Good luck with your endeavor! I hope you can get some people to try out experimental Magic. I always feel like Magic theory is such a shot in the dark, as nobody (despite their claims) really knows what will happen when things get restricted or unrestricted.

I will say, however, I don't think you'll find Highlander to be a very strategic format. I personally love it, but it's meant to be casual. When you have a deck that functions differently every single time you play it, it's hard to have a competitive environment or foster any innovation.

I was moved by @Prospero post, but in a silent tears kind of way. It is always a tragedy for me whenever I hear someone is selling off their power. I've been hearing it for decades, but these days, there is a really, really high bar to buying back in. It's hard to drop $10,000 to want to play in Vintage champs.

I do think some of these posts are missing the mark. Everyone is complaining about B&R management policy, but we have some of the smartest minds in Magic, and yet many of them are diametrically opposed as to what the solution should be. Everyone longs for the "nostalgic Magic period" of the past (myself included), but back then, people were constantly complaning about "never getting any Vintage level cards." So then what happened:

Blue gets:
Monastery Mentor
Treasure Cruise
Dig Through Time
Dack Fayden
Jace Vrynn's Prodigy
Leovold
Fragmentize
Baral Chief
Stony Silence
Containment Priest
...to name a few. I mean, just look at that for a second. TIER 1 CARDS THAT QUICKLY HIT THE MAINDECK- some of which can make Ancestral seem like a weak topdeck. Think about that. Cards that might be be more powerful than an Alpha restricted card.

Shops gets:
Walking Ballista
Hangarback Walker
Foundry Inspector
Fleetwheel Cruiser
Relic of Progenitus.
...I don't think these are as "bombish," but they end up pushing Shops into a "perfected" version of the deck, and it's as tight of a deck as you can get.

This is probably the biggest quality infusion since Urza's Saga block (though spead out over more time).

Not only do these cards make the maindeck/sideboard, but many of them shore up the weaknesses each deck faced in the meta. Mentor and Shops became stronger, AND more resilient.

Anytime you drop 10-20 new cards, high power cards, into a format in a 2-3 year period, it's going to be chaos.

I don't think this is necessarily a B&R problem (though I certainly don't agree with their handling of it). I think it's an over-abundance of new powerful cards, unleashed on a semi-solved, high variance format. Vintage players moaned for decades about not getting enough toys. Well, we got them, and it shows how quickly Vintage can abuse a design mistake.

Sad to see you selling power @Prospero , I hope you find a way to someday justify buying them back. It's not easy to replace a dedicated paper Vintage player.

So in all honesty, what is it that changed since the 2015 Vintage Championships? I personally consider 2014/2015 to be one of the finest metagames of recent memory.

There was such a depth of choice.

Want to play Oath- you could play normal Oath, Show Oath or Salvagers
Want to play Shops- choose from Stax, Martello, Terra Nova, or even Tiny Robots
Want to play U/R or U/W- You could play Delver, Monastery Mentor, Blood Moon, or Standstill
Want to play control- Thieves, Tinker, Control, etc
Want to play combo- Belcher, Doomsday, TPS, Dark Petition, or Dredge.
And even rogue decks like BUG, WW, Humans were very relevant.
Any one of those decks could top 16 Worlds or win a local tournament (except maybe Belcher ;)

So what happened? How did the meta change so abruptly?

My thoughts:
I think Chalice getting restricted, might have done more harm than good. People moan about x4 Chalice shops, but some players were already starting to cut Chalices right before it got restricted. Chalice penalized the "turbo lifestyle," but also penalized shops with some dead draws, or variance cards.

The power of Monastery Mentor was too new.

The printing of Hangarback took shops players into the dormant area of Ravagers, perfecting the deck. Many players weren't even playing 8 spheres in 2015. Now instead of having some situationally dead cards (Chalice, Tangle Wire), they could be all in on the ground assault.

Lastly (late edit): I also think that during this metagame, there was a foil to each deck. The Rock-Paper-Scissor was in full effect. If you were a shop player, you were not excited about sitting down across from Oath. I think right now, Mentor and Shops are so powerful, they really don't have an enemy deck. Hence the fatigue with the format. If there is any positives to the current Meta, I would venture that "matchup luck" is at an all time low.

This thread is great! But I'm amazed at how many lurkers there are on this site, this thread really brings them out. Nice work OP!

You ignored this part of my inquiry, so I am assuming you don't think this is an issue @Smmenen? Genuinely curious.

@joshuabrooks said in Vintage Restricted List Discussion:

Now they can get it on an hourly basis. You sure this isn't just a lull in the format that is magnified by daily play?

I think there were some pretty bad eras of Vintage, that if forced to sustain hourly/weekly scrutiny, might have been far worse. Even today, if people were able to play Old School online every hour, I feel like the luster would fade quickly.

I continue to wonder if this isn't simply a growing pains that the Vintage community will have to suffer as we adapt to the contemporary fast-moving meta of online influenced Vintage.

Do you think vintage as a format can hold up to hourly exploration and a fleshed out metagame? Do you consider this a problem?

@Smmenen said in Vintage Restricted List Discussion:

This is the worst Vintage metagame I have ever seen. It was the wrong move, and that's obvious now to anyone but the blind or willfully blind.

Honest question (not a debate). Do you really think this is the worst meta ever, or simply a result of the contemporary meta (MTGO era) bottoming out (ie: hitting critical mass)? Previous to two years ago, players would be lucky to get Vintage play on a bi-monthly basis. Even a monthly event was something to look forward to. Now they can get it on an hourly basis. You sure this isn't just a lull in the format that is magnified by daily play?

I think there were some pretty bad eras of Vintage, that if forced to sustain hourly/weekly scrutiny, might have been far worse. Even today, if people were able to play Old School online every hour, I feel like the luster would fade quickly.

I continue to wonder if this isn't simply a growing pains that the Vintage community will have to suffer as we adapt to the contemporary fast-moving meta of online influenced Vintage.

@Serracollector said in [HOU] Hollow One:

The Anger/Wonder "combo" in ToolsNTubbies (aka TnT) was amazing, and it has alluded me as to why Jeskai with its TfKs and Dacks never tried. Sigh. Anyways I would love to see a new variation of TNT that utilizes Hollow One and Vengevines.

TNT......my 2nd favorite deck of all time (I played a pyrostatic pillar version), and loved it....what a fun deck!