "Legacy win conditions" and speeding them up with Moxen doesn't appeal to me as a format at all. I gather from all the ire here that probably applies to others as well.

The problem with Vintage is that unlike other formats, if a card comes along that simply pisses people off, the format just bleeds members - it's simply too expensive and far-fetched to expect to replace all the people who liked playing with Tinker, Oath, Will & Dredge with people who will enjoy turning Arcbound Ravager sideways after laying down a cage, because Affinty fans generally aren't the owners of Mishra's Workshop and a set of brown power.

*IF* the card does have the effect of driving those players out of vintage, recovery on this will be pretty bad.

[Justin]

Quote from: Tha Gunslinga on Yesterday at 09:17:01 PM
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.

If a card like this will ruin the format for you, by all means overreact & quit. Chicken-Little posts like the one you posted are chock full-o-ignorance & bad for the perception of the format. I'm sure I'm not the only one here that played the game prior to the printing of Yawgmoth's Will, Tinker & Time Vault's erratta/Voltaic Key. I loved it then, wasn't thrilled about the blowouts caused by Tinker & Yawgmoth's will but adapted & found contentment in the format again, and am thrilled to see Big Blue decks & dredge require the same careful deckbuilding required by aggro players.

This kind of writing is unacceptable on TheManaDrain.  If you'd like to disagree with someone please refrain from using language that could be considered as an attack.

Quote from: Smmenen on
 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.

I appreciate your sanity.

dangerlinto
I don't know about you, but i LIKED Vintage's win-conditions.  Personally taking out the "vintagey" win conditions and replacing them with, for lack of a better term, "Legacy win conditions" and speeding them up with Moxen doesn't appeal to me as a format at all. I gather from all the ire here that probably applies to others as well.

The problem with Vintage is that unlike other formats, if a card comes along that simply pisses people off, the format just bleeds members - it's simply too expensive and far-fetched to expect to replace all the people who liked playing with Tinker, Oath, Will & Dredge with people who will enjoy turning Arcbound Ravager sideways after laying down a cage, because Affinty fans generally aren't the owners of Mishra's Workshop and a set of brown power.

If you like 1 card blowouts I hear Yu-Gi-Oh is great. For the rest of us, Magic The Gathering existed prior to the printing of Yawgmoth's, Tinker, Oath/Orchard & the dredge mechanic. Personally I play because I like the game, not because of my affinity for a handful of cards printed in the last 4 years.

Full Warning for violation of section VII, line 2:

VII.  Major Infractions

Purpose:  Conduct that is intentionally or maliciously disruptive to the forums is dealt with severely, and can result in an immediate ban.  Specific examples of conduct covered by this rule are:  

2. Deletion of moderation text edited into a post.

Deletion of moderation text is, as is aforementioned, a major infraction and merits a full warning.  Further efforts on your part to avoid moderation (including the deletion of this text) will merit additional warnings.

Quit while you're not so far behind - Prospero

Prospero - I did not edit any red text. I was logged out of this post 3 times while writing it. Sent you PM lol

[Norm4eva]

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.

I don't know about you, but i LIKED Vintage's win-conditions.  Personally taking out the "vintagey" win conditions and replacing them with, for lack of a better term, "Legacy win conditions" and speeding them up with Moxen doesn't appeal to me as a format at all. I gather from all the ire here that probably applies to others as well.

The problem with Vintage is that unlike other formats, if a card comes along that simply pisses people off, the format just bleeds members - it's simply too expensive and far-fetched to expect to replace all the people who liked playing with Tinker, Oath, Will & Dredge with people who will enjoy turning Arcbound Ravager sideways after laying down a cage, because Affinty fans generally aren't the owners of Mishra's Workshop and a set of brown power.

*IF* the card does have the effect of driving those players out of vintage, recovery on this will be pretty bad.

You know what was a perfectly decent win condition for years?  Morphling.  Then came Psychatog.  Then Storm came along.  Then Darksteel Colossus gave Tinker decks something to care about besides Memory Jar.  Somewhere in there Fish became a good deck - mono U Fish with junk like Spiketail Hatchling and Rootwater Thief.  I'm barely into 8th Edition - there's been a TON of Tinker targets and Oath-able goodies since then, each one replacing the others, usurping other wincons right out of the format.

Case in point - this format isn't immune to rotating win conditions.  It's not correct to call one win more "Vintage" than another.  I made a post earlier in jest about Vintage poofing into Legacy with this card - but c'mon.  At least sleeve up a little tech in the interim and see how much of a speed bump the card actually presents itself to be, before you theorycraft yourself into disappointment at the way the format's changed.

[Alamoth]

I'm really looking forward to what I expect will be a much more skill-intensive format. What's exciting is that Grafdigger's Cage doesn't actually prevent decks from playing interactive games of Magic the way a card like, for example, Trinisphere does. Being unable to put BSC into play after resolving Tinker simply turns off one line of play, forcing the players to involve themselves in a *gasp* interactive game of Magic in order to win. Having to hold off on casting Yawgmoth's Will in favor of a different game-plan shouldn't mean you lose the game. It just means you need to seek an alternate line of play.

[dangerlinto]

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.

I don't know about you, but i LIKED Vintage's win-conditions.  Personally taking out the "vintagey" win conditions and replacing them with, for lack of a better term, "Legacy win conditions" and speeding them up with Moxen doesn't appeal to me as a format at all. I gather from all the ire here that probably applies to others as well.

The problem with Vintage is that unlike other formats, if a card comes along that simply pisses people off, the format just bleeds members - it's simply too expensive and far-fetched to expect to replace all the people who liked playing with Tinker, Oath, Will & Dredge with people who will enjoy turning Arcbound Ravager sideways after laying down a cage, because Affinty fans generally aren't the owners of Mishra's Workshop and a set of brown power.

*IF* the card does have the effect of driving those players out of vintage, recovery on this will be pretty bad.

You know what was a perfectly decent win condition for years?  Morphling.  Then came Psychatog.  Then Storm came along.  Then Darksteel Colossus gave Tinker decks something to care about besides Memory Jar.  Somewhere in there Fish became a good deck - mono U Fish with junk like Spiketail Hatchling and Rootwater Thief.  I'm barely into 8th Edition - there's been a TON of Tinker targets and Oath-able goodies since then, each one replacing the others, usurping other wincons right out of the format.

Case in point - this format isn't immune to rotating win conditions.  It's not correct to call one win more "Vintage" than another.  I made a post earlier in jest about Vintage poofing into Legacy with this card - but c'mon.  At least sleeve up a little tech in the interim and see how much of a speed bump the card actually presents itself to be, before you theorycraft yourself into disappointment at the way the format's changed.

Yeah, i played when Morphling was the evolutionary win condition of keeper into BBS and I played when 4 Gush and Grow-aTog was the deck du jour. And  Long - and... etc... etc.. etc...

But don't pretend that the evolution of Vintage didn't happen since those days.  You are going back almost a decade.  To make a side-by-side analysis - if this card only affected STANDARD in a way which would drive it to devolve into how standard play was 10 years ago (crappy creatures, awesome removal, instant card draw, cheap hard counters), don't you think the same complaints would be made?  They'd probably ban the card b/c it was causing tourney attendance to drop.  It's not like Tinker, Yawg Will Oath and Dredge were invented yesterday.  They have been here a loooooonnngggg time, and they came as the Vintage game evolved.  That's why the card is such an affront.  

Just because people should be more accepting of change doesn't mean a) they will when given the choice or b) they have to rationalize their choice. The choice is of course to continue to play or stop playing.  If the card is an alien amongst what was an very organic growth line for Vintage, there is bound to be a significant resistance to that change.  

[MaximumCDawg]

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.

You're mostly right, but you're missing something.  Look at the cards available in Vintage but not in other format.  You'll find alot of cards in the following categories:
(1) Undercosted mana accellerants (as you mentioned);
(2) Undercosted tutoring (as you also mentioned); and
(3) Ways to cheat far more expensive threats into play.

That third type of card is just as important to Vintage as the first two and is exactly what Cage hoses.  If people were using Moxen to power out Juzam Djinns, the format would be a very different place.  They're not, by and large.  They're using accell to quickly get up to the two or three mana needed to use a cheat card like Tinker or Oath.  Or they're using a totally different kind of acceleration (Dredge) to cheat threats into play from the yard. Something over half of modern Vintage is all about cheating out threats using old broken cards; Cage attacks that.

This is why, I think, Cage will have such a profound impact on the format.  Suddenly, there is a very potent weapon against the whole goal of cheating powerful creatures into play from the yard and the library.  Suddenly, decks have to think seriously about cheating things into play from the hand (SnT, Sneak Attack) which is exponentially more difficult since it involves a two-card combo instead of a one-card combo.  Or they have to play "fair" with creatures, paying the casting cost, as Shop and Fish do already.  Many pilots will chose not to do this, since cheating a blightsteel into play is just THAT potent.  But to the extent they do, Cage will surge in the meta to stamp them down.  It's a wonderful back and forth we'll see.

Final thought: though WotC may not have intended it this way, printing Cage makes it substantially safer for WotC to continue exploring overpowered, overcosted creatures as they've been doing since Lowryn.  I remember when any creature with a power over 5 generally had to have both a high casting cost AND a major drawback - look at Levithan, Polar Kraken, Force of Nature, Cosmic Horror, etc.  Nowadays WotC prints stupid-good creatures like Terrastadon, BCS, Jin-Gixatis, Stormcaller Levithan, and the like, who are only held back by a high casting cost.  Each time they do this, Vintage's old broken cheat cards get more powerful.  There's a reason why Oath has blossomed into so many new varieties recently.  Now that we have such an effective safety valve, it may prove to be much safer for WotC to continue this trend.

[Norm4eva]

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.

You're mostly right, but you're missing something.  Look at the cards available in Vintage but not in other format.  You'll find alot of cards in the following categories:
(1) Undercosted mana accellerants (as you mentioned);
(2) Undercosted tutoring (as you also mentioned); and
(3) Ways to cheat far more expensive threats into play.

That third type of card is just as important to Vintage as the first two and is exactly what Cage hoses.  If people were using Moxen to power out Juzam Djinns, the format would be a very different place.  They're not, by and large.  They're using accell to quickly get up to the two or three mana needed to use a cheat card like Tinker or Oath.  Or they're using a totally different kind of acceleration (Dredge) to cheat threats into play from the yard. Something over half of modern Vintage is all about cheating out threats using old broken cards; Cage attacks that.

This is why, I think, Cage will have such a profound impact on the format.  Suddenly, there is a very potent weapon against the whole goal of cheating powerful creatures into play from the yard and the library.  Suddenly, decks have to think seriously about cheating things into play from the hand (SnT, Sneak Attack) which is exponentially more difficult since it involves a two-card combo instead of a one-card combo.  Or they have to play "fair" with creatures, paying the casting cost, as Shop and Fish do already.  Many pilots will chose not to do this, since cheating a blightsteel into play is just THAT potent.  But to the extent they do, Cage will surge in the meta to stamp them down.  It's a wonderful back and forth we'll see.

Final thought: though WotC may not have intended it this way, printing Cage makes it substantially safer for WotC to continue exploring overpowered, overcosted creatures as they've been doing since Lowryn.  I remember when any creature with a power over 5 generally had to have both a high casting cost AND a major drawback - look at Levithan, Polar Kraken, Force of Nature, Cosmic Horror, etc.  Nowadays WotC prints stupid-good creatures like Terrastadon, BCS, Jin-Gixatis, Stormcaller Levithan, and the like, who are only held back by a high casting cost.  Each time they do this, Vintage's old broken cheat cards get more powerful.  There's a reason why Oath has blossomed into so many new varieties recently.  Now that we have such an effective safety valve, it may prove to be much safer for WotC to continue this trend.

Yeah that.  There's not a single artifact threat that doesn't actually cost 2U, or a fatty that doesn't really cost 1G.  There's an implicit eye-roll every time a bigger Greener creature is printed, because Vintage just happily unsleeves the last champion and throws in the new one.  Cage goes further than most other cards to prevent this from being true.

[Justin]

If the card is an alien amongst what was an very organic growth line for Vintage, there is bound to be a significant resistance to that change.  

Organic growth, eh? WotC has been printing Vintage-worthy answers spanning multiple sets over the years (chalice, null rod, pithing needle, misstep, flusterstorm etc). Addressing a format's woes year after year, set after set seems pretty organic to me, but then again I may just not understand the word. Its almost as though WotC is addressing 3 major concerns about Vintage as a format: Reducing variance, fostering interactivity & increasing playskill required.

[Alamoth]

(3) Ways to cheat far more expensive threats into play.

You could still cheat plenty of expensive threats into play. Just not with Oath of Druids or Tinker for an artifact creature or an Animate Dead spell or a Nether Shadow type mechanic.

I'm sure there are other ways to cheat expensive threats into play.

[MaximumCDawg]

(3) Ways to cheat far more expensive threats into play.

You could still cheat plenty of expensive threats into play. Just not with Oath of Druids or Tinker for an artifact creature or an Animate Dead spell or a Nether Shadow type mechanic.

I'm sure there are other ways to cheat expensive threats into play.

Actually, no!  That's the beauty of this card.  To cheat a creature into play using tools that exist, it comes from the library, graveyard, or hand.  There's no way to pull it onto the battlefield from exile, for example.  Cage hoses all attempts to put the creature into play from the library or yard.  So, you're left with the inferior option of putting it into play from your hand via SnT or similar cards.  Why inferior?  Because now you've got to have SnT AND Emrakul in your hand to "go off."  The other cheat cards - Oath, Tinker, Will - are all one card combos that essentially find the creature and bring it into play all by themselves.

[withmangone]

I'm sure there are other ways to cheat expensive threats into play.

Goodbye tinker>BSC, Hello mind's desire>BSC? If only...

[Blue Lotus]

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.

I don't follow. If a dredge player draws a nature's claim they can't play it with cage out? That seems to be what you are saying.

I should clarify that this is a better card than needle b/c of the splash damage to other decks but specifically to the dredge matchup I think needle is better games 2 & 3.

[Worldslayer]

If Null Rod is a pillar and not a metagame call, I don't see how Cage can't be considered a pillar and not a metagame call. The abovementioned "cheating threats" mechanic is only slightly less prevalent than the "cheating mana" aspect, and this carries over into "cheating card asvantage" as well. Null Rod is arguably more effective at what it does, but "what it does" is actually far narrower in application than Cage. The purpose of Null Rod is to deny decks their broken accelerants that allow them to ramp into cheatyface spells. This, while letting their nuts and bolts operate, simply says "no" to said cheatyfacing, while also affecting any nuts and bolts relying on repeated use (I.e. graveyard recursion) to function correctly. You can dig to an answer more effectively against cage, but you can also just blow out a Null Rod with old fashioned lands. A Pillar's effectiveness in Vintage is a direct function of the metagame, or said differently a pillar IS a metagame call regardless of which one. Drains get less effective when Bazaars are active, workshops tend to have rough times when green/white "null rod" strategies are active, bazaars tend to get stomped by other decks hate but also don't REALLY want to be playing in a field of Dark Rituals, etc.   This affects major mechanics of vintage (cheating threats and card advantage) in the same way Null Rod does. You can make a shift to play "not cheatyface spells" or adapt a broken deck to fight cage, but you can also make metagame calls to reduce Null Rod's, Bazaar's, Drain's, Shop's, or Ritual's effectiveness against you as well. (Different fast mana or artifact hate, latent deck speed or ability to hate the yard, artifact hate,an ability to make use of board bounce, lower cc spells, and a highly disruptive and interactive strategy respectively)

[dangerlinto]

If Null Rod is a pillar and not a metagame call, I don't see how Cage can't be considered a pillar and not a metagame call. The abovementioned "cheating threats" mechanic is only slightly less prevalent than the "cheating mana" aspect, and this carries over into "cheating card asvantage" as well. Null Rod is arguably more effective at what it does, but "what it does" is actually far narrower in application than Cage. The purpose of Null Rod is to deny decks their broken accelerants that allow them to ramp into cheatyface spells. This, while letting their nuts and bolts operate, simply says "no" to said cheatyfacing, while also affecting any nuts and bolts relying on repeated use (I.e. graveyard recursion) to function correctly. You can dig to an answer more effectively against cage, but you can also just blow out a Null Rod with old fashioned lands. A Pillar's effectiveness in Vintage is a direct function of the metagame, or said differently a pillar IS a metagame call regardless of which one. Drains get less effective when Bazaars are active, workshops tend to have rough times when green/white "null rod" strategies are active, bazaars tend to get stomped by other decks hate but also don't REALLY want to be playing in a field of Dark Rituals, etc.   This affects major mechanics of vintage (cheating threats and card advantage) in the same way Null Rod does. You can make a shift to play "not cheatyface spells" or adapt a broken deck to fight cage, but you can also make metagame calls to reduce Null Rod's, Bazaar's, Drain's, Shop's, or Ritual's effectiveness against you as well. (Different fast mana or artifact hate, latent deck speed or ability to hate the yard, artifact hate,an ability to make use of board bounce, lower cc spells, and a highly disruptive and interactive strategy respectively)

Funny story... Null Rod costs 2. 

[vaughnbros]

I should clarify that this is a better card than needle b/c of the splash damage to other decks but specifically to the dredge matchup I think needle is better games 2 & 3.

I disagree i think its deck dependent on whether or not this is better game 2 and 3 than needle against dredge.  And needle definitely has splash damage on other decks, namely landstill as well as at least 1 card in almost every deck whereas cage does absolutely nothing in some match ups.  Cage just shuts down tinker which is arguably the most broken card in vintage.

If Null Rod is a pillar and not a metagame call, I don't see how Cage can't be considered a pillar and not a metagame call. The abovementioned "cheating threats" mechanic is only slightly less prevalent than the "cheating mana" aspect, and this carries over into "cheating card asvantage" as well. Null Rod is arguably more effective at what it does, but "what it does" is actually far narrower in application than Cage. The purpose of Null Rod is to deny decks their broken accelerants that allow them to ramp into cheatyface spells. This, while letting their nuts and bolts operate, simply says "no" to said cheatyfacing, while also affecting any nuts and bolts relying on repeated use (I.e. graveyard recursion) to function correctly. You can dig to an answer more effectively against cage, but you can also just blow out a Null Rod with old fashioned lands. A Pillar's effectiveness in Vintage is a direct function of the metagame, or said differently a pillar IS a metagame call regardless of which one. Drains get less effective when Bazaars are active, workshops tend to have rough times when green/white "null rod" strategies are active, bazaars tend to get stomped by other decks hate but also don't REALLY want to be playing in a field of Dark Rituals, etc.   This affects major mechanics of vintage (cheating threats and card advantage) in the same way Null Rod does. You can make a shift to play "not cheatyface spells" or adapt a broken deck to fight cage, but you can also make metagame calls to reduce Null Rod's, Bazaar's, Drain's, Shop's, or Ritual's effectiveness against you as well. (Different fast mana or artifact hate, latent deck speed or ability to hate the yard, artifact hate,an ability to make use of board bounce, lower cc spells, and a highly disruptive and interactive strategy respectively)

no deck is going to be able to abuse this card because its dependent on what your opponent is playing.  null rod is critical to execute any effective mana denial strategy.

[Worldslayer]

Funny story... Null Rod costs 2. 

Yes. I can tell from the small 2 in it's upper right hand corner. If you could explain how that's relevant to my post and why it merits snarkiness I'd appreciate it.


In response to the post about cage being deck dependant while null rod is the core of an effective strategy: Mana Drain is no longer the core of its pillar, and in some control lists is eschewed altogether in favor of 1cc counterparts. It is dependant on the opponent in that they

1) have to actuall cast spells
2) allow you to cast and resolve mana drain


While the obvious ineffectualities of Cage in some matchups in more glaringly obvious, the end result is similar to null rod (quit cheating and play fair) since in most games Null Rod doesn't achieve the dream of complete mana denial and instead functions as a speed bump/regulator. Any "fair" strategy can use this card as its core and achieve a similar effect to Null Rod's function as far as current and upcoming vintage is concerned, and to be honest the Cage is probably more effective in this regard.

[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.

You're mostly right, but you're missing something.  Look at the cards available in Vintage but not in other format.  You'll find alot of cards in the following categories:
(1) Undercosted mana accellerants (as you mentioned);
(2) Undercosted tutoring (as you also mentioned); and
(3) Ways to cheat far more expensive threats into play.

Yeah I guess I just see your category 3 as not being as 'essential' to vintage as the other two, probably mostly due to the fact that there are so few good ones: Tinker, Oath, Dredge cards, and more fringe cards like Show and Tell, and Kuldotha are really the only powerful examples. If you take those kinds of cards out of a big blue deck, they will operate pretty much the same way, just more slowly and less reliably, and by sucking up more deck space for their win conditions too.

[Delha]

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.

I don't follow. If a dredge player draws a nature's claim they can't play it with cage out? That seems to be what you are saying.

I was saying that anything you dredge up while under Cage is worthless (and if you're dredging, you're obviously not drawing).

The big point was that Needle is obviously great at shutting down Bazaar, but that doesn't preclude winning. Cage pretty much HAS to be addressed before you can win (I'm excluding technicalities like hardcasting Narcos/etc).

If Null Rod is a pillar and not a metagame call, I don't see how Cage can't be considered a pillar and not a metagame call. ...

I'd say Pillars are generally accepted to be an expression of your gameplan. Drains decks tend to be about control, Ritual decks tend to be about speed, Shops decks tend to be about artifacts. As someone else pointed out earlier, Rod decks tend to be about mana denial (and leveraging that denial into a beatdown win). Cage doesn't have a broad enough impact to really fit that bill.

Also, the term Pillar is really just a convenient (if somewhat subjective) label. There's been plenty of dispute over what does or does not constitute criteria for the classification, but even if the issue did get hammered out, it's not like the game is likely to change much as a result.

[Sarah Angel]

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.

I don't think my post fails to recognize that at all.  I'll freely admit how prevalent Tinker BSC is, look no further than Vintage Worlds.

What my post apparently failed to demonstrate is that I don't think this is the silver bullet everyone is making it out to be.  As in, this dosent "Take out" tinker>Bot.  It makes them find bounce or just made you basically play a dead card to stopping tinker>vault/key.

There are, and always will be, games that you are won by nut draw tinker>bots where the opponent didnt have force or StP.  Sure, this may help stop some of those, great.

However, you win with Tinker>Bot by gaining incremental card advantage and being able to stop any answer that your opponent responds to tinker or BSC with.  It almost dosent matter what that answer is, and to me, Cage is just another.

If you make that case for cage, where are all the top 8 Aven Mindcensor decks?  Why is storm still around with Green Suns>Teag in the format?  Because of bounce and card advantage.

At least chalice and null rod actively shut cards off on the way to getting your win condition.  This card still lets you tutor, tap moxes, play all of your other cards.

[Smmenen]

Case in point - this format isn't immune to rotating win conditions.  It's not correct to call one win more "Vintage" than another.  I made a post earlier in jest about Vintage poofing into Legacy with this card - but c'mon.  At least sleeve up a little tech in the interim and see how much of a speed bump the card actually presents itself to be, before you theorycraft yourself into disappointment at the way the format's changed.

I concur.

This card doesn't make any cards unplayable (aside from maybe Witchbane Orb, which is now an inferior anti-Oath tactic), and it makes many other cards potentially playable by forcing people to diversify win conditions.  

How is that a bad thing?  

I see anything that makes more, not less, cards playable as a good thing. 

[Delha]

@ SarahAngel: I don't think people are generally disputing that there is more effective hate out there. Leyline is clearly more cripplying to Dredge/Will, Claiming their Oath is typically better than just stalling agasint it, and a Chain on BSC after Tinker resolves is squanders their resources where this doesn't. The difference is that this card addresses all of those at once.

You say it won't impact Dredge, and I think that's one of the biggest mistakes of your earlier post. I believe this card will take awaymore percentage points from Dredge than any other piece of hate ever printed, for the simple reason that this card is versatile enough to be in your main. Assuming this becomes as ubiquitous as people expect, Dredge pilots will be forced into deciding between eating randomly losses G1 or including removal in the main (which in turn slows down their goldfish and reduces the odds of a blowouts victory).

[Bill Copes]

[TheWhiteDragon]

I agree that this card is only marginally useful as sb material.  it is TOTALLY a metagame card.  This card could only possibly be useful in a field where you expect to see one or more of the following:

Yawgwill
Tinker->BSC
dredge
dragon/hermit/reanimator
welder->fatty
oath
ancient grudge
snapcaster mage
past in flames (or any flashback card)
Kuldotha

I mean really, those strategies/cards are only in like, what, 1% of vintage decks?

[evouga]

Meh. It's situational passive defense in a format brimming with potent active threats. In addition to the Missteps and 1x Hurkyl's Recall, I've added 2x Repeal to my Oath deck, and will lose no additional sleep over this Cage.

[Guli]

I agree that this card is only marginally useful as sb material.  it is TOTALLY a metagame card.  This card could only possibly be useful in a field where you expect to see one or more of the following:

Yawgwill
Tinker->BSC
dredge
dragon/hermit/reanimator
welder->fatty
oath
ancient grudge
snapcaster mage
past in flames (or any flashback card)
Kuldotha

I mean really, those strategies/cards are only in like, what, 1% of vintage decks?

lol, doesn't crucible work too? Bringing back wastelands from graveyard and so on.

[honestabe]

The biggest winner here is obviously Repeal

I was just discussing this!

You may have been discussing it, but Stefan has been shamelessly jamming 4 into every deck ever for years.

[urweak]

So is Flash safe to unrestrict now?

[honestabe]

So is Flash safe to unrestrict now?

It's been my understanding that it's been safe to unrestrict for a long, long time

[urweak]

So is Flash safe to unrestrict now?

It's been my understanding that it's been safe to unrestrict for a long, long time

So is Flash safe to unrestrict now?

It's been safe forever.

Yes, I agree it has been safe for some time. But this card should be the final nail in any argument for its unrestriction. Hopefully a conversation about it will que the DCI to take action.

[policehq]

My Panglacial Wurms!