Introduction
June is a tumultuous month for the Vintage player. Every June for the last three years, the DCI has taken a blender to the Vintage format, stirring it up. Dormant for most of the year, the DCI uses June to make adjustments to the Vintage by announcing changes to the Vintage Banned and Restricted list.
Last year at this time, the DCI restricted Thirst For Knowledge, and unrestricted Crop Rotation, Enlightened Tutor, Entomb and Grim Monolith. In June of 2008, the DCI restricted five cards: Brainstorm, Gush, Flash, Merchant Scroll and Ponder. In June of 2007, the DCI restricted Gifts Ungiven and unrestricted Gush, Mind Twist, Black Vise, and Voltaic Key.
If history is any guide, some big changes could be coming to Vintage this month. This article will explore possible changes to the Banned and Restricted List.
What is the Banned Restricted List?
The Banned and Restricted list defines the Vintage format by declaring which cards — out of the entire Magic card pool — are legal, and in which quantities. The Banned and Restricted List is really a misnomer, since it’s really two lists: a Banned list and a Restricted List.
The idea behind Vintage is that players get to play with all of their cards. Vintage is the one format where players are allowed to play with every single card ever printed, and as many of each copy as possible. Unlike other formats, no card in Vintage is banned for ‘power.’ Why, then, are cards banned in Vintage?
Currently, 12 cards are on the Vintage Banned List. Cards are banned in Vintage for one of three reasons: 1) the card requires ante, which tournament Magic does not permit; 2) the card is a ‘dexterity card,’ meaning that it requires some physical action (see Falling Star and Chaos Orb) undesirable for tournament play; or 3) the card creates a subgame (see Shahrazad), which the DCI feels poses serious logistical problems for tournament organizers. If a card does one of those three things, it’s banned in Vintage.
Currently, there are 46 cards on the Restricted List:
• 14 Artifacts
• 7 Black cards
• 16 Blue spells
• 3 Green Spells
• 3 Lands
• 2 Red Spells
• 1 White Spell
There are many ways of understanding the Restricted List. Some people think of it as Rogue’s Gallery of Magic’s most broken cards. More recently, it has been understood as a policy tool to manage the Vintage format.
I think a helpful way (certainly not the only way) of understanding the modern Restricted list is that it is designed primarily to keep two decks in check: the Big Blue (primarily Mana Drain-based) Control Deck and the U/B Dark Ritual Combo deck.
There are only 7 Black spells on the Restricted List. Consider them: Four of them are abused by both the Blue Control deck and the Dark Ritual Combo deck (Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Imperial Seal, and Yawgmoth’s Will). The rest are restricted on account of the Dark Ritual combo deck (Demonic Consultation, Necropotence, and Yawgmoth’s Bargain).
The same is distinction is true of the 16 Blue spells on the Restricted List. Many of them are abused by both the Control deck and the Combo deck (Ancestral Recall, Brainstorm, Mystical Tutor, Ponder, Time Walk, Tinker). However, increasingly, many of them are restricted on account of the Control deck (Fact or Fiction, Gush, Gifts Ungiven, Merchant Scroll, Thirst For Knowledge,). Almost all of the rest are restricted because of the Dark Ritual Combo deck (Frantic Search, Mind’s Desire, Timetwister, Windfall).
Most of the other cards on the Restricted List are restricted on account of abuse in either the Mana Drain Control deck (like Regrowth or Library of Alexandria) or the Dark Ritual Combo deck (like Burning Wish, Memory Jar, and Wheel of Fortune).
Pretty much everything else is either left unrestricted, with only a few notable exceptions, such as Trinisphere, or has been taken off of the Restricted List in recent years (like Black Vise and Crop Rotation). Consequently, aside from the Mana Drain Control deck and the Dark Ritual Combo deck, most of the decks in the format resemble regular Magic decks rather than highlander decks.
Managing the Restricted List
The purpose of the Banned and Restricted List is clear: to promote the health of the format and keep Vintage fun. Since everyone has their own idea about what makes Magic (and Vintage) fun, the DCI has a tough job.
As someone on themanadrain.com said:
I’m sure we all have opinions on the B/R list, but it always boils down to opinion and is nearly as painful as discussing politics with in-laws.
He’s right. Everyone has a different opinion because different people have a different conception of fun. ‘Fun’ is inherently subjective. Vintage players universally enjoy playing with all of their cards, including those older broken cards, but there is little agreement beyond that. How can the DCI choose among different conceptions of fun in a principled way? That’s exactly why the standard for managing the restricted list should be objective, rather than the varying and diverse opinions of players.
There are two things that most players agree on that can be objectively measured and implemented:
1) Diverse formats are fun. Formats with many different archetypes to choose from and strategic options are more fun. Players can select decks more to their style and liking. This can be easily measured by looking at the number of archetypes making Top 8, or constituting more than 5% or 10% of the Top 8s, respectively.
2) Formats with a dominant deck are unfun. Most players agree that formats strangled by a single archetype over a long period of time are not fun. See Jund, Faeries, or Affinity. Archetype dominance, too, can be objectively measured using tournament results.
The June, 2009 restriction of Thirst For Knowledge is a perfect example of a restriction justified by the dominance of a particular deck, in this case, Tezzeret. Tezzeret was consistently outpacing every other deck in the format by wide margin, both in terms of Top 8 appearances and in terms of tournament victories.
This graph shows the percentage of tournament victories by Tezzeret in 2009. The restriction of Thirst was hugely successful in curtailing the tournament dominance of Tezzeret, as measured by the percentage of tournament victories in that time period.
More importantly, the restriction of Thirst helped curb the dominance of Mana Drain decks:
This graph charts the proportion of Mana Drain decks in Vintage Top 8s from July 2008 (when Gush and company were restricted) to December of 2009. As you can see, the restriction of Thirst For Knowledge on June 20, 2009, greatly reduced the dominance of Mana Drain decks in the format, which were 45% of Top 8s, to under 30% of Top 8s.
The example of Tezzeret and Mana Drain, addressed by the restriction of Thirst For Knowledge, gives us a clear statistical precedent for understanding when a deck or an engine becomes dominant. When a deck reaches over 25% of Top 8s over a long period of time, or an engine reaches more than 40% of the field, then we know that a restriction is probably warranted, since that deck or engine is dominating the format.
In his article last week, Matt Elias said:
“[T]he DCI seems to be managing Vintage out of adherence to a set of principles rather than listening to what people playing the format are saying. Even though I’ve had success with the format as-is, I think it’s time the DCI considers giving the people what they want.”
I couldn’t disagree more. Managing Vintage based upon what players want rather than on consistent principles produces the worst kinds of policy decisions, like the Yankees fan setting the rules of baseball. Most people say they prefer competitive balance in sports (hence, things like a salary cap or profit-sharing). The exception is the home team, whom the local fan would like to see win every year (like the New York Yankees). The same thing is true in Magic. Vintage Magic players prefer competitive balance, except when it comes to their pet deck.
In his 2001 State of the Metagame Address, Oscar Tan surveyed his teammates and other Vintage notables, including Brian Weissman and myself, whether a list of cards should be restricted or not. The poll results are here. If we had followed the advice of Oscar Tan and Brian Weissman, Mishra’s Workshop, Dark Ritual, Spoils of the Vault, Chalice of the Void, Bazaar of Baghdad, Intuition, and Academy Rector would be restricted. In earlier years, the DCI listened to players like that. Matt Elias suggesting would take us back to a dark time in Vintage history when players like Brian Weissman and Oscar Tan could get cards restricted by complaining about them.*
Most players enjoy diverse formats, and most players do not enjoy formats where a single strategy is dominant. Diverse formats are more fun, so it serves the purpose of the Restricted List. But it’s a standard that can be objectively measured. If players complain that a deck is unfair, then tournament results will, over time, show whether a deck can be successfully metagamed against or not. If players complain that a deck is dominating tournaments, then tournament results, over time (giving players an opportunity to metagame against the menace) will bear that out. If players complain that the format is not sufficiently diverse, then Top 8 data will bear that out. We can look at the number and variety of archetypes, strategies and engines in Vintage Top 8s.
When the DCI manages the restricted list according to these principles, Vintage thrives. When they don’t, Vintage is harmed. The June, 2009 B/R list changes were as successful as the June, 2008 B/R list changes were disastrous.
In June, 2008, the DCI restricted five cards when just one (or two) would have sufficed (such as Merchant Scroll) to improve the diversity in the metagame. Whenever the DCI is trying to improve the diversity of the field or check a dominant deck, this can usually be accomplished with a single restriction. That’s why every time that the DCI has restricted more than one card in the last 12 years, they’ve reversed half of those decisions (with the exception of the June, 2008 restrictions). Multiple restrictions serving the same goal is unnecessary when one will suffice. That’s exactly what happened in 2008. The restriction of Merchant Scroll alone seriously weakened both Gush and Flash decks. The restriction of Brainstorm, in addition to Merchant Scroll, made restricting either Gush or Flash largely unnecessary or, at least, extremely questionable.
There are other possible standards for managing the restricted list, such as ‘interactivity’ (ala Trinisphere or Flash). But like any other possible standard, one person’s unfun is another person’s fun. Restricting cards based upon subjective criteria risks doing more damage than good; especially since there are often negative, unintended consequences to a restriction. Restricting a card because it’s ‘unfun’ may actually reduce the diversity in the metagame or help clear the way for a dominant deck.
Bannings
Some people argue that Time Vault should be banned because it 1) is unfair, 2) it is too good, 3) it is not skill intensive, and 4) it dominates Vintage. They suggest that restriction hasn’t done enough to curtail the dominance of Time Vault, and therefore it should be banned.
This graph shows the representation of each of these cards in all Top 8s during each specified time period.
Time Vault has hovered around 33% of all Top 8 decks, and is slightly up in the first quarter of 2010 to 35% of all Top 8s. While one might argue that Time Vault is dominant in Vintage, it’s not nearly as dominant as either Tinker or Yawgmoth’s Will, which are present in almost 50% of Top 8 decks. If Time Vault were banned, Tinker and Yawgmoth’s Will would also have to be banned, as they are far more dominant in the format. I would not support banning of Time Vault, unless Yawgmoth’s Will and Tinker were also banned. In any case, I don’t think Time Vault’s roughly 33% of Top 8s is dominant enough to be concerned.
Restrictions
According to the Q1 Market Metagame Report, the Vintage format is very diverse.
This graph shows the Top 7 performing archetypes as a percentage of Top 8s. As you can see, Tezzeret, Fish, and Workshop Aggro are currently the top 4 performing archetypes, by that measure. No archetype is much more than 20% of Top 8s. No single strategy appears to be dominating Vintage.
The format also appears quite diverse. Tezzeret, Fish, Workshop Aggro, and Oath each constitute more than 10% of the field. TPS, Stax, and Dredge also each make up 5% or more of Top 8s.
Unrestrictions
The goal of the Restricted List is to promote the health and fun of Vintage. This goal is best achieved by managing the Restricted List to maintain competitive balance and format diversity (for reasons described above). Both goals can be achieved by restricting cards that dominate the format (based upon tournament results). But they can also be achieved by unrestricting cards to increase deck building options and give existing decks new tools.
The standard for unrestriction, therefore, is same as it is for restriction, but inverted: will a card dominate the format or reduce format diversity? As we have seen, a deck tends to dominate Vintage when it reaches more than 25% of Top 8s. And an engine dominates when it reaches more than 40% of Top 8s. If a card’s unrestriction will increase format diversity and won’t dominate Vintage, then it should be, wherever possible. I apply this standard to five cards below, and present arguments for their unrestriction.
In the last three years, the DCI has successfully unrestricted:
• Black Vise
• Chrome Mox
• Crop Rotation
• Dream Halls
• Enlightened Tutor
• Entomb
• Grim Monolith
• Mind Twist
• Mox Diamond
• Personal Tutor
• Time Spiral
• Voltaic Key
Some of these cards see a decent amount of play in Vintage, some see a tiny bit of play, and others see no play at all. The DCI has done an excellent job of cleaning up the Restricted List, although more work remains.
Burning Wish was restricted in January, 2004, along with Lion’s Eye Diamond and Chrome Mox, which has since been unrestricted. The DCI explained that Burning Desire a.k.a. Long.dec, could goldfish 60% of the time on turn 1. They restricted both Burning Wish and Lion’s Eye Diamond to neuter the deck. Burning Wish was used to tutor up Yawgmoth’s Will from the sideboard, and then Tendrils of Agony. It could also find situational answers like Hull Breach or Balance. Yawgmoth’s Will could also be used multiple times to generate card advantage, and storm.
Two changes have made Burning Wish fairer as a storm engine tutor. First, the M10 Rules changes weaken all of the Wishes from Judgment. You can no longer Wish for cards that are exiled, such as Yawgmoth’s Will after being played. This means that you can’t play Demonic Consultation and Wish for cards that were removed by Consult. It also means that you can’t play Yawgmoth’s Will multiple times per game.
Second, the printing of Grim Tutor has created a stronger storm tutor. The real power of Burning Wish was with Lion’s Eye Diamond. For just two mana you can tutor and play Yawgmoth’s Will. With Lion’s Eye Diamond restricted, Grim Tutor is a better storm tutor. It’s better for a number of reasons. First, it can find any card, unlike Burning Wish. Second, Grim Tutor does not require you to play Yawgmoth’s Will in your sideboard, like Burning Wish. Today, there are a critical mass of tutors that can find Yawgmoth’s Will, such that putting it in your sideboard is not something you want to do. You want to have the ability to draw it naturally over the course of the game from time to time. In addition, Burning Wish forces you to splash for a third color, Red. Storm combo decks these days emphasize mana stability in order to survive in a field with many Fish and Workshop prison decks.
Here’s what a Revived Long.dec might look like, if Burning Wish were unrestricted:
Burning Desire, 2K10
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal
1 Lion’s Eye Diamond
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
4 Dark Ritual
2 Cabal Ritual
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Underground Sea
4 City of Brass
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Burning Wish
4 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Imperial Seal
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windfall
1 Tinker
1 Mind’s Desire
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth’s Bargain
1 Memory Jar
1 Ad Nauseam
Sideboard:
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Primitive Justice
1 Hull Breach
2 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Rebuild
2 Nature’s Claim
1 Balance
Burning Wish is probably the most innocuous card on the restricted list, as the metagame, card pool, and rules changes have all left it in the dust. I can’t possibly imagine how a Burning Wish deck could dominate Vintage.
Library of Alexandria was restricted in May, 1994, along with Feldon’s Cane, Ivory Tower, and Candelabra of Tawnos, cards that have all since been unrestricted.
Library of Alexandria was restricted because of its free card drawing ability. Turn 1 Library of Alexandria, unanswered, typically won every game by generated so much card advantage. Multiple Libraries could be chained together, activating one to draw a card, then playing a Mox or a land, activating another to draw another card.
Vintage is much faster than it was in 1994, when Library was restricted. Today, turn 1 Library is not only much less likely to translate into game or match victory, but it’s often a liability, taking up a land drop that needs to be dedicated to a colored mana source to be able to play Spell Pierce, Duress, Red Elemental Blast, or Mana Drain.
Not only is Library much less powerful today than it was in the past, multiple Libraries are not nearly as attractive as they may have been in a slower day and age. Playing consecutive Libraries may generate a good deal of card advantage, but the tempo loss could be devastating for a format like Vintage.
The one area in which Library would clearly change Vintage is Blue-based Control mirrors. Control pilots would have to consider Library as a sideboard card, much as they currently use Red Elemental Blast as a sideboard card. Control decks with additional Libraries would be at an advantage over those without. This, in turn, would make metagame positioning more important. Few control decks could afford to run a full playset of Libraries, but more than a few would run two.
Here’s a potential list with multiple Library of Alexandria:
Drain Tendrils
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Snow Covered Island
1 Swamp
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Library of Alexandria
1 Lotus Petal
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Voltaic Key
1 Time Vault
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Spell Pierce
3 Dark Ritual
3 Jace the Mind Sculptor
1 Tezzeret, the Seeker
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth’s Bargain
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Rebuild
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Time Walk
1 Ponder
1 Misdirection
Sideboard:
3 Ravenous Trap
3 Yixlid Jailer
1 Pithing Needle
2 Hurkyl’s Recall
2 Perish
2 Spell Snare
1 Tinker
1 Inkwell Leviathan
Jace and Library work very well together. Library will help you cast Jace, and Jace will help you reach Library range, by which point you can seal up the game. Library also works really well with Spell Pierce. Library would shine against Control mirrors, and would be pretty useful against Workshop decks, since it will draw your additional cards to make further land drops. Library is much weaker against Storm combo and Fish decks, where tempo is more important. Also, Library is useless when your control opponent goes broken with Tinker or Time Vault.
The irony of Library of Alexandria is that it’s actually weaker than another land from the same set that is unrestricted, Bazaar of Baghdad. Still, Library is a potent card in the right deck and in the right metagame.
However, the question is: would Library decks dominate Vintage? That is, would they help a deck like Drain Tendrils make more than 25% of Top 8s? Or would they be an engine that would make up more than 40% of Top 8s?
I don’t think so (but I could be wrong). In the 1Q 2010, 21% of Top 8 decks had a Library of Alexandria. I don’t think that unrestricting Library would change that number very much. Decks that currently run Library would continue to run Library, and may include an additional one or two, perhaps in the sideboard. Decks that don’t, won’t run it. And it wouldn’t become the backbone of a new, broken deck. It may give decks like Drain Tendrils a little bit of a boost, however, in their competition with Oath and Tezzeret.
Flash was restricted in June, 2008, along with Brainstorm, Merchant Scroll, Ponder, and Gush.
Here is what Flash looked like pre-restriction (taken from the final SCG P9 Top 8 before the June 20 restrictions):
3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
4 Protean Hulk
1 Body Double
1 Carrion Feeder
1 Reveillark
1 Mogg Fanatic
1 Body Snatcher
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Pact of Negation
4 Flash
4 Merchant Scroll
2 Summoner’s Pact
2 Ponder
2 Thoughtseize
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Misdirection
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
This deck was a fast combo deck, with plenty of Blue countermagic protection, including Pact of Negation. While powerful on paper, this deck, despite many attempts, never performed up to expectation.
This graphs charts the performance of Flash during the year in which it was legal, from June 2007 to June 20, 2008. As you can see, Flash was never more than 14% of top 8s, and averaged about 8.4% of Top 8s during the entire year. Flash received a big boost with the printing of Reveilark, after which it fell back to its historic baseline. As you can see from the chart below, Mana Drains, Gush, and Workshops all outperformed Flash at the engine level during that year.
Flash never dominated Vintage. It never even came close. If the standard of restriction is: ‘will a card produce a dominant deck,’ then Flash is clearly safe to unrestrict. Not only would Flash have to deal with all of the hate that existed during the year in which it was legal, including the silver bullet solution of Leyline of the Void, but it would have to contend with new hate and adversity, such as Ravenous Trap, Spell Pierce, and Mindbreak Trap, among others.
According to this explanation, the DCI did not restrict Flash because of its tournament dominance, but because “the ease and quickness with which it allows first and second turn kills.” While I agree that Flash could execute fast kills, I believe that this problem was easily and handily solved with the restriction of Brainstorm and Merchant Scroll.
As you can see, the core of the deck was Merchant Scroll and Brainstorm. Merchant Scroll served as a tutor for Flash, and Brainstorm helped mold your hand, trading garbage like additional Protean Hulks and Pacts for key combo ingredients. Flash is a highly conditional card. Flash requires a combo component to function: Protean Hulk. Without Brainstorm and Merchant Scroll, you can’t reliably find your combo parts with any consistency or speed.
Brainstorm was so important to this deck that Patrick Chapin and I both agreed that this deck would prefer 3 Brainstorms to having Ancestral Recall, if we had to choose. With Brainstorm, Merchant Scroll, and Ponder restricted, this deck not only loses its ability to combo out with any degree of consistency and speed, but perhaps more importantly, it loses the ability to answer cards like Leyline and mold its hand to protect its combo kill. Both Brainstorm and Scroll not only dug for the combo parts, they also helped the deck assemble protection, like Chain of Vapor or Force of Will.
With Brainstorm and Merchant Scroll restricted, Flash is a rather harmless combo that would expand the variety of deck options in the format, without risking a possibly dominant deck. I see no chance, however remote, that unrestricted Flash would dominate Vintage. It would have to jump more than 10% from its historic peak, when both Brainstorm and Merchant Scroll were legal. Plus, it would give Vintage a real budget option, since Flash would be much less expensive than other Vintage decks.
Here is what Flash might look like today, were it legal:
Post-Restriction Flash
3 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
4 Protean Hulk
1 Body Double
1 Carrion Feeder
1 Reveillark
1 Mogg Fanatic
1 Body Snatcher
4 Force of Will
1 Brainstorm
4 See Beyond
4 Pact of Negation
4 Flash
1 Merchant Scroll
2 Summoner’s Pact
1 Ponder
2 Duress
1 Thoughtseize
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Misdirection
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
Demonic Consultation was restricted in September, 2000, along with Necropotence. The explanation was as follows:
Demonic Consultation
In a format where all the other “tutor” cards are restricted (Demonic,
Enlightened, Mystical, etc.), Demonic Consultation stood out as a
powerhouse. Especially, since Demonic Consultation was arguably more
powerful than many of those other tutors.
In the years since the restriction of Demonic Consultation, it has seen little play. Part of the reason for that is that the best cards in Vintage are restricted, and Consult cannot be used to find them with any consistency.
More importantly, the Restricted List looks much different than it did in 2000. While there are fewer cards on the Restricted List today, the Restricted List is much more focused. Today, the Restricted List is largely about two decks: 1) The Mana Drain control deck, and 2) the U/B Dark Ritual combo deck. Those are the two archetypes fill up the vast majority of the Restricted List, and look largely highlander-ish as a result. Cards that aren’t abuseable or likely to be abused by those decks have been carefully unrestricted over time. Consequently, most of the other decks in the format look like normal Magic decks, with only a few singletons.
That’s why Demonic Consultation is such a candidate for unrestriction. The two major decks that constitute the Restricted List, the Mana Drain Control Deck and the Dark Ritual combo deck, would not be able to abuse this card. Thus, the decks that are built around cards like Time Vault, Tinker, Yawgmoth’s Will, Necropotence, Yawgmoth’s Bargain, and Mind’s Desire cannot use Demonic Consultation to tutor up these cards.
Instead, the decks that would most abuse Demonic Consultation would be decks the other decks in the format, decks like Beats, Fish, Workshop decks, and mono-black or largely mono-black Dark Ritual decks. For example, Demonic Consultation could be an excellent tutor for BR Stax, if Consult were unrestricted.
Perhaps the most broken home for Consult would be in Ad Nauseam combo, which might look like this:
Ad Nauseam Combo
1 Black Lotus
4 Chrome Mox
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
4 Ad Nauseam
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Demonic Consultation
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Duress
1 Imperial Seal
3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Pact of Negation
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
3 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ponder
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
This deck is currently a poor performer in Vintage, and has only gotten worse in recent months with the printing of cards like Mindbreak Trap and Lodestone Golem. Demonic Consultation would give it a boost, and increase the diversity of the format, without creating a dominant deck. I would expect that Ad Nauseam would rise to above 5% of Top 8s again, with Demonic Consultation. There is no chance that it would become more than 25% of Top 8s, even with Demonic Consultation. It might also give Dark Rituals a little bit of a boost to compete with other engines like Mishra’s Workshop and Mana Drain. Consult could also find a home in Beats decks and Stax.
The reason Gush decks were so good in the year that Gush was unrestricted was because of the synergistic power of Fastbond, Brainstorm, Gush, Merchant Scroll and Ponder. This engine could be thrown into almost any blue deck in Vintage, and it was instantly better. The restriction of Brainstorm and Merchant Scroll killed this engine, known as the Gush-Bond engine. Without Brainstorm and Merchant Scroll, you can’t reliably chain Gushes to produce a massive Yawgmoth’s Will, all in a single turn. For that reason, the restriction of Gush, much like Flash, was unnecessary.
Without Merchant Scroll and Brainstorm, there is no chance that Gush could dominate Vintage.
Importantly, even at its peak, Gush decks never even came close to the level of dominance that Mana Drain decks did after Gush was restricted. This graph shows both Mana Drain and Gush decks from June, 2007 through December, 2009.
Following the unrestriction of Gush, Gush decks hovered around 25% of Top 8s until Gush was re-restricted. At that time, Mana Drain decks soared to about 45% of Top 8s, and have fallen to around where Gush decks were when they were restricted. Part of the reason for that was the restriction of Thirst For Knowledge. More recently, however, Spell Pierce has begun to replace Mana Drain in some decks.
If Gush were unrestricted, but Merchant Scroll, Brainstorm and Ponder remained Restricted, Gush would probably become a minor role-player in the Vintage format. It would be powerful enough to see play, but not powerful enough to dominate Vintage or come even close to its previous levels of success. However, and importantly, it would provide a counter-weight to the Mana Drain decks in the format. Workshop decks, now powered with Lodestone Golem, and Beats decks, often running Gaddock Teeg, and now Oath decks, with monsters like Iona, would serve as a powerful check.
If Gush were unrestricted, here is how I would build a reconstituted GroAtog:
GroAtog with 4 Gush
4 Force of Will
4 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
4 Spell Pierce
2 Misdirection
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Gush
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
4 Quirion Dryad
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Fastbond
1 Regrowth
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Echoing Truth
1 Time Walk
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
Sideboard:
3 Island
2 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Rebuild
2 Seal of Primoridum
3 Yixlid Jailer
2 Pithing Needle
2 Tormod’s Crypt
The attractiveness of unrestricting Gush is that it could provide a metagame competitor for Mana Drain decks. In fact, that is precisely the function of Gush decks! They allow Aggro-Control decks to win counterwars against their more powerful Mana Drain opponents. Keep in mind that Mana Drain decks would still have a powerful counter-answer in Mystic Remora, since Gush decks would still play multiple spells per turn. Moreover, as we know from the last year and a half, the better Gush decks perform, the better Workshops perform. Workshop are, thanks to Lodestone Golem, once again rising in the metagame, yet another check on Gush decks.
There are a few potential risks, though. Bringing Gush back might help revive Grow, which would potentially hurt Dark Ritual combo decks and Fish decks (unless Demonic Consultation was also unrestricted), if the Gush deck was more than a marginal part of the metagame. Ultimately, I think unrestricting Gush would increase metagame diversity without creating a dominant deck, satisfying the standard for unrestriction.
I’m interested to read your thoughts, and see the poll results. But I’m most interested to see what the DCI has in store.
Until next time…
* Why, then does Matt Elias advocate listening to players? His argument is basically that Vintage is a niche format, and as such it should be treated differently than other formats, according to different standards. He points to the recent demand for ‘throwback’ tournaments that use older B/R Lists, and thinks that using the B/R list to ‘shake things’ up and generate interest.
Again, I couldn’t disagree more. I oppose any attempt to treat Vintage like a non-real format. Doing so, in my opinion, would only make things worse, and only further depress tournament attendance. As for his evidence: The two “Throwback” tournaments had miserable attendance, 13 and 11 players in each instance. While some vocal players may be asking for it, that doesn’t mean that most players or the average player would enjoy such a thing. The DCI should keep on doing what it’s doing.