People are gearing up for the perceived April metagame, featuring the two ‘Tog decks of the moment as featured last week. Reports from Stephen Menendian a.k.a. Smmenen, the newest member of the Type I Paragons mailing list (and a fellow law student, mind you), hint that the optimal number of Berserks may be lower than three. I maintain, nevertheless, that basing the unrestriction on an opinion poll was an appalling way of going about things. I also maintain that it was unnecessary since it can only help combo-ish decks, and should’ve been more carefully thought out, even if people end up using just one Berserk main and one in the side (for Cunning Wish).
Incidentally, a lot of people may not realize that”The Deck” actually fares well in the perceived metagame. Remember that, post-board, it has multiple Swords to Plowshares against creatures and multiple Red Elemental Blasts against blue-based decks. Consider a matchup where it can bring in both…
The most colorful suggestion for the anticipated environment, though, came from Steve O'Connell, a.k.a. Zherbus: Replace its Braingeyser with Future Sight. Interestingly enough, some of my German friends e-mailed me months back, saying they were tweaking their”Combo-Keeper” builds further towards combo, removing Morphling and adding tricks like Future Sight. Such lists did show up in the hands of Swen Weinhold and some other Dülmen players.
Here’s one of the most recently posted rough experiments, just to give you an idea (I commented on Future Sight in my Onslaught review last October):
The Shining, Carsten Kotter, a.k.a. Mon, Goblin Chief, March 2003 test deck
Blue (23)
1 Power Artifact
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
1 Braingeyser
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Fact or Fiction
2 Brainstorm
2 Cunning Wish
2 Future Sight
1 Trade Routes
Black (4)
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Mind Twist
Green (3)
1 Fastbond
1 Regrowth
1 Sylvan Library
White (3)
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Balance Â
Artifacts (2)
1 Scroll Rack
1 Zuran Orb
   Â
Mana (26)
1 Grim Monolith
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Sol Ring
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine
2 City of Brass
1 Undiscovered Paradise
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
Sideboard (15)
4 Red Elemental Blast
1 Volcanic Geyser
1 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Allay
1 Shattering Pulse
1 Ebony Charm
1 Misdirection
1 Read the Runes
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Swords to Plowshares
Carsten admits the build has a number of weaknesses, most prominently the unsettled mana base.
More on the Banned / Restricted List
Last week, we focused on the DCI’s surprise Restricted List change, and how insisting on latching Type I.5 onto the Type I list is hurting both formats already, not just the former. This week, I’d like to finish up and hand down a few verdicts in cases that haven’t been discussed as much as others.
Mishra’s Workshop
Restricted from June 1994 to September 1997
Is a permanent Dark Ritual good? Hell, yes!
Broken? When properly limited, it hasn’t proven to be.
People wrote Aaron Forsythe calling for its restriction, but utterly failed to cite any substantial reasons for doing so. VV was quoted:”Virtually every major aggro deck has left the tournament scene as a direct result of TnT.”
My answer: So what? (Assuming it’s true.)
That’s like saying Stompy needs to be neutered because it makes mono blue aggro (complete with four Unstable Mutation) look bad.
The correct method is to compare the deck’s performance with the entire metagame, and if you do that, you’ll find that everything’s fine. A powerful aggro deck like German Tools ‘n’ Tubbies has keeps metagames honest, and weakening aggro in general has adverse effects on that fine balance.
If you look at the history of Workshop-based decks, in fact, they have always been entertaining without feeling degenerate.
The first archetype that resurrected the Workshop was Andrew Cuneo’s Teletubbies, easily a fan favorite in 1999:
David Price, Teletubbies, 2000 Sydney Invitational
Creatures (9)
4 Juggernaut
4 Su-Chi
1 Karn, Silver Golem
Disruption (12)
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
4 Duress
Others (12)
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Tinker
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Mind Twist
1 Memory Jar
1 Icy Manipulator
Mana (27)
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Sol Ring
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra’s Workshop
1 Tolarian Academy
2 City of Brass
4 Underground Sea
4 Underground River
Sideboard (15)
4 Hydroblast
3 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Bottle Gnomes
1 Triskelion
2 Misdirection
1 The Abyss
Afterwards, JP”Polluted” Meyer brought us Goblin Welder and Stacker 2. When the Incarnations got printed, as we all know today, Benjamin Rott a.k.a. Teletubby’s build rose to the top of the heap.
None of these was invincible. TnT has practically nothing that can affect combo, can run into control’s pinpoint removal, and complains that modern aggro-control’s creatures end up too big for it. Even Sligh can give it fits with Price of Progress.
So, if it’s not degenerate, why touch it? You’ll only risk a domino effect that may make control or combo too powerful and ruin the metagame. Again.
And to quote Aaron:”If five-power creatures on turn 1 is what it takes for aggressive decks to work [in Type I], then that’s what they should be able to do.”
Verdict: Bad case of profiling-Leave unrestricted!
Survival of the Fittest
Banned in Extended since March 2001.
If people complain about Mishra’s Workshop, it’s because they haven’t read all the articles on how to play against TnT (or how to build tight decks in the first place). The more intelligent protesters, though, shout out against the deck’s real power: Survival of the Fittest.
With the printing of Squee, Goblin Nabob, a format-defining Type II card because a broken card drawing engine. Of course, it’s green and only works with creatures, so it took a bit of work, and never really became fast enough until Anger arrived to help.
DCI’s reasoning on Entomb is as scary as it is senseless, because if you believe they’re serious, then Survival should have been the target because it draws every turn with Squee. With Mishra’s Workshop, Survival decks got the mana boost it needed to turn aggro, from the slower, controllish RecSur builds of the old Type II. And with a broken engine, TnT got the flexibility and staying power needed to compete.
But, again, it’s not degenerate.
This is Type I, broken things happen.
Verdict: Bad case of profiling-Leave unrestricted!
Doomsday
Restricted since October 1999
The date tells us that Doomsday was one of the cards caught in the post-Academy collateral damage. That should make us wary, but JP”Polluted” Meyer made a very strong case for letting it go:
“The problem with Doomsday is that the combo built around it is incredibly hard to pull off. For anyone that doesn’t know, Doomsday combo decks rely on casting Doomsday and leaving Black Lotus, Lion’s Eye Diamond, Regrowth, Braingeyser (or any X-spell) and a random 5th card in the library. This isn’t a one card kill though, since after casting Doomsday you also need exactly 3 cards in hand, one of which must be Timetwister, and 1G in your mana pool so you can Regrow your Timetwister. You then generate a mana loop by casting Timetwister which draws you your entire library, followed by Black Lotus (sacrifice for UUU), Lion’s Eye Diamond, Regrowth on Timetwister, Timetwister, and in response you sacrifice Lion’s Eye Diamond for GGG. That looks hard enough to pull off that a Doomsday deck wouldn’t become too powerful.”
The Mirage-era combo was, in fact, so hard to pull off Darren Di Battista a.k.a. Azhrei took a bunch of friends and pulled off the most memorable hoax on the old Beyond Dominia forums. Basically, he posted a decklist, then I joined a number of co-conspirators in crying about 95% loss ratios. It took a while before people stopped believing our,”But you’re not playing it properly!” explanations.
Doomsday nevertheless makes me wary because it’s a tutor card that can only conceivably be used in a combo deck. Moreover, it’s a three-mana card that sets up five cards on top of your library in any order.
I remember Insidious Dreams. In my Torment review, I wrote how I initially misread the card, but figured you could still set up by putting a card drawer like Ancestral Recall on top of the library to draw into the other cards. Insidious Dreams sucks, as we all know today, but three black mana and ten life is a lot more manageable.
Now consider using Doomsday to set up these five cards, in this order: Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, Grim Monolith, Power Artifact, Stroke of Genius.
Also considering yet unprinted cards, I don’t think there’s a reason to risk something degenerate slipping through the cracks, when the best payoff we can hope for is a funky combo deck.
Verdict: Still no signs of good behavior-Don’t unrestrict!
Fastbond
Restricted since October 1996
Fastbond was one of those classic cards everyone slipped into red/green Erhnam decks in casual play, but was restricted because it proved too powerful with the obscure Storm Cauldron. The Japanese StormDrain deck from the 1996 World Championships is obsolete by today’s standards, and Fastbond is one of the interesting cards drafted for ‘Tog decks.
How dangerous is it in 2003?
Outside of playing it in your opening hand, you’ll see that it doesn’t benefit anything but combo. Aggro generally won’t have a hand so it won’t have extra lands to play. Control will draw extra land, but by the time it does, it doesn’t really need the wasted slot.
So, again, we have a clear combo card. Increasing the chances of drawing Fastbond early may lead to a mana boost that leads to too-random openings. TurboNevyn, the Type I build of Turboland, will clearly abuse it, and Darren Di Battista a.k.a. Azhrei reminded me about Carl Devos’s Twister.dec:
Twister.dec, Carl Devos a.k.a.”Professor X” of the Paragons, Finalist, Dülmen, April 14, 2002
Blue (14)
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Time Spiral
1 Windfall
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Force of Will
1 Braingeyser
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Trade Routes
Green (4)
1 Fastbond
1 Regrowth
1 Holistic Wisdom
1 City of Solitude
Black (3)
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
Red (6)
1 Mana Flare
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Kaervek’s Torch
2 Red Elemental Blast
Artifact (4)
1 Horn of Greed
2 Scroll Rack
1 Zuran Orb
Land (1)
1 Glacial Chasm
Mana
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Sol Ring
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
4 City of Brass
1 Undiscovered Paradise
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
Sideboard (15)
1 Balance
1 Circle of Protection: Red
2 Seal of Cleansing
1 City of Solitude
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Mind Twist
4 Phyrexian Negator
2 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Kill Switch
For similar reasons, I’d leave other obvious combo setup cards alone, like Dream Halls.
Verdict: Remains incorrigible-Don’t unrestrict
Fork
Restricted since April 1995.
Aaron admitted that there are cards the DCI”the DCI won’t touch with a 10-foot pole,” and Fork is one of them. The best argument is that no one really uses Fork. It’s an out-of-flavor, even conditional card. Its double colored mana cost makes it prohibitive outside red-based decks (and we know there’s no such deck outside something like a 5-color Sligh), and its reactive nature makes it erratic in aggressive red decks.
Heck, Fork was unrestricted in the original Extended along with Goblin Grenade and Fireblast, and it didn’t prove degenerate, right?
Admittedly, as a fan of”The Deck,” unrestricted Fork isn’t something I’d want to see. I’d have to suddenly be cautious against red midgame, and a Fork may just catch things from Mind Twist to Stroke of Genius – Fact or Fiction has happened to me before, and it’s the most annoying of the lot.
Against other decks, however, Fork can be as bad as a mediocre Incinerate. Consider, for example, that decks like TnT and Enchantress have few Fork-able cards. Even against Suicide Black, you’d figure that you could catch Hymn to Tourach, but you won’t to devastating effect (unlike Misdirection) unless you keep mana untapped in the crucial early turns and kill your own tempo.
The one thing keeping me from recommending its unrestriction, though, is the best card in Sligh at the moment: Price of Progress. Matt D’Avanzo maintains that this is the real broken nonbasic hoser, though it can’t be used outside Sligh. Given how dual lands are legal only in Type I and all the good decks at present have a good number of nonbasics (including Onslaught fetch lands), I’m not sure if Fork + Price is the same thing as Fork + Goblin Grenade.
Verdict: Don’t unrestrict it just yet, but keep him under surveillance. And keep the 10-foot pole handy.
Blood Moon
Unrestricted.
Okay, so you all expected this one.
Again, I emphasize that all the good decks right now are multicolored, and the availability of dual lands and fetch lands pushes nonbasic counts up. Thus, too good a nonbasic hoser can cramp the environment, similar to how Rishadan Port restricted its block environment before it was banned.
I wrote a lengthy discourse on this before: Boot the Back to Basics?
Back to Basics is far more powerful than Choke, and I’m not complaining about the latter, but it has largely disappeared from the format simply because good aggro decks made mono blue far weaker. In fact, Forbiddian decks now splash red, not just for removal like Fire / Ice, but for surprise Blood Moon.
The big problem, really, is that Blood Moon is now being found in the unlikeliest decks. TnT uses it. Deck Parfait and White Weenie both use Land Tax to fetch a single basic Mountain for it. You’ll probably react that I’m bashing”budget tactics” but how ridiculous is it if a mono white deck splashes a single off-color card, and it’s not Ancestral Recall?
To cite the most ridiculous proposal yet, I actually saw a forum thread asking how to incorporate Blood Moon into Suicide Black.
While it’s a formidable silver bullet, it gets ridiculous when people can side it against everything from”The Deck” to Dragon (Worldgorger Dragon / Animate Dead). There’s no other comparable silver bullet, not even The Abyss or Circle of Protection: Red, and it can only inspire lousy deckbuilding.
Incidentally, Black Lotus–Blood Moon openings are also the trademark move of Roy Spires a.k.a. Random-Miser, and that’s a far more common, random Turn 1 win than Channel–Kaervek’s Torch will ever be.
And since you’ll ask,”The Deck” is the multicolored deck most equipped to deal with it (except maybe TnT, which uses it). It has things from Aura Fracture to Steve O'Connell a.k.a. Zherbus’s Flooded Strand for basic Islands tech.
Again, I’m not advocating that we kill all nonbasic hosers. I’m not even complaining about Price of Progress, take note.
Verdict: Ban or restrict them both, unpopular as it may sound
Tolarian Academy
Restricted since January 1999
No other card in the game’s history has been single-handedly responsible for so many other restrictions. That said, if the DCI’s policy is to let as many cards get played, then why don’t they just unrestrict the relevant cards at Academy’s expense?
The lone copy of Academy, at present, isn’t even important in any deck. The most logical one is something like”The Deck,” but it’s just an erratic, single-color mana producer there. Further, Neo-Academy isn’t better than every other possible combo deck, anyway, and few of the handful of people with all the power cards use it as their mainstay.
Now, what happens if you ban Academy?
You could unrestrict Crop Rotation, for starters, since Library of Alexandria and Strip Mine aren’t as attractive. You could let people do all the tricks they want with Gaea’s Cradle and Treetop Village.
You could also unrestrict Frantic Search. This gives decks from Pande-burst to Reanimator a new toy.
Finally, you might – might – consider restricting some or all of the mana artifacts. I, for one, would welcome any excuse to unrestrict Mox Diamond, because this card is crucial for the Land Tax/Scroll Rack engine. This would be extremely popular for Deck Parfait and White Weenie fans alike. I’ve also always been disturbed by how the common Lotus Petal was restricted even if it isn’t used for anything but combos. I also hate how the venerable Mana Vault from my old friends’ Erhnam Djinn and Shivan Dragon decks was hit, and unrestricting it again may let some people put together poor man’s TnT versions. Grim Monolith, of course, has problems with Power Artifact and you may have to restrict the latter.
Verdict: BAN! Hang the ringleader, but let the peons go.
Memory Jar
Restricted since April 1999
Restricting Academy wasn’t good enough, since Urza block had more than enough brokenness to go around. Again, I included the dates of all the restrictions to let the more diligent readers catch the historical subtleties.
The problem with the preceding proposal to consider unrestricting some or all of the mana artifacts is that you might end up fueling combo instead of aggro, and you can’t allow a combo that kills too early, too consistently. The first thing you have to do is to make sure Hurkyl’s Recall isn’t degenerate with such artifacts. That is, if you ban Academy, you want any potential Hurkyl’s deck to be about as strong, but not unbeatable.
The second thing you have to do is make sure there is no consistent way of putting out a first-turn combo engine piece using all that colorless mana. This is why Memory Jar, Yawgmoth’s Bargain and Dream Halls were all restricted in Academy’s wake.
I actually wouldn’t mind banning Jar and Bargain because they were mistakes in the first place. Bargain isn’t even used today. Jar is used mainly in TnT, as a powerful but non-combo card that gets very ugly with Goblin Welder, but it’s arguably not integral to the deck.
If you ban Jar, you get the bonus of having an excuse to unrestrict Tinker. I’d actually enjoy having the mana artifacts and Tinker available since I find it ridiculous that we can’t build Extended-style Tinker decks in Type I. If someone can build a good artifact-based deck to make up for TnT losing Jar, for example, that might be a good trade. There are possibilities from Phyrexian Processor to Smokestack, actually.
Verdict: Place in solitary confinement and observe closely.
Voltaic Key
Restricted since October 1999.
This is an innocent, cute little artifact that was caught in Academy’s undertow. However, it doesn’t even produce mana on its own, and its combo with Mana Vault or Grim Monolith is hardly more broken than Mishra’s Workshop by itself. The strongest mana combo it has is with Candelabra of Tawnos and something like Tolarian Academy, yet Candelabra was unrestricted in October 1997.
Simply, as a mana engine, this was hardly worth mentioning in Aaron Forsythe engine roundup.
The non-mana uses of the card, though, are pretty interesting. The cutest of all might be to pair it with Phyrexian Colossus, given how Voltaic Key is hardly better than Goblin Welder or even Quirion Ranger.
Simply, there’s no harm the Key can do; it can’t even interact with Memory Jar, and there are no other degenerate artifacts. But especially if you find an excuse to unrestrict Tinker, it might give some people some fun.
Verdict: Overshot its sentence-Unrestrict!
Portal
Banned by the rules.
And finally, we end with the most interesting suggestion.
The only reason people want to”unban” Portal, really, is to get Jungle Lion into Stompy. (I have four copies waiting… mwahahahahaha!) There’s no other way to get that Lion into Type I, because Buehler would block such a potent green weenie at all costs.
Well… It’s green and it’s Stompy, right? But let’s study Portal very closely.
Other than Jungle Lion, you get a very large bunch of creatures that mostly duplicate what’s available. That’s nothing to really worry about, since it’s not like having Grizzly Bears, Balduvian Bears, and Barbary Apes in the same format ever gave anyone grief. And it’s not like Portal’s pseudo-instant combat tricks are going to cause complaints.
I took the liberty of running through all the card lists, and here are my highlights:
Ravages of War
They renamed Armageddon, but no deck right now uses four Armageddons anyway. I seriously doubt fans of Lobotomy would complain.
Alaborn Grenadier
This is probably the best”clone” you’ll get, but having eight Steadfast Guards available isn’t so big. Note this is a Soldier, not a Rebel.
Monstrous Growth and Plant Elemental
Players aren’t going to complain over these, and Stompy players aren’t about to replace Bounty of the Hunt and Rogue Elephant just yet, anyway.
Virtue’s Ruin
This might be interesting in both Suicide Black and”The Deck” but since when did anyone sideboard heavily for White Weenie anyway? In practice, this isn’t as symmetrical with Perish as you might think.
Valorous Charge and Righteous Charge
I wouldn’t mind a player having eight Armies of Allah available. I’d recommend, though, that you not let Righteous Charge through simply out of spite, because no mere Portal card should pump stats better than the Army! (Okay, still nothing degenerate here.)
Imperial Seal, Cruel Tutor, and Personal Tutor
Hmmm… now, this duplication business gets touchy. While Cruel Tutor may arguably be just as dangerous as Diabolic Tutor is and Personal Tutor may not be flexible enough to warrant a slot (though it fetches Doomsday, among other sorceries), Imperial Seal is almost a duplicate Vampiric Tutor.
The conclusion has to be to allow Portal to allow the fans’ very reasonable request – Star City judge Gis Hoogendjik already e-mailed that he would gladly volunteer to draw up the Portal Oracle – but take a good look at unintended duplicates.
Verdict: No mass amnesty. Allow Portal if you want, but preemptively ban problem tutors that were never intended to meet Demonic and friends.
Hey… I’ll have you know that I am a big fan of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The last time I visited Beijing, I talked a Beijing University student into taking me to the English bookstore outside her school, bless her heart. When I returned to the hotel, I had to figure out how to pack nine hardbound volumes (including the Bandit Kings of Ancient China and the Journey to the West) into my luggage. The girl from the London School of Economics who sat beside me in the bus actually went into my room just to laugh.
Oscar Tan
rakso on #BDChat on EFNet
University of the Philippines, College of Law
Forum Administrator, Star City Games
Featured Writer, Star City Games
Author of the Control Player’s Bible
Maintainer, Beyond Dominia (R.I.P.)
Proud member of the Casual Player’s Alliance