Preface:
This is a letter I have sent to members of the DCI. It’s been well documented in the past that they have responded to community consensus when it comes to restricting or unrestricting cards on the Vintage B/R List. That is what I am humbly trying to do. I know it’s unusual for someone with my limited post count to make such a proposal, but I wanted to try to offer a sound rationale for unrestricting several cards that can help spawn new archetypes in Vintage. It is my hope that we can build some common ground on the cards I have proposed in this letter.
For the purposes of this thread, I would ask that all conversations be limited to the cards I have proposed. There are several threads on numerous websites that address other cards. Or, if you like, you can start a separate thread to discuss other cards and I will be happy to participate in that one. I’d like to keep the discussion in this thread as focused as possible.
Thank you for reading, and I appreciate all your input.
Dear DCI,
I’m writing you today to seek the removal of several cards from the Banned/Restricted List for the Vintage format. I’m sure this is hardly new. Every three months or so, you receive such a petition from many well-meaning fans of the game’s oldest and most venerated format. I’m writing to you today not because I feel that one more voice carries greater weight and authority than others, but because there is a shift in the way fans of Vintage view that format and the way they see how those cards interact with each other. It is my hope that, after reading this, you will want to help support this new perspective.
First, let me explain what I feel Vintage has come to mean for many who have truly played, studied, and loved the format. Vintage is seen the final resting place for all cards that have been printed for competitive play by Wizards of the Coast for its marquee adventure game: Magic the Gathering. It is the Island of Misfits, if you will. A place where all the broken toys that no one else loves or wants to play with have found a home. Given that distinction, it is with a badge of pride that Vintage players construct their decks and participate in countless tournaments that aren’t officially supported by prizes, promos, or points. Players play in Vintage tournaments for the love of the cards and the interactions they produce. It is not for a ranking score or to strut at a Pro Tour event. They play for the pure and unique enjoyment that only the Vintage format can give.
Thus, for many Vintage players, value is placed on having as diverse a pool of cards as possible and, by extension, as diverse a pool of viable decks as possible. We all recognize that certain cards have an effect on the game that goes beyond the pale, and if they were to be left off a restricted list, they would create a game environment that would produce little interaction and little fun between the players. However, that does not mean that any card that proves itself efficient and useful should be restricted to one in a deck.
Instead, we should look at cards that build the basis for deck archetypes. Since Vintage is seen as the safety net for all cards and all decks, then value should be placed on trying to ensure that as many viable deck archetypes as possible can exist at one time using as many tools (i.e. cards) as possible. It is believed among many, that the Banned/Restricted list should be used to support deck diversity, not quash it. Therefore, I submit that the following cards be allowed off the B/R list as soon as possible: Entomb, Flash, Grim Monolith, and Gush, and also I submit that that power level errata on Transmute Artifact be lifted as well. What follows is a rationale for each of these cards explaining how it would be healthy and beneficial for the environment to change their current status in the format. It is my hope that you will read this with an open mind and a heart that is willing to see the Vintage format exhibit a greater deck diversity than it currently does now.
Entomb- Right now reanimator decks and Worldgorger Dragon Combo decks are totally off the grid. They aren’t even played in small local tournaments where everyone knows each other and always brings their pet decks. However, playing creatures out of the graveyard is a recognized and even valued strategy in Vintage. It’s really not much different from using Oath of Druids to pop Helkite Overlord into play for free or using Natural Order to put Progentitus into play. Cheating the casting cost of gigantic creatures is fun and healthy for the format. If Oath Druids can be unrestricted, it follows that Entomb can be as well. Not to mention that since Entomb’s printing (eight years ago), we’ve gotten several new and powerful Graveyard hosers like Faerie Macabre, Leyline of the Void, Relic of Progenitus, and Extirpate. Those cards are more than enough to keep any graveyard strategy in check. Take Ichorid for instance. Dredge decks make up around 10% of the current metagame (according to Steve Menendian’s bi-monthly reports) and already have plenty of efficient ways to quickly get massive amounts cards in the graveyard, yet that deck is held to a small slice of the meta pie. And combo players looking to use the graveyard as a holding place for their powerful spells will be most disappointed. There are so many ways now to remove a card in a graveyard that counting on it to serve as an extension of one’s hand is risky at best- particularly when you consider just how devastating a Faerie Macabre or Extirpate would be against such a strategy. Gamble can already serve the same basic function as Entomb, but it’s not run in any deck anywhere despite being unrestricted since its printing in Urza’s Saga. If Ichorid has failed to explode all over the format and Gamble Decks have never surfaced, then it is highly unlikely any deck using Entomb will cause significant swings in the Vintage metagame. There are just too many cards which are already played in decks that will hold it at bay. Instead, this card would enable a lot of budget decks to enter the meta and give players the chance to utilize all of the fun Timmy fatties that are printed in every set. And enabling players to develop new archetypes and use cards currently unseen in the Vintage format is well worth the chances one takes in removing this card from the B/R list.
Flash- Flash decks were powerful in 2007 and 2008 because they had several major advantages. First, a light mana base since their spells were so cheap. Second, a ton of tutors and cantrips that helped them A) find their combo pieces, and B) shuffle back into their library any pieces they didn’t want in their hand. Third, an environment where pure control decks were extremely scarce. However, each of these advantages has been completely nullified. With Merchant Scroll now restricted, finding Flash quickly is exceedingly more difficult. It effectively cuts their tutor package in half. Not only that, without Scroll, finding answers to an opponents’ cards is much harder. They simply can’t tutor up a Hurkyl’s Recall, Chain of Vapor, or Echoing Truth to sweep away threats like they used to. This greatly increases the deck’s vulnerability to an opponent’s strategy. Without Brainstorm to shuffle combo components back in the deck, Flash players will have to rely on very sub-optimal cards (like Lat-Nam’s Legacy) or some other form of graveyard trickery to pull off their combo. Decks that are forced to go to that sort of length to enable their win condition only slow down their clock and make achieving a win less reliable. Finally, Flash decks will have to use a more substantial mana base in order to succeed. 4 Ponders are no longer available to smooth out their land draws. Null Rod, Wasteland, and Magus of the Moon are seeing play in sizeable numbers now, and with Merchant Scroll restricted, they may have to resort to slower and/or more mana intensive tutors like Imperial Seal and Grim Tutor. That means adding more mana sources and diluting the main-deck disruption. Aside from all of this, Flash is sometimes mislabeled as a two-card combo. It isn’t. It takes 5-7 cards for various Flash builds to win. That is a lot of deck space for a Vintage archetype to use up on its win condition. Consider a typical Tez deck. It takes up 3 spots (1 Tezzeret the Seaker, 1 Time Vault, and 1 Voltaic Key as backup). Add in all the extra backup cards Flash decks will now have to play just to make things work, and it gets much more logistically difficult for a Flash pilot to see himself to victory. Flash is in no way a threat to take over the meta. Heck, even at its height in power, it never dominated the format. The deck maxed out at around 15% of the metagame and hovered around 10% most of the time (according to Steve Menendian’s reports on Star City Games). It was easily held in check by Painter Servant decks back then, and since that particular combo/deck archetype is still alive in the current metagame, there’s no reason to think that Painter decks won’t balance out Flash again at this juncture. What unrestricting Flash does allow, though, is combo pilots who don’t enjoy or can’t afford a typical Tendrils of Agony deck to participate in the format, and it helps create diversity in a meta that is lacking that at the moment.
Grim Monolith- With Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond safely off the B/R list, it’s time to consider removing another artifact accelerant card from the restricted list. Many cards which were printed during Urza’s Block era were undeniably strong in that early card pool. They bested a great number of the cards that had been in print since Alpha! However, since that time, the RnD department has done an excellent job of creating effects that either mitigate the power of those old cards or supply players with plenty of options to deal with them. Grim Monolith is totally unused by any deck except the random Goblin Charbelcher deck. Even now, some Belcher designs are cutting it in favor of other more powerful Mana source cards like Dark Ritual and Seething Song. Many of the printings post-Mirrodin have made Grim Monolith a redundant card whose small boost in mana acceleration is not worth the card slot in the deck. If Mishra’s Workshop, Cabal Ritual, Metalworker, and Dark Ritual can safely be left off the B/R list in Vintage, then there is no sound reason for Grim Monolith to remain there any longer. What it can do if it comes off the list, though, is possibly provide an opening for Affinity decks to carve out a niche in Vintage. While it has been one of the more powerful deck archetypes in Extended, Affinity has barely made a mark in Vintage. Having an artifact that and produce mana then reduce the cost to play Affinity creatures at the same time might give Affinity pilots just the card they need to get started. Then again, it might not. Grim Monolith could join Mox Diamond and Chrome Mox on the “Interesting but not good enough” list of artifact accelerants that are largely ignored by Vintage players. However, Vintage players should get the chance to decide that. In this card’s case, the decision is made by the B/R List. I would ask the DCI to allow deckbuilders the chance to see what this card can truly do if, indeed, it can do anything at all.
Gush- The power of Gush decks came not from Gush itself or even from the Gush-Fastbond combo. The real power of cards that used “Gushbond” as an engine came from cheap cantrips and tutors like Brainstorm, Ponder, and Merchant scroll. Only by chaining Gush after Gush by using cantrip after cantrip did the engine work. This line of play, of course, comes with some inherent problems. Decks using this strategy are very vulnerable to denial strategies like Wasteland, Sphere of Resistance, and Ethersworn Canonist. Gush-based decks are easily disrupted by well proven and well played strategies that have existed in Magic for a long time. In fact, at its height of power, Gush based decks were evenly matched with Worskshop Agro decks. Each of those two archetypes made up 25% of the metagame with other deck types like Ichorid, Flash, Fish all viable and capable of winning tournaments despite the prevalence of Gush/Workshop dichotomy. The ironic thing that not enough people realize is that Gush decks gave cover for tons of other decks to become viable. During the two months leading up to the June 20, 2008 restrictions, 49% of the metagame was “Rest of the Field” (according to Steve Menendian’s reports on Star City Games). I can’t imagine a metgame being more diverse than that. Now, with all of Gush’s cantrips and tutors restricted, it is hard to imagine Gush could even achieve the metagame parity it once had with Mishra’s Workshop decks in the past. However, few can deny Gush’s ability to spawn archetypes. In fact, according to my recollection it gave birth to 5 distinct decks in its second era (GAT, Gush-Tendrils, Doomsday, MS Paint, and Tyrant Oath). Each of them had their own, different win conditions and nuances that made entering a tournament exciting since few could really predict what deck might be waiting across the table. Surely, now that steps have been taken to curb the power of cheap draw spells, this archetype building card is safe to come off the restricted list. If the end goal is to create as diverse a metagame as possible so as to attract the maximum number of players, and for me and many others it is, then Gush is certainly worthy of serious consideration. “But wait!” some might say, “we’ve already restricted this card twice. How will it look if we have to do it a third time?” First, very few of your daily readers at magicthegathering.com pay much, if any attention at all to Vintage. The format largely goes under the radar except during Stephen’s year-in-review Vintage articles and the now defunct Magic Invitational. Second, as a general rule, no one likes it when cards get restricted or banned. No doubt there are times when it is necessary, yet it is always unpleasant. If fans see that the DCI is willing to listen to the community and trust them enough to remove a card from the B/R List that may have been wrongly placed there, then you will certainly earn a great deal of respect and admiration for taking their desires into account. There’s going to be no egg on your face if you remove this card from the B/R List for a second time. Gush’s power has been sufficiently neutered. The format lost a great deal of its diversity when Gush was restricted. For me, there can be no more compelling reasons to remove this card from the B/R list.
Transmute Artifact- The final card I’d like to touch on is an almost forgotten, once beloved sorcery from Antiquities. Before Tinker and Flash, Transmute Artifact was a one of a kind card. By sacrificing something you already paid for, you could go and get something you wanted more at a discount. It was never all that strong of a card and pretty much fell out of use altogether when Tinker was printed. By reading its text, one can tell that in many ways, this card is worded and templated in a nearly identical way to Flash. In fact, when Flash was printed back in Mirage, many of us in my area playing Magic at the time made the connection and thought it was based off the idea of Transmute Artifact except the card came from your hand rather than your library. Now that we’ve come 15 years since the printing of Transmute Artifact and 12 years since the printing of Flash, it’s time to take a look at the functionality of this card once more. Over the last few years the RnD department has done a terrific job of rolling back many of the power level erratum that cards received after 6th Edition was released. Much to the cheer and happiness of eternal format players, more and more cards have been added to viable decklists as a result of the diligent effort put on by Wizards’ employees in this regard. In this case, I am simply asking that the trend to roll back these power level limitations continue with Transmute Artifact. There’s no good reason it shouldn’t receive the same power errata removal that Flash did. Indeed, the card should now read: “As an additional cost to play Transmute Artifact, sacrifice an artifact. Search your library for an artifact card and put it into play. Sacrifice it unless you pay its mana cost reduced by the converted mana cost of the sacrificed artifact.” From the text of the card it is clear that the artifact that the player searches for comes into play and then is sacrificed. The current Oracle wording, however, does not allow for that. The card does not currently work as it once did nor is it consistent with similar cards like the ones I mentioned above. Transmute Artifact’s double blue casting cost and Sorcery speed are more than enough to keep its power in check. Unlike Flash, it can’t be searched for by Merchant Scroll, making it even less likely to spawn an unfair combo deck. Transmute Artifact, with the errata removed, is well balanced, difficult to cast and resolve, and saddled with an acceptable drawback. Removing the errata will allow deck builders to play around with its effect and attempt to create new archetypes that will add to the flavor and diversity of Vintage.
I am asking for these changes to the above mentioned cards not because I feel the format is stagnate or that a particular archetype/engine is unfair. I don’t even want to begin trying to define what “fair” means in Vintage. I am asking for these changes out of principle. As a principle, I believe the B/R list should be as small as possible. I believe that it should assist players in creating deck archetypes, not deny them. I believe that answers to “problems” in the Vintage metagame (if there really ever are any) should be found in the cards, not in expanding the B/R list. Therefore, the more cards players have access to, the more likely it is they will find ways to solve their own problems.
Spawning new archetypes and developing ways to utilize long forgotten cards is what the Vintage format is all about. The suggestions I have made in this letter are presented to the DCI/RND/WotC committee in the hope that they will share the same values as many, many Vintage enthusiasts and then make the decision to provide us with more tools to build and experiment with new deck designs. The previous unrestrictions of the past few years like Mind Twist, Black Vice, Voltaic Key, Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond, Personal Tutor, and Dream Halls have all shown themselves to be non-threatening to the health of the environment. The rolling back of the power erratum on cards like Phyrexian Dreadnought and Time Vault has created two new and incredibly fun deck archetypes that are played in tournaments all over the planet. Not only that, the time during those unrestrictions and erratum removal (2007-2008) could easily be called a Golden Age for Vintage in which deck innovation and the influx of new players hit a peak. Deck diversity is the lifeblood of the Vintage format. I implore the committee to seriously consider the recommendations contained within this letter. The Vintage community is ready to accept these cards into the fold and begin working with them. It is now up to you to decide whether or not to give your fan base those tools that they increasingly desire. Thank you for all your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
-Troy M. Costisick
Sources:
Steve Menendian’s Metagame Reports:
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vint … eport.htmlhttp://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vint … eport.htmlhttp://www.starcitygames.com/magic/misc … eport.htmlhttp://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vint … eport.htmlhttp://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vint … eport.htmlhttp://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vint … eport.html
