EDIT: Apologies for mishearing such an embarrassing difference. The idea of unrestricted Will just got my heart all aflutter. But the discussion is Much the same. Thanks to those of you who pointed out the error.

So I thought I'd extract this idea from the midst of the SMIP 65 great engine semantics debate and stick it here for those who might know better!

After all, there's Nothing more exciting about restrictions than navel gazing about what might get Unrestricted NEXT time.

Stephen and Kevin briefly alighted on it in their discussion of last week's announcement, BUT they briefly, ever so softly, said that the DCI should consider unrestricting some of the most unrestrictable cards like Windfall and Yawgmoth's BARGAIN. Though fine. Why not Will for the sake of juicy gossip?

Now, I never no never didn't play in no 4x Yawgwill (EDIT: or Yawgain) environment. And. Being only a surly potzer, I can only speculate, but, the idea that given the dominance of mentor and shops, that having unrestricted yawg and an extra few draw sevens(ish) is a safe move, would seem fair game for opining.

I guess that this would yield an uptick in combo, which for now is putting up fairly ho hum results. But would it really? If all of a sudden there were 4 Will (EDIT: or hey, Bargain!) ritual decks available, would people actually play it? I run Will in PO Storm, but frequently I feel it is more out of feelz than actual strategy.

If these unrestrictions would actually be safe, would the VSL folks be willing to start saying this loudly so that in a few more months we could maybe see a change, since this seems to be a metric WotC looks at closely?

Anyhoo. I imagine this could be potentially polarizing so fair game to anyone who responds "You FOOL! YOU BLIND FOOL! COMBO IS WHY WE CANT HAVE NICE THINGS!"

However, is this something the community thinks could happen?

I would rather see Channel come off for a different type of combo deck. Admittedly, Will may be safer with graveyard hate, and more requirements to set up, but I'll still side with diversity.

As you point out, Will isn't that great in PO decks. It prefers rituals. Being unrestricted would push PO further out of the meta, for better or for worse, among other things.

@BandsWithOthers said in Yawgmoth's Will Unrestrictable?:

So I thought I'd extract this idea from the midst of the SMIP 65 great engine semantics debate and stick it here for those who might know better!

After all, there's Nothing more exciting about restrictions than navel gazing about what might get Unrestricted NEXT time.

Stephen and Kevin briefly alighted on it in their discussion of last week's announcement, BUT they briefly, ever so softly, said that the DCI should consider unrestricting some of the most unrestrictable cards like Windfall and Yawgmoth's Will.

Now, I never no never didn't play in no 4x Yawgwill environment. And. Being only a surly potzer, I can only speculate, but, the idea that given the dominance of mentor and shops, that having unrestricted yawg and an extra few draw sevens(ish) is a safe move, would seem fair game for opining.

I guess that this would yield an uptick in combo, which for now is putting up fairly ho hum results. But would it really? If all of a sudden there were 4 Will ritual decks available, would people actually play it? I run Will in PO Storm, but frequently I feel it is more out of feelz than actual strategy.

If these unrestrictions would actually be safe, would the VSL folks be willing to start saying this loudly so that in a few more months we could maybe see a change, since this seems to be a metric WotC looks at closely?

Anyhoo. I imagine this could be potentially polarizing so fair game to anyone who responds "You FOOL! YOU BLIND FOOL! COMBO IS WHY WE CANT HAVE NICE THINGS!"

However, is this something the community thinks could happen?

Might want to check your facts man. I'm pretty sure that Menendian said something about Yawgmoth's Bargain. Yawg Will be broke AF if it came off the restricted list. Absolutely NOT.

Yes, I said Yawg Bargain, not Will, was a candidate for unrestriction.

Is Bargain even good as a central strategy? I admit I might be underestimating the card since I've never played in an environment with 4 allowed. A 6 mana non-instant card? Sure, it ends the game when it resolves but still...

Bargain is perfectly safe. Necropotence possibly as well. Yawgmoths will is too broken without Chalice.

@BazaarOfBaghdad I can tell you (having done it for giggles last summer) that Channel with Emrakul and Oath would be absolutely mad. If it were unrestricted, it would go right back on the list... but it would be super fun!

As for Will... I actually question how broken that would be, since extra copies don't really do that much, and drawing it early doesn't do that much either. It would probably be too good just because you could design a deck that could profit so much from consistently drawing it. I suppose that it's probably beyond the threshold of safe to unrestrict, but I don't think it's even close to as degenerate as many of the others on the list... Even Windfall is probably more dangerous at this point than Will. Because Will just isn't really a turn 1 card, and there are more consistently good turn 2, 3, 4 sorceries than Yawg, like Dig and Cruise.

@Serracollector said in Yawgmoth's Will Unrestrictable?:

Bargain is perfectly safe. Necropotence possibly as well. Yawgmoths will is too broken without Chalice.

I'm convinced Necropotence was fine even before this round of restrictions. I even conducted some tests. I can't imagine it'll be very different now.

@Topical_Island That would be a blast, but Mentor and other decks would have to adapt. They would actually have to play more real counterspells, like Spell Pierce. Discard would increase too. Show and Tell would come back, Elvish Spirit Guide would blow Shops decks out of the water (welcome to most players), and something like Lightning Bolt might just win the game on turn 1. I doubt Channel would get more than 20% of the meta and it would be glorious.

Channel sounds glorious. I'd love to see it because it will create a new type of combo deck.

I think it's time to start looking at the b&R list much more carefully for possible unrestriction targets. In our podcast, we simply felt that Windfall and Bargain are the two most natural places to start, but there may be others.

I don't think Necropotence is save to unrestrict because it isn't easy to counter. It has been my go to spell specifically because its immune to Flusterstorm, Pyroblast, Mental Misstep, etc. The only spell that counters it is Force of Will; It's too fast for Mana Drain and consistent turn 1 Necros would even blow out Shops. (But Blue decks could go back to Spell Pierce or Commandeer to have a fighting chance)

Yawgmoth's Bargain is a safer bet because it requires a much greater investment of resources. (not just three lands, or Land+Ritual, or Lotus)

I also agree with Channel and Windfall.

imho the cards that i feel that could be unrestricted are flash, yawgmoths bargain, and memory jar, flash would open up a whole new deck, bargain isnt good in multiples so all that happens is you get it more often, and memory jar isnt played as much as it once was as far as i can tell and at worst you get to have a 4 of 5 mana draw seven, only thing that would worry me about jar is welder.

Edit: i almost feel dig through time may be safe to unrestrict because the free draw spells are restricted but thats questionable, its still a very powerful card but will be harder to get it for uu without gush and probe but i could, and probably am, wrong about that.

@Smmenen Arg! Stupid selective hearing! Thanks for the set straight.

Unrestricting Yawg's Will gives the PO storm deck a bit of a boost, but I don't think it breaks it. Outcome would probably want to run some combination of Outcomes and Wills, since they fulfill a very similar function at different parts of the game/combo.

Both Outcome and Will probably end up drawing some gas, creating some storm, creating some mana and gives a reasonable shot at finding the card you need to win. The restrictions on them are that Outcome has inherent randomness (you don't know that you'll find what you want, while Yawg's Will turns can be calculated) and Yawg's Will can't be used until later in the game/turn when your graveyard has sufficient gas (while Outcome can find its own gas). I think the outcome deck settles on 4 Outcomes and 2 Wills in the end.

I think the most interesting thing unrestricting Yawg's Will would do would be giving a bit more life to duress+ritual storm decks, by giving them options other than folding if their key spell gets countered and they can't find the singleton Yawg's Will. Would be great to play Burning Wish again.

EDIT: Sorry, skim read and thought we were talking about Will.

I remember reading a @Smmenen article years back about going through hypothetical unrestrictions; maybe from SCG or something. I specifically remember Steve saying Channel is the most dangerous card to unrestrict. I just don't get the fascination with people thinking it is okay. If channel is unrestricted, get your leyline of sanctity, mindbreak traps and the like ready. RG Belcher and Oath will be everywhere.

Of course Flash could be unrestricted. That was known when it actually was restricted. The deck is not that resilient at all, and is cholk-full of unplayable creatures beyond the combo... but "people" didn't like playing against it so it got restricted.

By that logic, we should unrestrict Brainstorm, for no other reason than it is the one I want to play with the most.

I'm not trying to be combative, but I find this thread incredibly frustrating.

The idea that Yawgmoth's Will or Flash could be unrestricted lacks so much historical context that it makes me retroactively question things the suggester has said before. This is not unique to this thread.

The idea that it "was known" that flash wasn't resilient and didn't need a restriction is genuinely confusing to me. In my experience it was the most consistently fast and resilient combo deck the format has ever seen. It had an upsettingly good Shops matchup, and the only thing that kept it in check was 4 Gush 4 Brainstorm 4 Scroll 4 Ponder Combo-Control decks.

I try very hard to stay neutral on TMD about B&R issues, because I feel like my position as site admin is an unfair power imbalance. Still, in the wake of the recent restriction, when I see threads like this, I can't help but wonder. Is the fact that Wizards is paying more attention to vintage now a net negative for the format?

Brassy dropping truth.

Also: do Vintage players just hate each other? Why would you ever want to Channel Emrakul or Flash Hulk someone?

@Brass-Man Heya - So feel free to lock or boot the thread. I had misheard Will instead of Bargain as I listened to SMIP in the car and figured if Stephen and Kevin were talking about unrestricting that I'd ask and see what folks actually thought could be conceivably unrestricted. Obviously it's pretty contentious! I just figured it might be a chance to focus on potentially positive unrestrictions Will seemed pretty out there to me, and it was - because I was not listening. So absolutely no combative intent taken, it was just my error.

BUT I do think it is interesting that even though, with or without historical context, that people are sort of Meh about will coming off of the list (even though they did in fact, say Bargain).

@ribby Clearly Vintage players hate each other. I mean. We are the sadists who want to play Griselbrand and Emrakul for free, Tendrils for One Zillion, Draw our whole decks, take infinite turns, use one card combos, and Sphere our opponents into a turn one hard lock. The only conclusion is we are the sociopaths of MtG '-)