Is it just me, or has Vintage turned into a microcosm of this election? Or is it visa versa?

Anyway, Blue decks need Misstep to fight other Blue decks, lest you get blown out by a full grip from you opponent after they go Ponder, Probe, Mox, Gush, Brainstorm on turn 3 or 4 with a Mentor and 5 Monk tokens. Probe is also an issue because perfect information tacked to a free cantrip is more powerful than most of you want to admit. Turn 1 Probe... oh, no Force? OK, gg. Probe turns a thinking man's game into a brainless format. Misstep is a necessary evil to fight that nonsense. Restrict them both and I bet Blue decks open up and can simultaneously improve the shops matchup.

Git Probe might be one of the weakest cards in the deck, but that's saying a lot. The card is completely fool proof. If you draw it in your opener there is a 100% chance that the right thing to do is cast it. It's a free roll for the cost of what amounts to nothing and the information you get removes all skill from the game. "Herp derp, no Force? Oh that sucks for you, game over. ". Or, "oh, you got 2x Force and a bunch of action, guess I should hold off for a few turns and find my Flusterstorm first." That's not what Magic should be about. Probe is the least skill demanding card ever printed. Yes, ever printed.

Oh look, another amazing Human. Ho-hum. Just another day for WotC design team. Pretty soon Cavern of Souls is going to be a pillar of Vintage, mush like Shops and Bazaars, if it isn't already past that point already.

@HouseOfCards I don't disagree that we should have a platform to discuss such things, but doing it on the (now) weekly MTGO Vintage Challenge metagame report isn't really the place to have such a discussion. There should be (and already is) other threads on the matter.

at this point of the discussion I think we've hit the proverbial wall. No one is open minded enough to change their opinion. Hemming and hawing about Force of Will and Smokestack and whatever else is pointless. Time will tell if Workshop will be a viable strategy or not; no amount of hyperbole or corner case examples will change that. Let's just go out there and play some Vintage!

Shops do have a way to churn through their deck with massive amounts of mana: Staff of Domination.

@desolutionist So there's no possibility that the lack of CN2 on MTGO affected the results as many people can't test outside of the few that have play groups and those that use cockatrice? How many people even tried Leovold in testing?

I also think that Paradoxical Outcome has rejuvenated people's hope that Storm can make a real comeback. Likely a lot of people went straight into finding the best PO deck and skipped over Leovold. Maybe that view is wrong, but I saw very few Leovold decks. Jaco was on 2 card Monte with Daretti Iconoclast though.

I am absolutely flabbergasted that the two most oppressively over priced cards on MTGO were not included in this set. There is zero reason those cards should be as ridiculously priced as to be more expensive than all the Power 9. Now, their prices will go up even higher. Dumb move on WotC's part. But then again, I shouldn't be too surprised by their ineptitude.

Great card that is done in by not having
Much synergy with the card best used to cast multicolor creatures, Cavern of Souls. If this was a human or wizard/spirit/Eldrazi/Merfolk/etc, it would be a Vintage staple. Being an Elf Advisor really puts a damper on how much play this will see.

@ravager101 said in February 12, 2018 Banned and Restricted Announcement:

Misstep ... makes games more interesting, not less.

Did you really type that with a straight face? Interesting? Hardly. So, I'm supposed to play this stupid card over Swords just because I should be building my deck with better "strategy" in a world of Misstep:

Why can't people just admit the card is stupid? And why are we comparing it to FoW? Force has a real liability to it... you are creating card disadvantage when you cast FoW for free. Misstep is a perfect 1 for 1 that is tempo positive (they spend mana and you don't). There is zero cost to the card and it's truly a feel bad moment when your opponent Missteps your Misstep as you try to remove their win con from the table with a Bolt/Plow/Pyroblast or catch back up with a Recall. It's a miserable play experience to continually account for it's presence in opponent's decks. If you need a Plow to resolve to not lose a game, you almost always have to think to yourself, I need Plow AND a Misstep to win this game. How is that reasonable?

June 16?

Yeah, I’d be down.

Esper Karnage and UW Control are what I'm interested in seeing in action!

@kapitalismus That's cool, thanks for the insight. I was being tongue in check when I alluded to BK decks, so interesting to see that you guys playtested a lot. I didn't see the maindeck Grudges initially, so it's a nice little combo with Coating as well. Gorilla Shaman would be super cool to run. Mental Misstep is omnipresent unfortunately. Maybe it's still good enough in spite of that.

@fsecco Touche. Guess my memory of that discussion is a little hazy haha.

Tragic Lesson? Boy is that a bad Gush impersonator. Don’t think that card was ever discussed anywhere, and here it is in the winning deck list!

Are you sure you didn't copy this from Brian Kelly's notebook? This is full of spice, I like it! Thrun is one of my favorite cards and is just hilarious in Blue match-ups.

Is the Coating just to combo with Dack and steal stuff? I kind of feel like that's it's only purpose, which I'm unsure is that valuable. But otherwise, looks fun!

@thecravenone that’s a damn shame.

@blindtherapy there is a new buy a box promo for Dominaria that is only available through that means. source

@moorebrother1 said in Damping Sphere:

@enderfall I like this idea. Tezzeret the Seeker plus Seat of Synod is a Statis lock with a built in WinCon.

Excellent idea. Forgotten about that interaction.