The Long and Winding Road – This Just In: The DCI Is Awesome!

Preface

Before you read further, you should know that this is a somewhat dense article that’s heavily Vintage-centric. It has:

a) A lot of decklists
b) A lot of theory about where the metagame is headed with explanations as to why
c) Discussion on how Vintage was being managed before, how it may be managed in the future, and why this is good
d) Also, some jokes and pictures

I want to warn you now: you
may
leave this article with a solid grasp of the Vintage format, as well as a strong understanding of how certain cards were used in 2008 and how they may or may not be used in 2010.

From the D to the C to the I

So, DCI… we meet again.

I know we didn’t get off to a great start, you and I, and a lot of that’s probably my fault. I was perhaps a little mean with regard to the Mystical Tutor restriction.* And, perhaps my June article about the management of the banned and restricted lists in Vintage, and accompanying forum comments, could’ve been construed as aggressive or combative.

That wasn’t my intent.

I love this game and have become particularly enamored with Vintage and Legacy. While Legacy has flourished over the past two years, Vintage hasn’t, and I think those inside and outside the Vintage community have a tendency to look at easy scapegoats rather than consider that the format might’ve just become… un-fun.

Not “un-restricted Trinisphere” un-fun, but still, for many, it had become something less enjoyable than the Vintage they, perhaps idyllically, remembered.

Zendikar block showed that cards that are fair, or even not good enough for Standard, can have major impact on Vintage. Jace, the Mind Sculptor, in particular has given blue back some of its traditional Vintage feel. The format has become much healthier over the course of 2010, and considerably more diverse.

Still, I believed that the release of some borderline restricted cards – cards like Flash or Gush, for example – would help inject some more excitement
and interest in the format and would probably help further diversify the format.  That was what I argued in June. You can read that article,
here
.

Based on the recent removal of Frantic Search and Gush from the restricted list, it appears that perhaps we share some level of agreement. This is terrific news, as far as I’m concerned. It’s a confirmation that you
do
pay attention to Vintage and perhaps feel a vested interest in keeping the format exciting for the player base and maintaining it as a tournament format.

Regardless of whether or not we like each other, DCI, I think we have a lot more in common than either of us wants to admit. I’m sorry if I rubbed you the wrong way. I’ll try to do better. This past announcement reflects both the message and attitude that I’ve been hoping for, and I will return that respect in kind.

So, in summation, DCI – I think you’re all right. The next time I see you, I’ll buy you a Coke.

They Make Changes in September?

When June came and went without any changes to the Vintage banned and restricted list, I think a lot of Vintage players assumed we wouldn’t see any changes until 2011. As it turns out, we were all wrong… so wonderfully wrong.

Hey la, hey la, my engine’s back:

Opinions on Gush – and the potential danger it might wreak on Vintage – vary wildly. Some people are highly concerned that Gush is going to come back into Vintage and slowly gobble up the other blue decks. As the theory goes, Gro becomes viable again, supported by Preordain. Then, Gush muscles its way into Oath of Druids, and then on to the Time Vault decks – until the entire format is blue decks that play Gush, against everything else. So the theory goes.

For those of you unfamiliar with Gush, here are a few examples of powerful Gush decks, courtesy of Stephen Menendian and Luis Scott-Vargas. Keep in mind these are from 2008. I’ve included examples of how Gush “gobbled up” Storm combo, Oath, and fueled Gro:

So, is Gush going to prove to be a huge mistake again? I’m not so sure. In fact, I doubt it.

Is Gush potentially dangerous? Absolutely. That’s what makes it so exciting! However, the timing on the release of this specific card seems likely to limit its impact.

The key point of my article from June was that I wanted the DCI and the Vintage player base to think about the possibility of changing Vintage through meaningful additions to the format from the restricted list – rather than subtraction by banishment to the restricted list.  Over the past two years, the DCI has done a terrific job cleaning up the list. Even coming into this most recent announcement, the list is smaller than it’s been in years and even dramatically smaller still when viewed as a percentage of the total available card pool.

Still, when considering the format, we (both the DCI and the player base) generally looked for dominant cards or engines and considered how we could eliminate a deck’s dominance by weakening it through restriction, rather than the potential alternative of strengthening other archetypes through un-restriction.

When cards were released from their restricted purgatory, it was generally when they were considered “safe,” resulting in list clean-up more than impactful format change. That accounts for most recent un-restrictions: Dream Halls, Enlightened Tutor, Personal Tutor, Grim Monolith, Chrome Mox, Entomb, Crop Rotation, and so on. These cards have seen some play in Vintage, for sure, but none were format-warping or particularly impactful. They were safe. Even with this recent clean-up effort, some cards stayed on the list that had been there for a decade (Frantic Search), or remained on the list despite significant change in functionality (Burning Wish).

The Curious Case of Gushy McGush

Gush isn’t one of those cards. It’s potentially unsafe.

Very
unsafe.

Gush supporters say that Gush should be no big deal, a piece of the meta rather than the meta itself – this time around. Workshops are stronger than ever, and Workshops are perfectly capable of preying on Gush, even without the shiny toys waiting for that archetype in Scars. Right?

Maybe. Maybe not.

What an exciting feeling – to have a card that some think might break the format, while others think is perfectly safe. I have high hopes that this experiment’s lasting result, regardless of what happens with Gush specifically, is renewed interest in Vintage, including attendance increase at events and a diverse, faster-moving metagame.

Vintage is actually in a pretty good place right now, which some might argue is a good reason to make no changes to the format. Both Shards block and Zendikar block added a tremendous amount to Vintage. Chief among these Zendikar cards are the new fetches, Lodestone Golem, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Spell Pierce, and Nature’s Claim. As far as Vintage goes, Zendikar block is still being explored, as evidenced by the recent use of Lotus Cobra in Tezzeret.

When Time Vault and Tezzeret the Seeker were unleashed on Vintage, the format quickly tilted on an axis of Vault/Key against Everything Else. Tezzeret decks gradually pushed out every other blue control deck. Even Oath of Druids slowly morphed into a version of Tezzeret that plays Oath instead of Dark Confidant, often to improve the matchup against Workshops, when they were popular.

The thing is, ever since Lodestone Golem entered the format, Workshops
have been
popular. They’ve
always
been popular. Now Scars looms on the horizon – an artifact set full of power creep-laden artifact creatures likely to push Workshop Aggro to the forefront. This year, we’ve seen Lodestone Golem change the metagame into one of Time Vault/Voltaic Key vs. Workshops vs. Everything Else.

Ratchet Bomb in particular is a powerful addition to Workshop decks, since it gives them a way of destroying Oath of Druids. I’m not sure if you appreciate yet how huge that is, but you will. Workshop decks are going to diversify. They can go aggro and can be impressively big aggro with new toys from Scars. They can go control, using Ratchet Bomb and Goblin Welder to win games against the mirror, Oath, and Fish. They can mix and match.

Not only are Workshops not “bad,” they’re actually lining up as the new axis on which Vintage tilts: Workshops vs. Everything Else, of which Vault/Key and Gush decks are only pieces.

Gush, a card which deprives your resource development in exchange for drawing two cards, isn’t exactly the best “engine” for this metagame, especially when the “engine” is missing two key components: Brainstorm and Merchant Scroll. What are the likely homes for Gush?

Gro:
This deck has been largely MIA for the past two and a half years, as Time Vault slowly swallowed up every blue deck. With Gush and Preordain, Gro has the tools to make a comeback, except that Workshops may throw a wrench in this plan. Workshops has thirteen “Spheres” (Sphere of Resistance, Thorn of Amethyst, Lodestone Golem, a singleton Trinisphere) and generally plays them all, along with Chalice of the Void. Chalice on one and any number of Spheres is an awfully hostile environment for Gro. If you look to Trygon Predator as your answer, then why are you playing Gro over Trygon Tezzeret in the first place? I guess you just like losing to Chalice on one?

Oath:
There is some concern/excitement at the potential return of Tyrant Oath. I’d be a liar (with pants on fire and everything) if I said I wasn’t among that group. I love Oath of Druids, and the idea of playing Tyrant Oath in a tournament is exciting to me because that deck drew me into Vintage in the first place. Unfortunately, I’m not convinced that Tyrant Oath is going to be the best version of Oath, or that Oath is particularly strong when Tezzeret decks have so much incentive to play Trygon Predator and Nature’s Claim already. Nor am I convinced that Oath can retain its positive Workshop matchup after Ratchet Bomb. Seriously, Ratchet Bomb has the potential to change a great many things.

Storm:
See LSV’s Tropical Storm list, linked above. For six months or so, pre-Gush, Workshops was among the more difficult matchups for Storm decks, which preferred to prey on Tezzeret (which itself has been focused on Workshops and Dredge) or the anti-Tezz decks like Dredge and Fish. I’m not sure how much Gush changes this dynamic, if it does at all.

Tezzeret:
Tezzeret is still arguably the best deck in Vintage, but its position of prominence is also its weakness. When you want to beat Tezzeret, you can do so; as I’ve noted previously, however, the way Tezz beats Workshops is to put some cards like Trygon and Nature’s Claim into the main deck. But to beat Tezzeret, you often have to change decks entirely to one that Tezzeret isn’t focused on beating. When Tezz focuses on Workshops, you can play Storm. If Tezz packs Storm hate, you can play Fish (hello, Leonin Arbiter!), or you can play Dredge. If the metagame shifts so that Tezzeret’s main opponent is Workshop, I don’t think Gush is a good fit; quite the opposite, in fact. What Tezzeret would want is Brainstorm, not Gush.

These decks are, chiefly, the concern with Gush. Does Gush come in and gobble up all these decks (as Time Vault did), unifying them around a set of Gush engine cards?

My initial thought is: No. Workshops are going to be exceptionally strong, and while Gush will likely see play in varying degrees within Gro, Storm, Oath, and Time Vault decks, the lack of Brainstorm and Merchant Scroll means that these decks will actually be more diverse than they were the last time around. Even if Gush sees play in all of these decks, with the exception of Gro, I suspect the non-Gush alternatives will remain viable, and the versions that do play Gro will have less in common than “Gush” decks used to have (as Merchant Scroll and Brainstorm are no longer part of a Gush package).

Certainly, the DCI will keep a watchful eye on Gush, as they should. It’ll make for an interesting experiment, hopefully diversifying the existing blue decks and adding another in the form of Gro. Given the likelihood that Workshop decks keep Gro in check, Gush actually makes sense as an experiment in format management.

A Bad Brainstorm

I suspect many people actually were hoping for Brainstorm, if the DCI were going to experiment. I believe Brainstorm would make a poor choice for an experiment, and I’ll explain why.

There is this idea that Brainstorm is an incredibly skill-testing card. Is Brainstorm a card with a learning curve? Surely, yes. There are people who know how to play Brainstorm, and people who don’t – just like some people understood damage on the stack, and some didn’t. That, in and of itself, isn’t particularly meaningful to me. Once you reach an average level of proficiency, Brainstorm becomes too good for this format.

What, exactly, does Brainstorm do – how does it impact matchups? Against Workshops, it digs for resources: basic land and fetchlands, bounce spells like Hurkyl’s Recall, or hate cards like Trygon Predator. Against linear decks like Storm or Dredge, it digs for sideboard cards, increasing the Tezz player’s chance of finding relevant cards even if less are present in the sideboard. It frees up sideboard slots to attack the full gamut of the metagame. Brainstorm helps Tezzeret locate Tinker or Sower of Temptation against Fish. Brainstorm weakens disruption like Thoughtseize. Perhaps most damning is Time Vault.

One of the chief complaints about Vintage post-Time Vault is the luck factor involved in assembling Vault/Key during the first few turns of the game. Many of the people who complain about Time Vault are the same ones who clamor for the return of Brainstorm. Take off your rose-tinted glasses, friend, because Brainstorm today would be one insane Vault/Key enabler.

A Tezzeret deck packed with Zendikar fetches, Lotus Cobra, and Brainstorm would be resistant to Spell Pierce, could run Necropotence for draw (as Brian DeMars and crew already showed us), and dig incessantly for Vault/Key with Brainstorm into Jace. That’s not a deck I want to play against or a format that sounds all that interesting.

How much more likely is someone to find and assemble the Time Vault combo with access to four Brainstorms? I’m not math champion of the world, but I guarantee that it’d take only a few tournaments for people to sour on Brainstorm in this version of Vintage.

I previously wrote that I wouldn’t be terribly upset with an un-restricted Brainstorm because the card is so much fun to play, and that might be true for a period of time. However, ultimately I believe that Brainstorm is too good, giving people way too much incentive to play blue at the expense of other decks, while making Time Vault even better than it was with Thirst for Knowledge.

While Gush had some format-warping tendencies in the past, Brainstorm was a key enabler of the Gush engines, and I think this version of Gush will be far less warping than Brainstorm would’ve been.

The Other One

Frantic Search also came off the restricted list. Behold it, in all of its glory:

That guy sure looks frantic. I imagine him saying: “I’m an Atlanta Braves fan, and I was
sure
we were winning the NL East. How did Hamels get his form back? Good lord, we were up
seven games.
We don’t stand a chance! Surely, one of these scrolls must have the answers I seek!”

Sorry pal, your goose is cooked. And we have your precious QB too, thank you very much.

Mwa ha ha ha ha ha!

Where were we? Ah yes, Frantic Search. The concern with Frantic Search is related to combo, but much has changed in the past
decade
. Seriously, that’s a long time. Think about your haircut or your cell phone from ten years ago. See what I mean?

More than anything, Frantic Search functions as a Yawgmoth’s Will enabler as well as a way of finding Will. It probably juices up the ability of decks like Bob Tendrils to accelerate into a win without going as all-in as a TPS deck would. The combination of Preordain and Frantic Search together does lead one down Stormy roads in a hurry. Storm was already showing signs of returning to life with a strong showing at Vintage Champs and Waterbury. The second-place deck from Waterbury wasn’t Snake City Vault, but rather a Storm deck, piloted by Ashok Chitturi:

This style of deck was briefly popular on the West Coast earlier this year; both the East and West Coasts have contributed heavily to Vintage technology in 2010. Still, these decks face much the same problem as Gush decks: they don’t want to be played in a format dominated, or heavily impacted by, Mishra’s Workshop decks.

Workshops: Now with 50% Less Suck Than Advertised

Workshops won the seventy-player New England vs. New York vs. Pennsylvania Grudge Match in Hadley, MA, on August 28th. It also won the
125-player TMD Open 14
in Waterbury, CT, on September 11th. Not only did MUD win both tournaments, the same player won both events, after also making the finals of the August 14th Blue Bell Games Day. The basic build was the same in all three tournaments, with slight tweaks, based on a build from San Jose in June.

So much for the theory that the same Workshop deck rarely wins back-to-back tournaments, or that the same player can’t win with Workshops repeatedly.

The
same deck
(71/75 cards with four cards changed in the sideboard) was used by Ben Carp to win another tournament a few weekends back. This build utilizes the full thirteen Spheres, along with Karn, the Silver Golem, Smokestack, Null Rod to attack mana, and Razormane Masticore to help kill Dark Confidants and end games in a hurry. It’s already a legitimate metagame predator. Ratchet Bomb will help secure its matchup against Fish and Oath of Druids.

One of the chief knocks on Workshops is the idea that you can beat them if you want to beat them, as compared to something like Tezzeret – which in theory, can be tuned to beat anything and isn’t soft to any specific linear hate card. On the surface, this is true, but in reality, Tezzeret decks like Trygon Tezz suffer from weaker matchups against other archetypes in exchange for their stronger Workshop matchup. Additionally, Workshop decks are likely to become more diverse. Strong creatures and control cards are coming into the format with Scars, along with the potential for Workshop decks that go back to splashing colors for the new goodies that set offers.

I’m hopeful that Workshop decks will help keep Gush in check, and that decks like Trygon Tezz will in turn keep Workshops in check, allowing for format diversity among the decks in between (including the Gush decks but also including the Tendrils decks, Dredge, and Fish).

For reference, this was Joe Brown’s Waterbury-conquering MUD deck, the largest American Vintage tournament this year, which had just over 23% Workshop decks in the field:

Ben Carp altered the sideboard, taking out the three Mazes of Ith and a Triskelion for four Leylines of Sanctity to further secure the Tendrils and
Oath matchups. (Ben is often known to sling Oath himself.) His version split the finals with
Snake City Vault
.

These are two of the decks you’re mostly likely to face in Vintage, pre-Gush. Again, Ratchet Bomb should be a huge upgrade for this style of deck and may eliminate or greatly reduce the need for Leyline of Sanctity.

For those keeping track, Workshops has now won the largest American Vintage tournament this year and the largest European Vintage tournament this year (which was considerably larger than Waterbury). I expect that Workshop decks will continue to surge to become 30% of the meta and beyond. This is a good time to pick up the staples of this strategy so that you can field at least a proxy version of a Shop deck. The pieces of this deck beyond the Power and Workshops are reasonably affordable, since they don’t involve Drains, Force of Will, or duals. Many have actually dropped in price due to format rotation or lack of prominence in Legacy:

Thorn of Amethyst
Goblin Welder
Crucible of Worlds
Smokestack
Sphere of Resistance
Tangle Wire
Chalice of the Void
Null Rod
Lodestone Golem

I can’t wait to see what form the Workshop decks take from here. A Workshop deck using Ratchet Bomb and Goblin Welder should have a leg up in the Oath and mirror match, but going “big” with some of the new creatures from Scars would also help in the mirror and may prove better against Fish and Tezzeret opponents. Ratchet Bomb is also a great tool for Espresso Stax players.

I’m telling you now: Don’t sleep on Workshops, and don’t focus all of your testing on Gush decks or Frantic Search-powered Storm decks.

A Note on Proxies

While we’re on the subject of buying cards and proxies, I’m going to preach to you for a minute. I’ll keep it brief.

Whenever possible, I implore you to please only use proxies to represent cards that you cannot afford or aren’t available on-site. It’s destructive to the format to choose not to purchase cards that are affordable and available from stores or dealers or tournament organizers that support Vintage. Independent of proxies, it still behooves you to invest in format staples, many of which stay constant for years and are surprisingly cheap.

I consider it poor form to choose to proxy a card that’s available from an on-site dealer or store, especially if said card is also unfamiliar to many Vintage players, and if the use of a proxy may confer a strategic advantage.

That’s just one man’s opinion, but I’m putting it out there. Don’t use proxies as a cop-out to save a few bucks on a set of Gushes, a fetchland, or a Lotus Cobra. The dealers, websites, and stores that support Vintage deserve a chance to sell you those cards. Proxies aren’t meant to be used in that way.

So, buy your Ratchet Bombs. Buy your Lotus Cobras. And for goodness sake, buy your sideboard cards like Hurkyl’s Recall and Tormod’s Crypt.

Thank you for your time.

The Point of that Asterisk You May Have Noticed Ten Minutes Ago

* The removal of Mystical Tutor has actually proven bad for Zoo and resulted in Storm decks doing better in StarCityGames.com Legacy Open events than
they had before. Still, it wasn’t so much the decision that bothered me as some verbiage in
the message delivered with it
. I know there were reasons for the banning that went beyond what was communicated. The people at the DCI are far too intelligent to make a decision based on the reasoning presented.

Speaking of Legacy, the Legacy format is going through changes of its own, changes that every young man or woman must face when… well, that’s a whole article unto itself.

I’ll take a look at that, next time.

Matt Elias

[email protected]

Voltron00x on SCG, TMD, and The Source