The Vintage Restricted List is the defining feature of Vintage. It is a marker of power and a symbol of respect. It’s law.
The Restricted list is a policy device to regulate and manage Vintage. And yet, like all policy, it is driven by the value judgments of the regulators. As the most recent Vintage restrictions recede into the past and as the metagame that once existed becomes more history than memory, a certain clarity has emerged in my thinking and understanding of the restricted list and of the restrictions that were once hotly debated.
I once, foolishly, thought it was possible to make a logical argument for restriction (and I probably got as close as you could come) in my article three years ago on “Constructing a Coherent Restricted List Policy”
I argued that the DCI should articulate and clarify its policy for restriction. However, I admitted that in doing so they would remove a certain flexibility or “wiggle room” that they might need if unforeseen circumstances arise or if the need should be great enough.
The Values Behind Restriction
No a priori logical argument for or against restriction can be made: like all law it is reducible to some value judgment. You cannot separate the value from the policy. The problem, for Vintage, is that the values are sometimes in tension. The decision to restrict or not restrict will depend upon which value triumphs.
On the one hand, the most apparent principle of Vintage is that you get to play with all of your cards. That’s what makes Vintage unique and why it has a restriction rather than a banning policy. This desire to be able to play all of your cards operates most forcefully against banning anything, but it also applies against restriction. Restriction is still, in some way, taking away cards that players can use. Sure, they can still play one, but we’d rather let them play four if at all possible.
On the other hand, there is a need to maintain competitive balance. In sports economics it is often decried that big money markets like NYC can literally buy teams and create a competitive imbalance. In Vintage, cards that are just too damned good can theoretically create decks that are too damned good. Thus, Gush is restricted. In this way, the policy of letting people play all of your cards is trumped by the need for competitive balance.
Yet, there are other values. Most often they are articulated in terms of “fun.” The value of having fun and maintaining fun is what drove the restriction of Trinisphere. Forsythe acknowledged that Trinisphere didn’t actually affect the metagame or distort the competitive balance, but that too many players felt it was too non-interactive.
The truth is that “fun” is the category into which all arguments for restriction exist. A competitive balance is important because it maintains a healthy diversity of deck options. It is not fun to be able to only play one deck. Similarly, it is more “fun” to be able to play with all of your cards. It sucks to have a card you own or enjoy banned.
The problem, then, is that all arguments for or against restriction are ultimately utilitarian: it is about maximizing the fun that everyone has. Vintage, more so than any other format, has a very high tolerance for brokenness. After all, you wouldn’t play Vintage with such egregious mistakes as Black Lotus and Yawgmoth’s Will unless you weren’t attracted to that aspect of the game.
Ultimately then, there is a certain futility in arguing about the restricted list because it comes down to value judgments – something that are subjective. Logical arguments cannot undermine the starting value premise. You can attack a restriction as illogical from a particular point of view or starting premise, but not if the decision was based on a different value (say fun instead of competitive balance). This is why logical arguments for or against restriction are really implausible: they devolve and are reducible to the subjective value judgments that motivate them. One man’s fun is another man’s boredom. And sometimes, the constituent and identifiable elements of “fun” – such as competitive balance (metagame diversity) and the desire to interact – come into conflict. The DCI then has the onerous duty of choosing which value should trump.
At certain times in Vintage history the player base seemed certainly content with the notion that we should restrict everything until Drain is the best deck. Oscar Tan seemed to propound that view (and certaintly Weissman) (there is an Oscar Tan article I’m thinking of but can’t find right now where he asks 12 major Vintage players their opinions on like 12 different cards – there is a table that shows where we all come out). However, the notion that we should restrict until we make Drain best is now seen as antiquated and actually quite pernicious. Mana Drain is an utterly broken card and its dominance is no more healthy than that of any other card.
Where once I was of a particular point of view on restriction, I remain agnostic as to whether a particular value should trump and when. It’s simply too subjective for me to judge. I can tell you when a deck or a card becomes dominant, but my view of fun is going to be different from any other persons view of fun. My bias has always been against arguments that restrict on grounds other than competitive balance and stopping single-deck dominance. The reason for that bias is that I felt that too many Vintage players reasoned from a love for Mana Drain decks rather than what was truly best for the format. I no longer have that bias because the old guard of people who just played Drain decks are gone. The best players in Vintage switch from Drains to Combo to Workshops with ease (see Tommy Kolowith, Andy Probasco, myself and many others).
Dominance and Monopoly Power
The most obvious and legitimate use of the restriction device arises is the case of a “dominant” or “best deck.” A useful way of thinking about this is the corollary to monopoly power. We use antitrust regulations and laws to ensure the fair competition of business in the marketplace. Similarly, we use the restriction policy to regulate the fair competition of decks in the Vintage metagame. When a deck becomes too dominant, we restrict a key component to restore competitive balance.
Monopoly power in Vintage would be the “best deck” theory of the metagame. We’ve all seen this in the past. Many times in magic history the DCI has restricted or banned cards in other formats to kill off a “best deck.” Thus, a slew of cards were banned in succession to stop Extended Trix. And even in cases in which there isn’t an unbeatable deck, a deck with essentially monopoly power may be so metagame warping that it in effect makes the metagame best deck versus the anti-best decks. Thus, Lin Sivvi was banned in Masques Block Constructed.
The last time we had anything resembling dominance in Vintage it was GroAtog composing about 40% of the market (i.e. the Vintage metagame) from Feb to June of 2003. A single deck making 40% of top 8s consistently across the board is pretty astounding metagame power in a format as large and diversified as Vintage. Gush was restricted to kill it.
As a practical matter, it is almost impossible for a “best deck” to emerge in the sense of really dominating the metagame. GroAtog was one of the most intuitive decks to play ever created and the best. That’s why it was so popular. It was easy to build and easy to play. And it only got up to about 40% of top8s and its restriction was supported by one of the broadest consensus ever seen in modern Vintage.
Original long.dec (arguably the best Vintage deck ever – don’t believe me? See this) was a miniscule part of the market when Burning Wish and Lion’s Eye Diamond were restricted. Even if neither card had been restricted, I think it unfathomable that Long.dec would ever have composed more than 15-20% of the Vintage metagame. And yet Burning Wish and LED were restricted.
But perhaps there has been a culture change in magic and in Vintage in particular. Compared to the early days there seems to be much less enthusiasm for restrictions and bannings and the last seven years of magic featured far fewer restrictions or bannings than the first seven by many orders of magnitude. Perhaps that is a sign of fewer mistakes, and I’m sure that it is, but I think there is also a sense that metagames are sufficiently dynamic that they should be given a chance to adjust first.
Antitrust laws were passed at the end of the Populist era and the Gilded Age in which incredible concentrations of wealth and power were drawing steel cartels and the like together. The government power was harnessed to break apart these great monopolies. In recent years, government regulators and antitrust prosecutors seem much more hesitant to deal a death blow to monopoly power. Threatened with being broken into two companies, Microsoft – the archetypical monopoly – was merely enjoined from pursuing certain practices and ordered to unbundle its software and browser technology. There is a sense among regulators and economists that our markets are far more dynamic than they were a century ago. Today’s monopolist might not be so successful a few years from now (see IBM).
There has been a similar shift in thinking in Magic. There is now a view that it is best for the market to let itself play out. In other words, let the markets adjust rather than exercise the antitrust power to level the playing field.
I sense that there were many times in the last couple of years where some of the major cards in Vintage were almost restricted. In 2004 I argued vigorously not to restrict Mishra’s Workshop. I felt that there was a public clamor and even a demand for it in the DCI itself (I could be wrong about that). No one seriously argues it should be restricted today.
It’s sort of like the tide of public opinion. It reaches a crescendo and a restriction either happens or it doesn’t. So far all of the recent crescendos for restriction have resulted in nothing and there doesn’t seem to be a strong demand for restricting anything. A few months ago there was some call to restrict Gifts, but that seems now, in retrospect, premature. The call to restrict Gifts may grow louder in time and eventually, it could be restricted. It’s hard to tell. I personally don’t think that restricting Gifts would do much since Merchant Scroll can find the single Gifts quite easily and players would probably just play 3 Thirst for Knowledge in the three opened slots. The metagame wouldn’t really change.
The dynamism of the Vintage metagame is so abundantly evident. In retrospect, the restriction of Gush – a clear case at the time, might not have been needed. Stax was just emerging as a threat when Gush was restricted. Moreover, Chalice of the Void and Trinsiphere were still 6 and 9 months from seeing print respectively. Both cards would have wreaked havoc on the small land mana base of GroAtog.
Similarly to the Lion’s Eye Diamond insanity of Long.dec, virtually no one in the metagame played the deck and it was banned just a month after Chalice of the Void had entered the format and three months before Trinisphere saw print. Long.dec wasn’t that popular to begin with – it may not have even been that prevalent as players were powering out Trinispheres on turn one.
Note that this isn’t to say that Lion’s Eye Diamond and Gush didn’t deserve restriction. In regards to Gush, if ever a clearer case for restriction has been made since *I’ve* been playing Vintage and writing about it (I’ve been playing it continuously since 2001), I cannot think of it. 40% market share of a single deck in top 8s for 4 months is certainly enough to warrant restriction if you are ever going to have a viable and workable (i.e. not theoretical) “dominance” criterion for restriction.
There is also a sense that interventions into markets and metagames, while well-intended, could produce unintended consequences.
Consider the restriction of Trinisphere. A statistical analysis I ran at the time demonstrated an actual decrease in competitive balance after the restriction of Trinsiphere, but in a counterintuitive way By taking Stax out of the picture, Mana Drain decks just dominated the month of April 2005. The first metagame shift was to Mana Drain dominance. Fish emerged as the Mana Drain foil. UW Fish was the Waterbury in late April. Then, oddly enough, Stax decks emerged and had their best performing year ever, including winning the Vintage Championship six months later.
The restriction of Trinisphere liberated Stax players to innovate rather than rely on the power of Trinisphere. We saw a profusion and proliferation of Stax variants.
However, the metagame did remain less diverse than before the restriction of Trinisphere. Pre-Trinsiphere, Vintage TPS was (according to Dr. Sylvan’s stats). Here were the Jan and Feb of 2005 breakdowns:
10 Trinistax (1,1,1,1,3,3,4,7,8,8)
10 TPS (1,1,2,2,2,3,3,5,8,8)
7 Mud / Welder Mud* (1,2,4,4,4,6,7)
7 Control Slaver (2,3,5,5,5,7,7)
7 Landstill (2,2,2,3,4,7,7)
7 Oath of Druids (3,3,5,5,6,6,6)
5 Dragon (2,4,7,7,8)
5 4C Control (3,4,4,7,8)
5 Fish (5,5,7,8,8)
That is EXTREMELY diverse. TPS is the only Dark Ritual deck on that list. Yet, after Trinisphere’s restriction, TPS disappeared entirely. It wasn’t until 6 months after Grim Tutor became legal that Dark Ritual decks clearly made up the upper tier of Vintage again.
What’s the point? The argument against restricting Trinisphere was that it would free Dark Ritual decks to dominate the metagame. Instead of making Dark Rituals dominant, the restriction of Trinisphere actually killed Dark Ritual. What actually happened was that Drain decks dominated for a little while and then Fish and Stax entered into a competitive equilibrium with the control decks.
This is just plays into the arguments of lassez-faire, free market economists (of which I’m definitely not, although I’m sympathetic to the better parts of their theory): restrictions (or market interventions) are not only unnecessary, but they produce negative, untinended consequences. Who the hell could have predicted that by restricting Trinisphere you’d kill TPS, not Stax!?
The reason why this happened was this: TPS was a deck built using Force of Wills, basic lands, fetchlands, and lots of Bounce that could survive the Trinisphere assault. It just played land and then Rebuilded and won the game. Restricting Trinisphere caused Mana Drain decks to flood the format and Fish decks became the best answer to Drains (this is why UW Fish won the April Waterbury after Trinisphere was restricted). Once the metagame adjusted and started making corrections, the three clear best decks were Drains, Fish, and newly constituted Stax – the constitution of this upper tier completely drove TPS (and Dark Ritual) from the metagame. Thus, in terms of diversity of archetypes, the metagame actually narrowed after the restriction of Trinisphere.
If Trinisphere were unrestricted today, it would have to contend with Ichorid decks that don’t need to play spells in order to win the game. They can just summon up Ichorids and the like by dredging off a Bazaar of Baghdad.
Vintage has sort of become this free market economists dream of self-regulating market dynamics. It’s self-regulating for many reasons. The first reason its self regulating is that the Vintage card pool is so deep that no deck could really remain dominant for very long. Not only would people begin to attack it as a strategy, but people would also master how to play against it. I would argue that Yawgmoth’s Will, as a strategy, is dominant in Vintage (and did argue that two weeks ago). The reason this isn’t dominance in the classic sense is that there is a proliferation of opinion as to how to implement it. We have half a dozen decks that different wildly in their implementation tactics and in there general reliance on Will.
Another reason is play skill: some decks that would be dominance would never have enough of a following to become dominant. Long.dec is an example of this.
Another reason is card availability: the lack of Mishra’s Workshops arguably kept Trinisphere Prison decks from becoming too much of the metagame (although I distinctly recall being in tournaments were Workshops were as much as 25% of the field and half of Top 8s).
The inverse of these three problems came to a head in GroAtog. The vintage card pool wasn’t as deep as it is now (Chalice and Storm didn’t exist when Gush was restricted (ok so Storm cards became legal the same day that Gush’s restriction took effect)) (for those who care that was July 1, 2003). GroAtog was easy to build, easy to play, and had the tools to “out-evolve” counterstrategies. As soon as Stax become a solution, GroAtog splashed red for Artifact Mutation and bam, it was the dominant deck once more.
Vintage is no longer like that. It is virtually impossible for any deck to dominate. Which raises the question: if we aren’t ever going to see dominance again, then when will or should something be restricted? The last restrictions in Vintage were Trinisphere in March, 2005 (unfun) and after the legalization of Portal (Imperial Seal and Personal Tutor – Oct. 2005). Nothing else has been restricted since and it doesn’t look like anything else will be in the near future, at least not based on the dominance criterion.
There are some people out there clamoring for the restriction of Gifts or even Grim Tutor. Yet an examination of the metagame right now shows a huge amount of diversity and competitive balance: (read this if you don’t believe me. Some players are probably turned off by the fact that the control decks combo out on turn 2. Yet, there are also decks like Ichorid and Fish that are not only viable, but quite good. Gifts decks are far from reaching the level of dominance that GroAtog reached. My article just last week showed how intensely decision heavy these decks can be.
Unrestrictions
I go through all of this because the issue before us isn’t whether something should be restricted, but whether there should be unrestrictions. The DCI has done a frankly fantastic job of cleaning the barnacles off of the Restricted list. When last I wrote about this subject, three cards I called for unrestricted have since been unrestricted: Stroke of Genius and Mind Over Matter. And before that Braingyser and Fork. It’s time to finish the job.
However, it’s time to do more than remove the detritus from the restricted list – it’s time to finally think about the closer calls. I went about an elaborate discussion of the values underpinning restriction because they will apply here.
I am going to now argue for those cards I think should definitely be unrestricted (that is, it should be unrestricted regardless of the value: competitive balance or fun).
The presence of this card on the restricted list is inexplicable. It should be immediately removed. I recently ran a poll asking the Vintage community which card is most deserving of unrestriction (if any) and this card took it by a landslide. Out of a list of 10 options, it is amazing that nearly two-thirds voted for Voltaic Key. That demonstrates a remarkable consensus. In most polls the more options you present the more fragmented the decisions will be. A strong plurality would be presumptive evidence that it is clearly safe to unrestrict.
The only reason to keep Key on the restricted list, in my view, is if there was a possibility that the power errata would truly be removed from Time Vault (something I don’t think we’ll see anytime soon). Then Time Vault could be restricted and Key remain restricted with it.
The strongest use of Key in the format involves a card that isn’t even played right now: Metalworker. Turn one Workshop, Metalworker, turn two reveal 6 artifacts, one of which is key, generates you 10 mana off of the key. But as I’ve said before, what can you do with 18 mana that you can’t do with 10? It’s an absurd reason to keep Key restricted.
This card should come off immediately.
Personal Tutor is the next clearest case. This card is absolutely awful. The fact that it was restricted suggested a need to restrict cards rather than any assessment of how it would be played. This card sees zero play in Vintage. This it he format where people ask for Yawgmoth’s Will and Tinker to be banned. Yet Personal Tutor is just too narrow. Not only is it too narrow, but there are already a critical mass of tutors. Even if Merchant Scroll, Grim Tutor, and Gifts were restricted, this card would still see zero play. The only deck I’ve ever seen this included in was a High Tide deck I built once to find Mind’s Desire. Even then, I’d probably play no more than 2. This card should be unrestricted. There is a virtually infinitesimal risk that this card is problematic. Even if it could go into a deck as a multiple of (which I can’t even fathom) it would certainly not create a dominant or even distorting deck. Under any measure of restriction, this card should be unrestricted.
Gasp! Sacrilege!
This is the next clearest case. But surprisingly, this is a card that creates quite a bit of alarm when I raise it. People recall the absolutely disgusting abuse of Dream Halls in 1996.
Here is what I said in 2004 about this card. I’ll add to that:
Now we are in the realm of broken cards. If you’ve ever seen Zvi’s Type Two deck:
Zvi Mowshowitz
TurboZvi
The Dojo test deck, e-mailed April 9, 1998
9 Island
4 Crystal Vein
4 Svyelunite Temple
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dream Halls
4 Intuition
4 Meditate
4 Sift
4 Ancestral Memories
4 Mana Severance
4 Memory Lapse
1 Counterspell
1 Impulse
1 Lobotomy
1 Inspiration
3 Gaea’s Blessing
Sideboard:
4 Adarkar Wastes
4 Abeyance
4 Hydroblast
1 Dismiss
1 Inspiration
1 Lobotomy
The idea was to recycle Inspiration to deck your opponent in a single turn after resolving Dream Halls.
Why It Should Stay Restricted
Dream Halls produces an enormously powerful effect. The potential for abuse is definitely there and without a mana constraint holding one back, and with the huge card pool of the format, it is very likely that one should win the turn one resolves Dream Halls.
Why It Should Be Unrestricted
Although Dream Halls may well cause you to win when it resolves, the realities of deck construction are ugly. First of all, if you are using lots of overcosted spells to abuse Dream Halls, like Temporal Cascade, you are going to be holding lots of dead cards until you get it to resolve. Therefore, getting Dream Halls to resolve is the trick.
Unlike Doomsday, which I think was a much more dangerous card to unrestrict than Dream Halls, Dream Halls can’t be cast off a simple Dark Ritual. It needs not only three colorless, but also UU. That’s the problem. 4U would be even easier to cast than 3UU. Getting UU basically means that you need two lands that produce the blue mana, and likely three so that you can use the other to play Dark Ritual.
A Dream Halls deck would undoubtedly have a Storm finisher because that is the most logical win condition – but there are much easier ways to win with Tendrils than having to resolve a five-mana, double-colored spell.
I think another fundamental problem is that Dream Halls combo is so much worse than basically 95% of the combo decks out there. Just as an example, Academy Rector/Cabal Therapy combo isn’t even played anymore because Academy Rector is too expensive. What does that tell you about Dream Halls? Moreover, Dream Halls combo is probably not at all faster than turn three, which makes it slower than Belcher, Dragon, MeanDeath, Doomsday, and even Rector. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it?
Vintage is almost twice as fast as it was in 2004 when I argued this card could be unrestricted.
Dream Halls would be a fun ass deck to play in casual Vintage, but unplayable in competitive Vintage. Would it fuel storm? Hell yes. But the problem is casting it. Realistically, there is no way to consistently get Dream Halls into play before turn three. It requires two blue mana. There an extremely limited number of ways to get turn one Dream Halls:
1) Time Walk plus 3 more mana accelerants
2) Black Lotus and at least one other mana accelerant
3) Mox Sapphire + and at least 3 other sources of mana
4) Tolarian Academy + at least two artifacts and one more mana source
5) Lotus Petal + 3 other mana sources
To get it on turn two is a bit more realistic, but then you are no better than Grim Long or Dragon or any other upper tier combo deck. Plus, all the control decks can pitch Mana Drain and Brainstorms to find more countermagic. After you’ve spent all your resources protecting Dream Halls and cards to cast it, you’ve got little left to actually combo out with.
There are too many tensions in deck design to make Dream Halls good.
1) You have to win when it resolves – which means you’ll need hugely expensive broken cards to fuel it, but they can’t be cards like Wheel of Fortune because you need to pitch on color cards to play them. Your deck will probably have to be UB or UB with a splash of a third color.
2) You have to be able to survive until it resolves (this deck is slower than Doomsday)
3) You need to be able to ensure that it resolves – good luck with that – this requires that you run Misdirection and Force of Will if not also Duress)
4) You have to consistently resolve it by turn three or don’t bother playing in Vintage (which means you’ll need Dark Rituals – which means more of you deck is mana acceleration)
In the end, a Dream Halls deck isn’t going to be an insane turn one or even two combo deck. It’s probably going to have to run Mana Drains to cast Dream Halls, which begs the question, why not just play Gifts – it would be a better deck. Another shell would use Duresses and Rituals, but then its just inferior to Pitch Long.
10 artifact accelerants
13 Lands
4 Dark Ritual
3 Cabal Ritual
4 Dream Halls
4 Force of Will
4 Duress
Just started a deck like that you realize that there is really no way to make Dream Halls good. There are too many tensions in deck design to make Dream Halls good.
I promise with 100% certainty that it would not create a dominant deck. I promise with 98% certainty that it would not distort the metagame. And I promise with 96% certainty that Dream Halls would not even be playable in Vintage. It will see exactly 4 times as much play as it sees now: zero.
When Robert Vroman and others argued for Vise’s unrestricted I was flabbergasted. This card is ridiculous. I remember playing Vintage in the day of 4 Vises. We played Ivory Tower just to counter the effect of Vise. That said, this card would see zero play in Vintage. Vintage burn is completely unplayable and will remain so forever. Even with 4 Vises, no one would play it simply because it doesn’t affect the board. Vise is as relevant as turn one Juggernaut: it’s not. Vice could do some real damage in multiples. Mishra’s Workshop double vice is 6 damage. The problems it that you now have 4 cards in your hand and your Control opponent is going to now run you over. Vice is a card that I fear deep in my belly, but it is ultimately an irrational fear. This card won’t see play. The one danger is that it could, theoretically, distort the metagame some day years from now if Vintage sees a major wave of restrictions. That is, if Workshop, Bazaar, Drain, Oath, Ritual, etc all saw restriction, then Vice might be too good. So long as the metagame is constituted as it is now, Vice is a joke. It sees absolutely no play and in multiples, people would try, but they would fail. Even Mishra’s Workshop triple Vice is only even threatening on the play. It’s just not a concern. No intelligent deckbuilder will play a deck with 4 Vices. And if there is a chance that a budget Burn deck could make a comeback, I say, why not? It’s not going to be that good.
This is another card that can be unrestricted with absolutely zero effect on competitive balance and will see virtually no play. Here is what I said in 2004:
Now I know we will be getting into the controversial cards – as if Dream Halls wasn’t controversial enough!
Why It Should Be Unrestricted
Time Spiral is not very good in a combo that that is attempting to win as quickly as possible. For a combo deck that wants to win on turn one or two, running Time Spiral over the unrestricted Diminishing Returns is nothing less than foolish.
I designed a deck called "Draw7" to abuse Diminishing Returns. Take a look:
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
2 Glimmervoid
1 Tolarian Academy
Acceleration:
1 Fastbond
1 Crop Rotation
4 Dark Ritual
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Lotus Petal
1 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Diamond
1 Black Lotus
1 Lion’s-Eye Diamond
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
Setting up/Protecting the Combo:
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will (they are Awseom111!!one)
1 Ancestral
Draw 7s Extraordinaire:
4 Diminishing Returns
1 Tinker
1 Memory Jar
1 Windfall
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Timetwister
Borken!!!Pwned!!!
1 Mind’s Desire
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth’s Bargain
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
Tutors:
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
(no Mystical Tutor or Demonic Consultation)
Finishers:
2 Tendrils of Agony
This deck would often have a hand like this:
Elvish Spirit Guide, Mox Pearl, City of Brass, Glimmervoid, Diminishing Returns, Brainstorm, Force of Will.
Do you see the problem with Time Spiral? It is slllloooww. In order to maximize the effect of Time Spiral, it basically assumes one of two things:
a) you have Tolarian Academy in play
b) you have three lands in play.
If you have Tolarian Academy in play, lucky you. It’s good, but you can win without it.
If you have three lands in play, that means its likely turn three. That’s too slow for a combo deck unless you are running both Duress and Force of Will and a lot of basic lands.
The problem is that six is really just too much to pay for that effect – especially with UU in the casting cost. There will be lots of times when you just can’t find that six mana in a combo deck. That’s why the other six casting cost spells in the deck are Mind’s Desire and Yawgmoth’s Bargain – both of them broken enough that you should never lose after resolving them.
You might ask: "Isn’t Time Spiral free?" Time Spiral is rarely ever free. Even with Academy, you are likely going to have to pay two more colorless to play it.
Why It Should Stay Restricted
Even though Time Spiral may be objectively worse than Diminishing Returns, there are a few combo decks in the environment that are not purely speed decks. The Perfect Storm, or TPS, is designed to win around turn three of four and is particularly effective against Control.
The format is even faster. It is also even less reliant on Tolarian Academy. Notice that Time Spiral sees NO play in Vintage combo. Also notice that less and less Vintage combo decks even run Windfall! Time Spiral’s only place would be in something like High Tide – a fundamentally weak concept in Vintage anyway. I could see 4 Time Spiral maybe having a place with 4 Dream Halls – that would be a fun and fair deck and probably not even that good. In all honesty, it should be unrestricted.
This card is so much worse than Cabal Ritual or practically any unrestricted acellerant in Vintage. It sees zero play. Yes, if Key were unrestricted, you’d have that combo. So what? That play generates a few mana. Yes, this card combos with Power Artifact. Who ever heard of that combo in modern vintage? Who needs infinite mana when you can just play a few spells and kill your opponent with Tendrils or Empty the Warrens.
Those six cards are the clear cases. Their unrestriction would not only not result in a dominant deck (I can promise you 100% certainty on that question), but it would also not produce even a good deck (I can’t promise 100% certainty on that, but I can say that the chances of any one of these cards even being viable in Vintage – that is playable – is very low).
Patrick Chapin recently took a look at some of these cards and has proposed to hold a series of “Ultra” Vintage tournaments where these cards and more are unrestricted.
I think the DCI should go ahead and unrestricted Voltaic Key as a first and most obvious measure. I would also like to see Dream Halls, Personal Tutor, Black Vice join them as useless as Mind Over Matter was. Finally, Grim Monolith and Time Spiral should be unrestricted in a third wave. After that, we can start discussing the other more questionable cards. I think there are a few other cards that can be safely unrestricted. The cards I’ve listed above would not create a dominant deck. There are other cards that could be unrestricted that would not create a dominant deck, but would actually have some impact on the metagame or just be unfun. For example, Mind Twist – although certainly not going to become the basis of a dominant deck – would probably see play in something – perhaps as a 2 or 3 of. In any case, a lot of people would probably find it pretty annoying. Another example would be Library of Alexandria. Contrary to claims that it would, it is inconceivable to me how Library of could become the basis of a dominant deck in a metagame full of Stax, Combo, Ichorid and Fish. LoA is only that good against decks like Fish (sometimes) and the control mirror. The average Vintage game is only a hair over four and a half turns.
There are other cards that some people sometimes argue should be unrestricted, like Gush, Regrowth, Fact or Fiction, and Channel. Of those four cards, I am adamantly opposed to the unrestriction of Regrowth, Gush, and Channel. To even suggest that those should be unrestricted reflects an inadequate grasp of Vintage dynamics. Fact or Fiction is a closer call. However, I remember how broken it was – it was more of an engine akin to Necro – and I would hardly agitate for its release. Perhaps the most apparently reasonable but ultimately wrong suggestion is the unrestriction of Regrowth. Merchant Scroll, Intuition and other tutors easy find the best cards in the game. A 4 Regrowth deck could easily take 12 turns in a row and replay Ancestral Recall multiple times in the first few turns. It is an asinine suggestion.
The cards I have argued for unrestriction pose no threat to the current Vintage metagame. An honest inquiry into how they would actually operate would reveal that not only would they not create a dominant deck, but they wouldn’t even see play. You may be astounded to learn that Dream Halls is a bad card in Vintage, unrestricted, but it is. Time Spiral as a four of is great in casual Vintage, but won’t be winning major tournaments. It’s too slow. A more plausible case could be made if Vintage was slower and took more turns, but most combo decks don’t even play 13 land and many play only 11. Time Spiral is never going to be “free.” That isn’t to say that people won’t try to build decks around these cards. They will and they should. But ultimately, none of those decks will even come close to competing with the decks already out there. And after a brief blip in which people try to break Black Vise, you’ll see it where it has happily lived for the last five years – in the binders of collectors and memories of Vintage players past.
See you in the forums,