There's been a ton of talk recently regarding the April 1 B/R. In the early days of Vintage, Type 1 player begged for any attention they could get from the DCI. In recent years, the B/R list stayed pretty stagnant. In the last two years, Vintage enjoyed a flurry of high profile restrictions, and rumors of an overhaul.

I know lots of pros have been pretty vocal about what they would like to see, but pros are also used to cards getting banned, and they often seem to like an objective "best deck" for each format. They then tweak that "best" deck to their liking. Vintage players often define a healthy metagame as one that puts the most variety into a Top 8. This is a pretty big difference. I also think that pros struggle with the randomness of Vintage and the "oops, I win" nature of a lot of games.

For many years I think Vintage has been somewhat self-governing, where after some time, the consensus chooses cards that should be nominated for restriction (via high profile articles or clamor). But with highly influential pros now weighing in, does TMD prefer the DCI taking things into their own hands and shaping the format? Do you trust the DCI in vintage? (I ask this in sincerity, not in alarm).

I'd love to hear what people think are the most important factors in Vintage to consider, and whether you think the DCI will consider those things. Should the goal be simply making it the most balanced format? Is it taking historic cards and decks into consideration. Should paper outweigh MTGO? Should any cards be untouchable?

I think with Vintage on MTGO, Wizards has realized a potential cash cow. How do you get money out of people who already have a huge MTGO Collection? Reprint as much as you can over the course of a normal 4-5 year Business Plan so they have a reason to invest money again. I believe part of this will also cause them to actually maintain vintage.

I firmly believe that most of the inaction on vintage is the fact that they simply didn't care. Now with growing Championship events and also MTGO making Vintage a thing they can support, I think we'll see more actions.

I like the idea of the DCI being active in attempting to manage the Vintage format. I like the idea of restricting and unrestricting cards just for the purpose of shaking things up and shifting the format in addition to preventing it from getting unhealthy (this is something I feel they did with Gush's unrestriction, and I think that was successful at least for a while).

That said, it's also important for them to recognize what the key cards are that define the format beyond just the restricted list and be extremely reluctant to do anything to change those. They should also be sure to pay attention to the people who actually play and discuss Vintage the most, and not be overly swayed by small, ingrown metagames like the VSL.

@Klep said:

I like the idea of the DCI being active in attempting to manage the Vintage format. I like the idea of restricting and unrestricting cards just for the purpose of shaking things up and shifting the format in addition to preventing it from getting unhealthy (this is something I feel they did with Gush's unrestriction, and I think that was successful at least for a while).

IMO if you want a format that rotates go play Standard or Modern.

Why would you not want the sanctioning body to ensure the format's health? I don't trust Magic players to construct any kind of healthy format because they are all, on the whole, selfish and have no idea what a healthy format is.

@barcode said:

Why would you not want the sanctioning body to ensure the format's health? I don't trust Magic players to construct any kind of healthy format because they are all, on the whole, selfish and have no idea what a healthy format is.

Can confirm, if it were up to me everything would be broken because I would want to play 4x balance.dec

Also I'd change the wording on Winter Orb turn off tapped artifacts and bring back mana burn.

While I'm at it, combat damage uses the stack, "blocking order" can go die in a fire, and trample should work the way it did in Legends.

@Leoj Standard rotates, Modern doesn't. But they do manage the Modern banned list in order to shape the format and encourage different decks to become popular. And for a format where there is no other way for cards to leave, I don't think it's a bad thing to make those kinds of decisions. It helps keep things fresh and interesting.

Modern is a GP and more importantly a Pro Tour format. The cadance and urgency with which the DCI monitors it should be different. Vintage should have more time to stretch it's legs with changes, frankly because quite a bit less Vintage is played. I'd like to see no changes until we have a Vintage champs pass with this current B&R. Modern is different, they have colossal sanctioned events to cater to and have to ensure some balance.

I would not play Modern with moxes, and I hope the DCI doesn't regulate Vintage into that.

@Klep said:

@Leoj Standard rotates, Modern doesn't. But they do manage the Modern banned list in order to shape the format and encourage different decks to become popular. And for a format where there is no other way for cards to leave, I don't think it's a bad thing to make those kinds of decisions. It helps keep things fresh and interesting.

Modern doesn't rotate? So what happened to Jund, Pod, Splinter Twin, Amulet?

@Leoj Rotation is when sets join or leave the format. You're talking about banning and unbanning.

@Klep said:

I like the idea of the DCI being active in attempting to manage the Vintage format. I like the idea of restricting and unrestricting cards just for the purpose of shaking things up and shifting the format in addition to preventing it from getting unhealthy (this is something I feel they did with Gush's unrestriction, and I think that was successful at least for a while).

That said, it's also important for them to recognize what the key cards are that define the format beyond just the restricted list and be extremely reluctant to do anything to change those. They should also be sure to pay attention to the people who actually play and discuss Vintage the most, and not be overly swayed by small, ingrown metagames like the VSL.

I'm not opposed to shaking things up, but unfortunately Vintage is a little unique in that, if you shake things the wrong way, thousands of dollars can be lost for a player. I know that's their own fault in some ways, but it is the reality of paper vintage these days.

I'm wondering if there is any chance that they might create two vintage formats. Maybe a Vintage Prime format, where pretty much anything goes, and only the most egregious cards get restricted, and then maybe a "vintage fixed" format that they try to promote on MTGO, where they can do things like restrict Workshop, or ban Tinker, and try to make it a normal format, without some of the constraints that 20yrs of Vintage have forced us into.

@joshuabrooks That's already the difference between Vintage and Legacy.

@Klep said:

@Leoj Rotation is when sets join or leave the format. You're talking about banning and unbanning.

Both of these things have the exact same effect on the metagame.

@Klep said:

I like the idea of the DCI being active in attempting to manage the Vintage format. I like the idea of restricting and unrestricting cards just for the purpose of shaking things up and shifting the format in addition to preventing it from getting unhealthy (this is something I feel they did with Gush's unrestriction, and I think that was successful at least for a while).

That said, it's also important for them to recognize what the key cards are that define the format beyond just the restricted list and be extremely reluctant to do anything to change those. They should also be sure to pay attention to the people who actually play and discuss Vintage the most, and not be overly swayed by small, ingrown metagames like the VSL.

To be honest, I do NOT want vintage to have a governing body actively trying to 'shake things up' or shape the meta. At that point its no longer vintage. People on these boards always talk about what vintage is in terms of decks being played. Vintage IS the 3 pillars. Vintage is gush. Vintage is the P9. I don't view vintage in terms of what the meta is. I view Vintage in terms of what it could be. And it could be anything because Vintage, at its heart, is the format that lets us play nearly any card ever printed. As soon as you artificially start to manipulate that with bans and restrictions to guide the format we are no longer playing Vintage.

Monitor it for brokenness. Monitor it for a healthy to semi-healthy metagame. But don't shape the metagame by any means other than the decks being played and the players imaginations. Otherwise its not Vintage.

@Leoj Untrue. rotating say, Scourge out of a format would be very different from just banning Mind's Desire.

@Khahan Gush may be a big part of Vintage now, but it hasn't always been. Vintage was still Vintage when Gush was restricted. You could restrict Gush again and it would still be Vintage, it would just have a different texture. I'm not suggesting banning cards, that would certainly be contrary to what the format is. But being more aggressive in changing the Restricted List has the benefit of continually making us reconsider what's best in the format and creating new decks.

Now, that's not to say that it isn't a valid position to feel that the DCI should take a very non-interventionist stance. I get that, and I'm sympathetic to it. But I think I'd probably like it more if the format didn't really have time to get stale.

@Klep said:

@Leoj Untrue. rotating say, Scourge out of a format would be very different from just banning Mind's Desire.

You're splitting hairs. What the DCI does with Modern is essentially forcing rotation particularly in cases like Twin where it isn't a dominant deck and they're doing it to "shake up" the format before a PT.

@Leoj No, they are not "enforcing a rotation" by banning Splinter Twin because they only banned Splinter Twin. They didn't also ban Gideon Jura, Inquisition of Kozilek, Ancient Stirrings, or whatever other cards from Rise of the Eldrazi you care to name. It's absurd to suggest that a targeted banning is at all equivalent to the removal of an entire set from a format.

DCI actions in Modern have the same functionality that set rotation does in Standard: It dethrones whatever the current "top deck" is, makes people totally reconsider how they build decks, and usually also makes people run around trying to grab new cards.