@nedleeds

Yes, that is my point. We’ve now seen the minimalist approach in practice on the Vintage meta for years now too, and the results have been pretty hit or miss. It was ok when we have had long gaps between strong sets. Those gaps are disappearing with a number of cards being printed directly into Eternal, and skipping standard.

Restricting every decent artifact that costs 4 or less, and restricting every decent blue draw spell that costs 2 or less is forming a very long, and now starting to be ineffective list.

@vaughnbros said in SMIP: My Suggested B&R List (2019):

The article is interesting in that it kind of provoked thoughts out how you think the B&R list should be managed. I’m just not sure that I agree.

The minimalist approach has a problem in that it’s really only band-aiding much larger wounds and then every set with decent printings, like Karn/Forge or TC/Dig, ends up with a few bad months of Vintage followed by a restriction. This ultimately completely defeats the purpose of having an eternal format. Not only can you not really play your deck from 5+ years ago, you often can’t really even play your deck from like 3 months ago (due to frequent printing/restrictions).

I think there is probably a middle ground between your minimalist and mine/Brian’s scorch earth that was elaborated on a couple months ago that would probably be best for the community. That might mean letting go of a couple of “pillars” to give the house some more space.

I don’t consider my approach “minimalist,” and not sure why you do either. Labels aren’t reality.

Here is my take on every restriction ever, and what should have happened. Pay close attention to 1999, as it illustrates my approach best by contrast to what happened: https://www.eternalcentral.com/history-of-vintage-schools-of-magic-an-alternative-history-of-the-banned-and-restricted-list/

@smmenen

Most time points, you were advocating for fewer restrictions than actually occurred and that usually seems to be your stance in debates here. I don’t think it really serves much to argue semantics though. I was simply using the phrases “minimalist” and “scorched earth” to emphasize the wide difference between our point of views.

I don’t recall seeing your preferred restrictions so it’s hard to know exactly how much daylight there is between our views.

@smmenen

I’ve written posts before, but my suggestions would be to hit the “manabases” of every major deck:

Restrict Island-Type Duals (potentially Island Fetch lands as well)
Restrict Ancient Tomb (potentially workshop as well)
Restrict Narcomoeba (potentially powder as well)

A number of cards could potentially be removed from the restricted list at that point if you go with the one in parathenses as well, like Gush and Lodestone.

This achieves both “minimalist” as in a short list and creates diversity by forcing all the top decks to re-imagine themselves to some degree.

That's crazy town. Those suggestions are so far outside the mainstream paradigm that I'm not sure you can even have a common-basis conversation about B&R policy with most people. I don't even know what your goals or objectives are, and can't even guess.

@smmenen

What’s crazy is restricting Mystic Forge and expecting to have any lasting impact. You are band-aiding the real problem in that Vintage manabases are too consistently powerful.

Workshops can consistently drop a 4 CC spell on turn 1/2. Dredge can consistently mulligan to a single card and then hit creatures on its first dredge. Blue can consistently fix a 3 or 4 color manabase with basics. These break fundamental balancing rules that cards are printed with in mind now as none of these mechanics are returning.

What will be printed is another Mystic Forge.

@vaughnbros said in SMIP: My Suggested B&R List (2019):

@smmenen

What’s crazy is restricting Mystic Forge and expecting to have any lasting impact. You are band-aiding the real problem in that Vintage manabases are too consistently powerful.

Workshops can consistently drop a 4 CC spell on turn 1/2. Dredge can consistently mulligan to a single card and then hit creatures on its first dredge. Blue can consistently fix a 3 or 4 color manabase with basics. These break fundamental balancing rules that cards are printed with in mind now as none of these mechanics are returning.

What will be printed is another Mystic Forge.

While you’ve provided an explanation, your reasoning is going in so many directions I can’t even follow your logic.

1.) Why would you restrict Narcomoeba? Your primary argument is restricting mana bases.

2.) I am confused by “blue can consistently fix a 3 or 4 color mana base...” If I assume you mean decks that are built primarily using blue cards, I still don’t understand your explanation. Every deck can utilize mana fixing/fetching if needed. If you are specifically mentioning blue because of the powerful blue cards that have been printed, that’s why we have a restricted list. If your original argument is that the restricted list is a band-aid and the mana bases are the real problem, then would it be fine if WOTC printed another Ancestral Recall or Demonic Tutor with restricted dual lands?

3.) That last point bring me to my final area of confusion: to which fundamental balancing rules are you referring?

@vaughnbros If we mess too much with manabases (e.g. restricting island type dual lands as you suggest) we'll end up with janky decks that I don't imagine very many people would enjoy playing. The reason we have the B&R list is to promote good quality gameplay.

It’s too bad we don’t have data collection anymore because everyone is just going off personal feelings right now.

I just performed a manual search for a Mystic Forge deck that has won a tournament. I found one result way back on July 14 (the first weekend it was legal). Since then, very poor showing for the deck.

It can be concluded that in a meta that is prepared for it, KarnForge is not going to win the tournament and would be lucky to make top 8.

If the DCI doesn’t make changes it would be indicative of using real data to make a rational decision.

@mike-noble

Maybe they should I don’t see any decks that are capable of beating it. They probably have data that suggests it is dominating everything else.

Otherwise they should just restrict some other decks that can’t win like Belcher and 2-card monte.

Those pointing out that Dredge and Forge aren’t winning events are ignoring the dominance of BUGx to the tune of 50% of top 8 appearances recently, and the contribution of overpowered Dredge and Forge decks to that dominance. If you are going to look at statistics, you cannot cherrypick the data points that support your preconceived conclusions (saying this for the 100th time...)

Statistics are meaningless without context and it is sad that they are being used so poorly in this thread. You want to know why there aren’t metagame reports? There you go...

BUGx is doing well because people are trying to run KarnForge obviously. It is essentially a bye for the BUG deck.

Why that calls for a Mystic Forge/Karn restriction is what does not make sense to me. What's "overpowered" in the context of Vintage? It just doesn't exist. Karn doesn't win and therefore it shouldn't be viewed as a problem.

Asia EW has 5 unique decks in the top 8. There's nothing to complain about. I'm going to play regardless of the decision reached by the DCI. I play everyday anyway, but I think it's pretty fun that the meta is at least a little different right now.

Like why is Mystical Tutor-Tinker-Bolas totally fine, but Workshop, Mox, Mystic Forge is some scary thing that people can't handle. Blue can have all these avenues to do whatever they want and as soon as Shops as something reliably decent, it's a huge problem for the internet.

@desolutionist said in SMIP: My Suggested B&R List (2019):

Like why is Mystical Tutor-Tinker-Bolas totally fine, but Workshop, Mox, Mystic Forge is some scary thing that people can't handle. Blue can have all these avenues to do whatever they want and as soon as Shops as something reliably decent, it's a huge problem for the internet.

Because Mystical Tutor and Tinker are restricted and Mishra's Workshop is not.

@desolutionist You are proving the point. BUG, and only BUG, is doing well because it is the deck with decent match ups against Dredge and Shops without warping itself against to be non-competitive against the rest of the metagame. And overpowered means most decks can’t handle them. Where are the other decks that beat forge and Dredge? Unless you think it’s somehow BUG that’s overpowered. It is the context that you have to explain when looking at the format. Don’t pull the “Blue has these restricted cards so Shops should have these unrestricted cards” deflection...

And if you are bringing up Eternal Weekend Japan, you should mention the 3 BUG decks and 3 variants of Karn in the top 8. When even DPS is running 4 Karns, that really undermines Steve’s notion that somehow the card isn’t a problem or that restricting Monolith will fix it. Boy, I can’t wait until Misstep is restricted and Ritual into Karn is even easier...

@chubbyrain

Yeah you're probably right. I can't reasonably play anything other than BUG right now. Except maybe the DPS deck with Karn.

Beside Ritual, he also has Channel->Karn-> Lattice which is pretty cool. I like his list.

@desolutionist I love their list, too and want to jam it on stream, but I also think metagames are too complex to look at one stat in isolation and view that as representative. I think in the absence of Force of Vigor, Trophy, and Ouphe, Forge/Dredge would be much more incontrovertible problems but the absence of other answers for other decks really constrains deck diversity.

Since we are all saying ridiculous things today, lets unrestrict Monastery Mentor so Jeskai with main deck Stony Silence can race Assassins Trophy and Forge.dec. Unrestrict Thorn of Amethyst because blue has access to 8 FoW effects on the Draw. Finally, Restrict Mental Misstep