There is a saying “when it rains, it pours” to describe the occurrence of many things, good or bad, within a short period of time. The changes to Vintage seem to fit that description. The massive upheaval to the Vintage format in the last month is akin to getting a handsome job promotion requiring you to pack your bags, leave all your friends and family behind, and move to a strange new city, while simultaneously being informed that your sister is getting married, and discovering that an old friend that you hadn’t seen in some time passed away. The sum total of the changes in Vintage have left me excited, breathless, uncertain, apprehensive, frustrated, and jubilant all at the same time.
It seems like every office at Wizards has contributed to the Vintage chaos. First, R&D handed us Future Sight, the set that gave us proportionately more Vintage playables than Mirrodin. Then, the Rules Team decided to fix Flash, introducing two new Flash decks to Vintage (one is the familiar Hulk Flash, the other is built around Academy Rector – both are broken). Then the DCI decided to show their hand. As if the tumult in the span of a few weeks wasn’t enough, the DCI reconfigured the Restricted List in unprecedented ways, including the unrestriction of Mind Twist, Gush, and the restriction of Gifts Ungiven.
The most significant and impactful change of all during a month punctuated by massive, format upheaval, is the unrestriction of Gush. To understand the significance of this unrestriction, we need to put restriction in context. In the second half of this article I’ll explore the logic behind the most recent wave of restricted list amendments and see what they portend for the future of Vintage. But first, let’s all welcome GroAtog to 2007. I can’t say we missed you, but it is fun to have you back!
GroAtog (GAT) is one of the most legendary decks in Vintage history. Not only was it one of the most dominant decks to ever explode onto the Vintage metagame, but it was also one of the best ever.
If you are interested, you can read about it in these two articles:
Gardening in Vintage: How to GroAtog and Clip a Lotus (Feb. 2003)
This article was the splash article that introduced the deck to most of the Vintage audience. It covers card choices, 2003 matchups, and two tournament reports.
That’s Gush Boys: Why Gush Needed to be Restricted (Aug. 2003)
This article reviews the various iterations of GroAtog that emerged from its first major showing to its demise.
A year after Gush was restricted, I ran a tournament featuring six of the most powerful, banned decks from Vintage history. In this mélange of Necropotences, Academies, Balances, and Fact or Fictions, you might be surprised to learn that GroAtog took second place, beating everything but the monstrous 4 Lion’s Eye Diamond deck only known as “Long.dec.”
And now its back.
Creatures (8)
Lands (14)
Spells (38)
Here are the key principles to remember:
1) GroAtog is an aggro-control deck that combos out. GroAtog drops Dryads onto the table in the early game, uses cheap draw and a light manabase to win counter wars. Sooner or later, the deck puts together the combo of Fastbond + Yawgmoth’s Will and the game ends with either gigantic Quirion Dryads or Psychatog Berserking over for the win. Alternatively, the deck just Wishes for Berserk and wins without having to use Yawgmoth’s Will.
2) While it doesn’t play itself, GroAtog is probably the most intuitive deck in Vintage. One of the features of the Four Gush era is that people who had never played Vintage were showing up to tournaments with GroAtog and winning them.
Say your hand is:
Mox Emerald
Underground Sea
Tropical Island
Quirion Dryad
Gush
Force of Will
Misdirection
Playing turn 1 Quirion Dryad will pop out to even the most inexperienced player. It’s the only spell you can play, and playing spells is intuitive. After all, that’s why we play mana in the first place.
Once the Dryad is in play, it will be further logical to play more spells to make him as large as possible and to use your countermagic to protect him. Playing Gush with the Dryad in play is therefore intuitive. More often than not, this will be the right play. For that reason, there is no need to realize beforehand that once the Dryad hits play that you’ll probably be able to protect it long enough to win. Just as a consequence of making the obvious tactical play, you’ll end up making the right strategic plays without even realizing it.
People are inclined to play threats, and then inclined to protect them when the need arises. That’s one reason why these decks are so powerful – they don’t demand much of us in order to play them well. Although mastery of GroAtog requires a better sense of timing and higher level grasp of the subtle decisions that will arise, to win with GroAtog even against the fiercest Vintage competition does not really require that much of you. You don’t have to think strategically about the long term; you don’t even have to have a strong command over the Vintage card pool or common tactical plays. If you just make the obvious plays with GroAtog, you’ll probably win. It’s that good. I think that it’s even more obvious than the Ichorid deck.
3) GroAtog doesn’t lose counter wars. Because of GroAtog incredibly light manabase, it can pack proportionately more spells than other decks. Its manabase can be so light because all of its spells are so cheap. Most of the deck costs two or less, with the exception of Yawgmoth’s Will, Cunning Wish, and Psychatog. To beat GAT, you have to find some other angle of attack. In addition, Merchant Scrolls, Brainstorms, and Gushes ensure that you have access to more Force of Wills than any other deck in the format at any given time, and Gush gives you the card advantage to support them.
4) GroAtog doesn’t have to waste slots on defense. All of its disruption is primarily offensive. Most Aggro-Control decks in Vintage have the fundamental problem of needing to disrupt the opponent with Null Rods, Swords to Plowshares, and Meddling Mage so that the opponent won’t overpower it. GroAtog is as powerful as any other insane combo deck in Vintage. It has larger men than other Aggro-Control decks and equally powerful cards to any Mana Drain or combo deck.
5) GroAtog is a Yawgmoth’s Will deck that doesn’t need Yawgmoth’s Will to win. GroAtog was one of the best decks in Vintage at abusing Yawgmoth’s Will. That’s why Gush was restricted in the first place. When Onslaught Fetchlands were printed, suddenly you could play a four-color deck on a fourteen-land manabase that included dual lands. That mean you could combine Gro with Yawgmoth’s Will. Suddenly a monster was born. When Yawgmoth’s Will is played, the GroAtog decks does insane things.
6) Cards that did not exist when Gush was restricted: Storm became legal the day that Gush was restricted. It is possible that a Gush Storm deck is the best Gush shell. I tried to build a Fastbond + Gush + Yawgmoth’s Will deck, but it wasn’t as good as this. Oath of Druids was legal, but Forbidden Orchard had not seen print. It possible that if GroAtog becomes too good, Oath could be a foil. Then again, GAT might just Berserk over Akroma. Also, Chalice of the Void had not seen print. Chalice for two can be a backbreaker against GAT. Stax was initially pioneered in the heart of the GAT era, so GAT technology had evolved to beat Stax, but Stax could still pose a metagame threat to GAT.
7) Although GAT was good in 2003, the metagame was very different. To rebuild GAT, I started from scratch.
The Core Spells
4 Gush
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Quirion Dryad
Those spells are the core inclusions that form the backbone of any GroAtog list. The restricted cards that also merit no justification are:
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Fastbond
The Fastbond is a crucial component. It enables the deck to combo out, giving it an important edge in tight matchups and a possible way to win early on with a bit of luck.
4 Merchant Scroll
In the previous Four Gush era, Merchant Scroll was viewed as a nice support card. In the first instance, you can Scroll up Ancestral Recall. This was one of the key engines for Meandeck Gifts. Since this deck runs four Gush, you can never really be concerned that subsequent Scrolls won’t be able to find a good card. In addition, Scroll can find Force of Will, Mystical Tutor for Yawgmoth’s Will, and utility like Echoing Truth or Fire/Ice.
4 Duress
As I wrote in my final article on GAT back in 2003, Duress was increasingly viewed as a necessity. It provides you critical information to build a game plan around. It is also critically important in the Combo metagame where Flash and Grim Long variants lurk around darkened corners. Not to mention it is powerful against all stripes of Control decks, Fish, and the mirror.
Misdirection
This card is well known for its ability to help you resolve spells. Back in the day I enjoyed playing with a full playset of this card. Any card that ensures the resolution of Dryads and Ancestral Recall can’t be that bad. In many cases it performs exactly as Force of Will might. The only question is how many to run.
Imperial Seal
This may seem like an automatic inclusion, and perhaps I’m wrong not to consider it so, but I think being an instant is of great importance in this deck. Playing spells on your second turn upkeep before your draw is a critical play that this card cannot perform.
Sleight of Hand
Although a useful card in the past, I’m not sure that this card really has a place. My preference is to rely more on Merchant Scroll to help you dig via Ancestral and the use of Street Wraith
Counterspell/Mana Drain
These cards are considerations. If you are going to run one, I would suggest that you run Mana Drain over Counterspell. The mana burn shouldn’t be that big of a deal. This slot is a bit antiquated and I wouldn’t run it unless you want to surprise your opponent or unless your metagame demands it.
Cunning Wish
This card isn’t spectacular, but it is probably worth the slot. It is an easy Scroll target that can find cards like Berserk, Rack and Ruin, Artifact Mutation, Fire/Ice, Red Elemental Blast, and removed Ancestral Recall, Gush, and Force of Will. It isn’t going to be shut off by Chalice of the Void. A useful singleton that I prefer to run over other bounce spells.
Psychatog
While this card is outmoded, it’s still worth running in some number. First of all, it pitches to Force of Will and Misdirection. Second, turn 3 Psychatog played off Gushed lands makes Dr. Teeth quite angry. He can swing in for a whole lotta damage. Especially if you have another Gush.
Street Wraith
This card probably also belongs in some number. Fitting it all together is the trick.
Regrowth
This card belongs. It recurs Ancestral, which you can find quite easily, Time Walk, and can help you try to Will again if it was countered the first time.
The Mana
This is the area where most of the disagreement will arise. Some players will swear by Library of Alexandria. Others will demand that you splash Red for the mirror and Workshops. Others will swear by Strip Mine. Most importantly, there is no clear answer to the question of how many Moxen to run.
It seems obvious to me that Mana Vault probably doesn’t belong. But it also seems to me that we probably made a mistake in 2003 in not running Mana Crypt. Mana Crypt can support incredible plays in GAT. I would run Mana Crypt before Mox Pearl, but Mox Pearl probably deserves a place as well. This is a debate that time will have to resolve.
The first question you have to answer is whether you want to run the red splash. Here is what I gets you:
Fire/Ice
Lava Dart
Artifact Mutation
Red Elemental Blast
Flametongue Kavu
Rack and Ruin
Beyond that question, there is the further question of how to best attack Ichorid. Should you run Leylines? Planar Void? Tormod’s Crypt? Yixlid Jailer? Pithing Needle? Some combination of the above?
Submerge is also a card that I think is probably golden and deserves at least two sideboard slots.
Now that you’ve seen my list, note that if you don’t want to run the Street Wraiths, I suggest that you cut them for Imperial Seal, a second Psychatog, and a third Misdirection.
This deck is probably the presumptive best deck in the format and can handle most of what anything can throw at it. It’s also tremendous fun to play. GroAtog only unfavorable game one is probably Ichorid. Note that the sideboard is designed to handle Ichorid, Workshops, the mirror, and the control matchups. If you have any questions about it, I’ll try to answer them in the forums.
The intriguing question will be whether this deck, a blast from the past, can hang with the developments since. I have no doubt that it can beat combo – and I doubt that GWS Long looks forward to this match. The question is whether the general card pool has grown so that it can contain this monster. Will Oath of Druids return to combat GAT? What about Chalice of the Void in Workshop decks? Time will tell.
The Vintage Restricted List
I somehow typed out twenty pages of text for this segment of the article.
Single spaced.
I edited it and sent it in. A couple of days later, I told Craig (our dear editor) that I was going to re-edit it and then re-submit it.
Edit it I did. Over and over again.
As it grew ever longer and ever more detailed, I reluctantly decided that no one here was going to want to read my extensive historical analysis of prior restrictions, my detailed parsing of various arguments for restriction, and so on. It was too pedantic. Therefore, I posted it on the Mana Drain where the Vintage die-hards could enjoy it without having to pay premium. If you want to read it, click here (and read my refutation and replies to what other people said in response).
With that article out of the way, I feel somehow liberated to summarize the most salient points without having to delve too deeply into the history. I can highlight the major points made in my article there, but put it in a more user-friendly form.
As you know, on June 1st, the DCI announced the unrestriction of Voltaic Key, Black Vise, Mind Twist, and Gush, while simultaneously informing the community of the restriction of Gifts Ungiven.
I applaud the DCI for unrestricted Black Vise, Voltaic Key, and Mind Twist. None of these cards should have any significant impact in the Vintage metagame. Cleaning up the list gives the casual crowd more toys to play with and the average Vintage player more cards to consider.
Although I am a bit concerned about the unrestriction of Gush, the deed is done, so I will hope for the best.
Gush was restricted on June 1st (effective July 1st), 2003. In the last 12 restrictions since the restriction of Fact or Fiction in late 2001, this was the only instance where a deck has truly dominated the Vintage format, and I have the data to prove it – to my knowledge, the first major analysis of tournament data ever conducted in Vintage. I ran an analysis of the metagame leading up to the restriction of Gush and found that Gush was making 40% of Top 8s from roughly Feb. 2003 through its restriction point. You probably have no idea how hard that is to do until you actually study the data. To spoil a bit of the surprise, Gifts was 8.5% of the Vintage metagame in 2006.
2003 GroAtog dominance was briefly interrupted by the emergence of Stax and Rector Trix. But no sooner had Stax emerged, then GroAtog evolved around it with Artifact Mutation. The same was true of Rector with Coffin Purge. To achieve a 40% Top 8 performance rate in Vintage over the long term over many continents is incredibly difficult. This feat has not been repeated. This would be the last restriction in Vintage based on format dominance.
Now, let’s talk about Gifts Ungiven.
1. The Vintage community and player base is large and diverse. Like any large grouping of people, there is going to be a great diversity of opinion.
An unfortunate feature of this community is that there are large segments of it that perpetually ask the DCI to restrict cards for one reason or another. This is an unbroken chain of demands that run as far back as the format has been around.
In 2002, Darren Di Battista, after convincing Mark Rosewater to restrict Fact or Fiction on virtually his word alone, argued strenuously that Back to Basics should be restricted. Click here, here, and here for evidence. Darren was probably the premiere Vintage writer in 2001 and 2002.
Yes. Back to Basics.
In fact, he was so persuasive that Aaron Forsythe wrote to Oscar Tan asking him if Back to Basics should be restricted.
What is your opinion on Back to Basics? Restrict, ban, nothing? People sure do complain about it a lot.
Stop laughing. Forsythe was being serious.
In that same year, many Vintage players vehemently complained about Illusionary Mask and Back to Basics. Many Vintage players were furious that Illusionary Mask was so strangely errated, upending their format.
Then in 2003, after Gush was restricted, the recently printed Cabal Therapy saw savage use with Academy Rector. The push to restrict Rector was strong. Randy Buehler talked to a number of players at GenCon who all complained about the card. It was a tutor that put Yawgmoth’s Bargain directly into play! When Psychatog won the GenCon Championship with two Mask decks in the Top 8, and two Workshop decks, Academy Rector seemed to be non-threatening. Nonetheless, I did a poll of the Vintage community, and whopping 20% felt that Rector should still be restricted: In the fall of 2003, exactly 20% of the community thought Rector should be restricted (33 out of 165 votes). It may not have had the tournament results to support it, but people were up in arms nonetheless.
Despite a very vocal and sizable minority calling for its restriction, the DCI did not pull the plug.
That same year, Oscar Tan ran a poll of the major Vintage players (including myself and Brian Weissman), asking what should be restricted.
Go ahead. Click it.
Look how many of the Vintage regulars wanted Mishra’s Workshop and Dark Ritual restricted.
Most interestingly, although LED and Chrome Mox got the most votes for restriction (14 votes out of 17 possible in both instances – with three “watch” for the latter), look how many people voted for the restriction of Spoils of the Vault: a majority of the people voting.
Spoils of the Vault sees no play in Vintage right now.
Funny how that turned out.
Look how many votes Intuition and even Chalice of the Void got. In his article explaining the restriction of Lion’s Eye Diamond, Burning Wish, and Chrome Mox, Randy Buehler notes that they seriously discussed the restriction of Cunning Wish, Chalice of the Void, and Bazaar of Baghdad. I recommend you read the entire article because it’s fascinating and because it provides insight into their thought process.
In 2004, Trinisphere was printed and players began to call for the restriction of Mishra’s Workshop. This time, Crucible of Worlds was the target of derision. People compared Crucible to Library of Alexandria and completely distorted the format. In addition, by the end of the year people were calling for the restriction of Oath of Druids or Forbidden Orchard and then Dark Ritual.
By 2005, the calls to restrict Dark Ritual and Mishra’s Workshop intensified.
In 2006, with Mishra’s Workshop and Dark Ritual seemingly staying around, the argument shifted to Gifts Ungiven and Grim Tutor. By the end of 2006, both cards were called to be axed.
Consider this list of cards that have, at one time or another, been part of a push for restriction:
Illusionary Mask
Mishra’s Workshop
Spoils of the Vault
Intuition
Cunning Wish
Thirst for Knowledge
Back to Basics
Chalice of the Void
Goblin Welder
Academy Rector
Crucible of Worlds
Grim Tutor
Bazaar of Baghdad
And that’s the short list.
The DCI ignored the calls to restrict all of those cards. You know why?
Because they used their better judgment.
2) 99% of the time that a Vintage player calls for the *restriction* of a card (not unrestriction), they are wrong.
Part of the reason that the call or general movement to restrict a card eventually subsides is because the metagame adjusts to it. Rather than actually let the metagame adjust, the Vintage player’s first instinct is to ask the DCI to do something about it. Just witness the reaction to Flash and Ichorid right now.
Take the call to restrict Academy Rector in 2003. People started playing with Coffin Purges in their sideboard and Rectors became harder to protect. In time, new cards are printed that make these formerly more powerful strategies less worthy of restriction. Today, Extirpate is powerful against Rector decks, not to mention Leyline of the Void. Similarly, Illusionary Mask decks sort of went away and the printing of the Onslaught Fetchlands brought many more basic lands into the format so that Back to Basics became a non-issue. Most of the time, the complained of card does well for a while but then fades away.
Since the restriction of Gush, there have only been eight restrictions. Four of them were pre-emptive, that is – they were restricted as a matter of principle at the earliest possible opportunity. These cards were Mind’s Desire, Chrome Mox, and then when Portal was legalized, Imperial Seal and Personal Tutor.
In short, in four years there have only been four restrictions based upon people complaining: Trinisphere, Lion’s Eye Diamond, Burning Wish, and now Gifts Ungiven.
The last card to see restriction since Gifts was Trinisphere, announced March 1, 2005.
In short, we’ve gone two glorious years and a quarter in Vintage without a restriction and everything has been fine.
3) So, how should we restrict cards in Vintage?
Based upon the previous eleven restrictions, we can see four basic, often overlapping, criteria for restriction:
1) Some cards will be restricted because they lock the opponent out of the game on turn 1 (non-interactive, unfunness). This is Trinisphere, LED, and Burning Wish.
2) Other cards will be restricted in principle of objective brokenness: Mind’s Desire, Chrome Mox, Imperial Seal on a pre-emptive basis. Buehler warned us to expect these cards to get restricted at the earliest opportunity.
3) Other cards are the core of a “best deck” — this is where one deck dominates the metagame: Gush.
4) Metagame warping — this is the less extreme version of dominance where the format warps around the deck, but the deck isn’t clearly the best deck: Trinisphere
Now, let’s apply these criteria to Gifts:
1) Was Gifts Metagame Dominant?
The benchmark for dominance was set by GroAtog, the only deck that has caused a card to be restricted for actual dominance.
Compare my article on GroAtog dominance to this data for Gifts:
Here are the major tournaments for 2006 and 2007
9 Gifts Control out of 184. 4.89% of the metagame
2 in Top 8
NOTE: For all of this data, I’m including decks that weren’t labeled Gifts but ran them in multiples. For instance, if a Gro deck had Gifts, I counted it.
18/148 = 12.1% of the metagame
1 in Top 8
3) SCG VA: Day 2
21/119 = 17.6% of the metagame
1 in Top 8
4) SCG Rochester, Day 1: (June)
7/112 = 6.25 % of the metagame
0 in Top 8
5) SCG Rochester, Day 2: (June)
5/96 = 5.2% of the metagame
1 in Top 8
6) SCG Charlotte, Day 1: July
5/49 = 10% of the metagame
2 in Top 8
7) SCG Charlotte, Day 2: July
4/52 = 7% of the metagame
1 in Top 8
11/147 = 7.4% of the metagame
1 in Top 8
9) Waterbury, Day 2
5/70 = 7.1% of the metagame
0 in Top 8
10) Vintage Championship
We don’t have actual breakdown of decks, but… 2 in Top 8
While we don’t have actual metagame data, we do have Ted Knutson finals Swiss round breakdown:
1) 2 Pitch Long
2) 2 EBA (U/B/W Fish)
3) UbaStax versus Bomberman
4) Mishra’s Workshop Aggro versus EBA
5) Stax versus BHMC Tendrils
6) Gifts Control versus EBA
7) Long versus Meandeck Gifts
8) Burning Slaver versus DPS (Storm)
9) Dragon versus Gifts Control
10) Pitch Long mirror
Note that that makes there only TWO Gifts decks in the Top 20 decks. That is about a 10% metagame breakdown.
11) SCG Boston, Day 1: Sept
13/117 = 13% of the metagame
2 in Top 8
12) SCG Boston, Day 2: Sept
11/77 = 14% of the metagame
4 in Top 8
13) SCG Roanoke, Day 1
4/47 = 8% of the metagame
1 in Top 8
14) SCG Roanoke, Day 2
5/43 = 11% of the metagame
1 in Top 8
15) Waterbury, Day 1: Jan, 2007
22/153 = 14.3 % of the metagame
3 in Top 8
16) Waterbury, Day 2, Jan. 2007
8/90 = 8.8% of the metagame (half of these were Dry Slaver)
2 in Top 8
In short: Gifts wasn’t 40% of the metagame.
It wasn’t 35%
It wasn’t 30% of the metagame
It wasn’t even 20% of the metagame!
It was, at most, 17.6% of the metagame in March, 2006! A year ago!
Aggregating all of those tournaments, out of a grand total of 1504 players, Gifts was a total of 139 players, for a grand total of 9.24 % of the metagame.
Note that Gifts wasn’t even remotely dominant in Top 8s either. Out of 120 possible Top 8 slots (excluding the Vintage Champs, since we don’t have tournament body data for that), it was only 18.3% of Top 8s. There was only one tournament where Gifts was more than three decks in the Top 8. That’s pretty far from dominance. In fact, that’s downright average for a Tier 1 deck.
In addition, the lone tournament (January Waterbury) where Gifts got four players in the Top 8 is right in line with how that tournament traditionally performs for Blue-based control decks in Vintage. Two years prior in the same tournament, there were four Control Slaver lists in the Top 8 and eight in the Top 16. Control Slaver, also won that year’s previous World Championship, just as Gifts had in this instance. In any case, if Gifts was restricted for dominance, which it clearly wasn’t, than the fact that Welder or Thirst For Knowledge weren’t also restricted following the 2005 Waterbury is inconsistent. Control Slaver truly dominated that particular tournament and clinched the previous year’s World Champs.
2) What about metagame warping?
Trinisphere was truly metagame warping. The decks that performed in the Trinisphere in environment were heavily geared to foiling the Trinisphere tactic. This is why Rebuild TPS and Control Slaver were the major decks in the Trinisphere era. To survive in that era, you had to have an amazing turn 1 play, plenty of basic lands, run Force of Wills, or play Workshops yourself. There was very little wiggle room. Sideboards were also packed with Rack and Ruins and Rebuilds.
In contrast, very few decks specifically aim for Gifts. Hate like Tormod’s Crypt and Red Elemental Blast are generalized anti- Blue-based Yawgmoth’s Will strategies. One of the dominant forces in the Vintage metagame has been Combo Control decks abusing Mana Drain. Gifts is only one species of this brand of deck. Control Slaver, Drain Tendrils, Oath, and Gifts are all roughly as fast and most are vulnerable to the same things: Null Rod, Red Blast, Tormod’s Crypt, etc. Gifts didn’t really change anything in the metagame. It was so good because it was more resilient to Pitch Long than Slaver, due to Merchant Scroll.
3) What about being non-interactive or unfun?
The complaint against Trinisphere and Burning Wish plus Lion’s Eye Diamond was that the opponent often never got a turn or opportunity to play spells. At least, this is how Aaron and Randy described the reasons for the restriction of these cards. Far from locking the opponent out on the first turn, Gifts decks are inherently slow. They require a critical mass of mana and protection in order to combo out.
An early Gifts is a solid play, but never a game winner by itself. It requires a great deal of set up and forethought. In sharp contrast to Trinisphere, Gifts was generally considered to be quite fun and often highly interactive. Sure, most of the time if you did it right the Gifts piles didn’t matter. But it required decision-making on the part of both players. Most players thought Gifts added a nice layer of skill to the format. Unskilled players rarely could succeed with Gifts, whereas Trinisphere was a play that anyone could make win.
4) What about being objectively broken or restricted on principle?
Gifts Ungiven is no Mind’s Desire. On the other hand, many have seriously suggested that this is the criteria under which Gifts should have been unrestricted, and that tracks some of Forsythe’s justification.
Perhaps the closest point of comparison is Burning Wish. Burning Wish was restricted to kill Long.dec, a deck that was too fast, and because of its power with finding broken Sorceries. I believe that Burning Wish probably didn’t need restriction. The restriction of Lion’s Eye Diamond was enough to kill Long.dec, and Grim Tutor is a better card in any case because it can find Black Lotus and Ancestral Recall, and doesn’t require you to junk your deck with things like Chromatic Spheres. Grim Tutor is and should remain unrestricted. Burning Wish helped produce a deck that unacceptably knocked the opponent out of the game before it began. Grim Tutor combo decks are blazingly fast as well. In contrast, Gifts Ungiven requires a lot more set up to win and very, very rarely wins on turn 1.
In short, this restriction wasn’t based on dominance like Gush. Nor was it based on objective power like Desire (otherwise it would have been restricted like Chrome Mox and Mind’s Desire – coterminous with the set release). Nor was it restricted on the grounds of extreme metagame warping un-fun-ness like Trinisphere.
So, if it wasn’t restricted on those obvious grounds, then why was it restricted?
Here’s how Aaron Forsythe justified the restriction:
Powerful spells that tutor for a single card are generally restricted in this format, so what about one that tutors for four cards? Seems natural, especially as the card’s cousin, Fact or Fiction, also resides on the Restricted List.
Gifts Ungiven was, for a long time, used primarily in a deck based around it – "Gifts" – that would control the game long enough to tutor up a suite of win conditions that left the opponent no way out. Recently the card has been creeping into other decks, including Control Slaver and Gro-A-Tog, as its power is undeniable. It should still see play as a one-of.
Let me evaluate the logic. But first let’s recapitulate in standard form:
Gifts was restricted on the grounds that 1) it was a powerful restriction-worthy tutor, 2) that it was akin to other cards already restricted, and 3) that it was popping up in other decks to show how powerful it was.
The Tutor Argument
The answer to the tutor argument is awkwardly simple: Gifts isn’t busted because it’s a tutor and finds four cards – it’s busted because it is so effective with a particular card and pretty much that card alone: Yawgmoth’s Will (much like Burning Wish).
It is hard to imagine designing a tutor with so many built in synergies with Will as Gifts has. Note: do not mistake me when I say that Gifts is good because of Yawgmoth’s Will – that doesn’t mean your first Gifts pile finds Yawgmoth’s Will, but what makes Gifts strategically viable is that eventually you’ll find Will. For instance, your first “set up” gifts may just find Recoup and three non-Will cards. Then your second Gifts puts Will in the yard. Let me put it this way: Counterfactually, if Yawgmoth’s Will were banned in Vintage, Gifts Ungiven is not restriction worthy and probably unplayed. The veracity of that claim is not contested.
As for the claim that powerful tutors are generally restricted, Grim Tutor is rightfully unrestricted. Academy Rector was not restricted despite a strong push in 2003. Many felt that Rector + Cabal Therapy to not only tutor up Yawgmoth’s Bargain, but put it directly into play was just unfair. Today, that play is much more easily accomplished with Flash, and yet Flash isn’t restricted. Flash + Academy Rector is instant 1U tutor for Yawgmoth’s Bargain and put it directly into play! The inconsistency is too bare to escape notice or to withstand critical judgment.
And yet, in my view, the most powerful unrestricted tutor in Vintage wasn’t Gifts, Grim Tutor, or even Academy Rector – it was and remains Merchant Scroll. It finds Ancestral Recall, Gush, any bounce spell you may need given the situation, and helps tutor chain for Yawgmoth’s Will with Mystical Tutor for only 1UU. What this shows is that we don’t restrict great tutors in Vintage on principle alone – they have to be more than great tutors; they have to be problematic. Academy Rector, Grim Tutor, and Merchant Scroll have all been given a pass because of this. Burning Wish was not so lucky.
Regarding Forsythe’s argument that the fact that Gifts gets four cards is another supporting justification: Intuition tutors for three cards – one card per mana, just like Gifts. And yet Intuition has been legal for a very long time with no hint of restriction, despite powering the best control deck in the format from late 2003 through most of 2004. The restriction of Gifts now makes little more sense than restricting Intuition back in early 2004. Moreover, Intuition allows you to get any cards at one mana per card – not just different ones as required by Gifts. And yet no one would seriously talk of restricting Intuition.
The Fact Comparison
The other argument for restriction is that how can it make sense to have Gifts unrestricted while Fact or Fiction is restricted? Fact or Fiction is objectively broken in its own right regardless of what you Fact into. In contrast, Gifts Ungiven is only good because of Yawgmoth’s Will. People argue that Gifts wins the game when you play it. This is false. Turn 1 Mana Crypt, Mox, land, Gifts Ungiven does not equal game over. Sure, you can set up very solid Gifts piles, but if you don’t have the resources online yet to combo out, your opponent will have a chance to win first or disrupt your attempts to make anything of the meager card advantage you just achieved. Even a simple Duress can be a knockout. On the contrary, turn 1 Mox, Mana Crypt, land, Fact or Fiction on turn 1 is a much more powerful play than turn 1 Gifts. That’s because Gifts is a Yawgmoth’s Will engine while Fact is a card advantage/digging engine.
Some vocal Vintage players – Ben Carp stands out – have repeated ad nauseam that Gifts should be restricted because Fact is restricted. While facially sensible, these arguments miss crucial subtleties because these players never actually played with four Facts. One such point is explained in the paragraph above. Another such point is this: the power of Fact in multiples versus its objective power as a singleton. Similar to Mind’s Desire, Facting into Facts is not only extremely powerful, but also not that unlikely. This is because of how deep Fact digs. If you don’t hit a Fact with Fact, you are much more likely to see another one soon thereafter. Gifts, on the contrary, isn’t as synergistic with other Gifts. Sure, a Gifts preceding a Gifts for Yawgmoth’s Will can make your Yawgmoth’s Will more explosive, but it’s not the same thing. And Gifting for Gifts isn’t generally the go-to play. The principle for restricting Fact doesn’t apply to Gifts. Fact was an insane engine its own right that synergized enormously with other Facts. Gifts is almost entirely reliant upon Yawgmoth’s Will. The inherent value of Gifts doesn’t rise dramatically when it interacts with other Gifts. The opposite is true of Fact. Thus, the case for restricting Fact is completely different from the case for restricting Gifts, if we are talking from a purely functional perspective.
Another important point that really undermines the logic of the Fact/Gifts comparison for restricting Gifts: If Gush can be unrestricted, a card that was restricted in 2003 on the strongest evidence of format dominance, then Fact or Fiction’s place on the restricted list is thrown into great doubt. Fact was a card restricted in the twilight of the dark age of Vintage, before the format was cast back into the public eye – as Oscar Tan began writing on Vintage. Fact was restricted on flimsy tournament data and primarily on the word of a few Vintage mouthpieces. If Gush can be pulled off the list, Fact’s place on that list is pretty silly. Also, of great irony Fact was partially restricted on the ground that Stroke and Gyser were restricted.
In terms of safety of unrestriction, I’m willing to be that 95% of the Vintage community would have thought that Fact was safer to unrestrict than Gush. Fact was restricted in 2001 while Gush was restricted in 2003. Gush dominated the metagame for 6 months; Fact dominated a few 30-man tournaments for a few months when people were playing Sligh, Suicide Black, and Keeper. Fact is barely even played in Vintage any more. In any assessment of head-to-head matchups, Gush decks have always dominated four Fact decks. By almost any measure available, the unrestriction of Gush signals that Fact does not deserve its spot on the restricted list. By that logic, neither does Gifts. If Gush can be unrestricted, then I see no reason to let Fact or Fiction, a card restricted on the most flimsy of evidence, rot on the restricted list. If Gifts is on the restricted list, in part, because Fact or Fiction is as well, then the unrestriction of Gush completely undermines that claim.
Creeping Into Other Decks Argument
The final point that Aaron brought up was that Gifts was being played in GroAtog and Control Slaver. What about Thirst for Knowledge, which saw much more play in many more decks from Control Slaver, to Gifts, to GroAtog, to mono-Blue decks, to all sorts of other control decks? Gifts as a modest engine saw no more play that Thirst did in virtually all Control decks.
The Timing
I don’t have a problem with restrictions for cards that dominate or warp the metagame, or for cards like Mind’s Desire and Imperial Seal, or even in cases like Trinisphere – where it turns lots of players off the format due to "unfunness." My problem is that this restriction was very poorly timed, and thus once again creates the impression that the DCI is not on top of the Vintage format.
The DCI is like a central bank. DCI policy has to be trustworthy, consistent, and most importantly of all, predictable. If the DCI’s decisions really don’t surprise anyone, then the DCI is doing its job. The restriction of Lion’s Eye Diamond, Gush, and Fact or Fiction, when done, really didn’t surprise anyone who paid attention to the format. Moreover, although the timing was a little strange, the restriction of Trinisphere really wasn’t that surprising. Almost all of the previous restrictions were predicted.
This restriction, while hoped for in some quarters, was a very big shock to most of the Vintage community. Gifts wasn’t really a problem, and while some people thought it might be restricted, they passed up the opportunity at every juncture in which it was thought most likely. If the DCI wants to restrict cards in Vintage more aggressively, they should monitor their timing more carefully
Moreover, they should have realized that the extreme changes to the format were going to radically shake things up. While I think the restriction of Gifts makes very little sense generally, it makes even less sense when factor in the massive format changing impact of: 1) Future Sight, 2) the Flash errata, and 3) the unrestriction of Gush. Aven Mindcensor has already seen quite a bit of play as a Gifts, Grim Tutor, and Merchant Scroll foil. Also, Flash and Gush will be powerful, probably superior, metagame competitors. They should have at least waited three more months to wait and see what happened.
While I want the DCI to do the right thing and continue to unrestrict cards, if the price we pay is more restrictions, that’s a price we can’t afford. My concerns is that in evaluating potential unrestrictions, the DCI gazes too intently on comparing cards on the list with cards that are not on the list. That is a flawed approach. Many cards on the list don’t deserve to be there. Fact or Fiction comes to mind. Fact was put on the list when it was compared to Gyser and Stroke, yet both are now unrestricted. Similarly, Gifts was restricted by a comparison to – as Forsythe put it – its cousin Fact.
Vintage has thrived in the last six years because the DCI has been so careful with restrictions and unrestrictions. Vintage is so much better when they let it alone because people can never agree on anything. People will always be asking for cards to be restricted that don’t deserve it.
I hear and sense the rumblings already around Bazaar. Bazaar of Baghdad is the engine of the new and improved Ichorid deck. While the deck is objectively amazing, it will never win a tournament (in my opinion) because it can’t win in a Top 8 structure where it will face Leyline of the Void, Yixlid Jailer, etc. Yet getting a loss or two doesn’t knock you out of Top 8 contention. Moreover, to borrow Mike Flores terminology, it is a hopelessly linear that the best players won’t play because it doesn’t offer them opportunities to outplay their opponents. Yet a lot of people hate playing against it. They feel like its not real magic. Will the DCI restrict it even though it will probably never be more than 5% of the metagame and can never dominate? Even if they were tempted to restrict Bazaar (and I hope they won’t be), at least I hope they have the sense to restrict the Serum Powder instead.
While it may seem like I’m unhappy with general DCI policy, the truth is that I’m very happy with the last two-and-a-half years of policy. Going two years without restricting anything in Vintage is a good thing. That’s because the Vintage metagame is vibrant and can handle most changes. They could have listened to even a fraction of the players who complained in the past about Academy Rector, Chalice of the Void, Grim Tutor, or Illusionary Mask, and we’d be worse off for it today. Most things that any appreciable number of Vintage players think deserve restriction actually turn out to be just fine in the long run, after a period of adjustment.
My only frustration is that Gifts didn’t deserve restriction. Trinisphere and the Portal cards should still be the last cards restricted in this format. The precedent it sets is frightening.
What’s next? Flash? Bazaar? Grim Tutor? Merchant Scroll? Who knows? The DCI 8 ball could land anywhere.
The prospect of the DCI interfering is no longer the comforting notion it once was. Vintage thrives when the DCI is a backstop for insane cards entering the format and true metagame breakdowns. In all other instances, let Vintage sort itself out. No single person, not Randy Buehler, not Aaron Forsythe, not Patrick Chapin, not me – no one, is really going to be 100% right. The metagame will do much better job than any individual or collection of individuals at correcting mistakes in Vintage.