I like this Cdawg. I always think about this kind of thing.

How on earth are you missing Brainstorm for Ancestral Though?

Also, i very much and sincerely doubt Angus has anything to do with Forcefield. They are only similar in that they can save you some life, and a million cards do that.

@fsecco said in The Reserve List - The Reddest Red Herring:

If you were right they'd have never printed Prairie Stream. Or do you count the drawback as an ability?

Also, Snow Duals are obviously too close. But Legendary Duals are not IMO.

Legend is also a supertype, also does not work. And like Cdawg describes, yes the other text on Stream makes it very different (functionally) than Tundra.

I just thought of a good shell for new duals that make them similar to Legendary Duals.

Imagine this:

Land - Plains Island
<Card name> comes into play tapped unless it's the only land you control.

EDIT:
This feels better in Modern than Eternal since you need to fetch basics first a lot in Legacy and Vintage. So it could actually be:
"Land - Plains Island
<Card name> comes into play tapped unless it's the only nonbasic land you control"
so you can fetch basics first against Wastelands.

@mourningpalace said in The Reserve List - The Reddest Red Herring:

I know wizards will never do this, but here is what is would recommend if I had any say in the matter (which I don't)

People really only seem to want the duals re-printed or removed from the list. Or at least that is the primary focus for getting rid of the list.
I would recommend reprinting the duals as WHITE bordered reprints/promos. This would still allow the black border duals to retain high value for collectors, while allowing people more access to tournament playable duals. Seems like it would be a good compromise.

I completely respect your opinion here, and it's a common one, but this is exactly the kind of thinking I'm trying to discourage. The idea that we need to get the specific cards on the RL reprinted is toxic, because WotC CANNOT do this. There's no point in wasting time thinking about ways to get Tundra specifically reprinted. It just won't happen.

HOWEVER... there's not this kind of existential barrier to doing what @fsecco says. Just add abilities to cards. Make them different from the RL counterparts. This is super easy to do, in theory. Add "When Supertundra enters the battlefield, each player may Scry 1." Boom, there you go, no RL problems.

Except, it's not that easy. The really difficult part with lands is this: How do you print new cards that are legitimate replacements or competition with ABUR duals -- not just strictly worse versions - without being completely bonkers broken?

Luckily, the barrier to printing non-functional substitutes of RL cards is not the RL itself. It's a design and development challenge.

@Sovarius The reason I didn't list Brainstorm is that, for me, it's actually too different. It's not suggesting you are drawing 3 cards for 1 mana like the other versions. But, I admit that it might be best to list it as a "1," since it certainly harkens back to Recall. Perhaps I'm just too used to thinking about them as tactically so different that I'm overthinking it.

@maximumcdawg

They probably need to be a bit worse, because the true duals are actually ridiculously good.

This is probably as close as you could come

Not tundra
Land island plains
If you control a tundra lose the game

Almost the same, but it is technically worse since a tundra player could theoretically side in donate in the "mirror"

@walking-dude said in The Reserve List - The Reddest Red Herring:

@maximumcdawg

They probably need to be a bit worse, because the true duals are actually ridiculously good.

Do they? That's the design challenge.

Just add an extra effect that's mostly irrelevant like. If ~ entered the battlefield from you hand gain 1 life.

@benjamin_berry Ah, yes, but now the issue is whether someone who can run 8 tundra has a leg up over someone who does not. With duals, Ive seen a lively debate over this.

The problem is more apparent with, say, Moxen. How do you crack THAT one?

That's easy, from a buisiness/lawsuit perspective. You ban them.

@benjamin_berry said in The Reserve List - The Reddest Red Herring:

That's easy, from a buisiness/lawsuit perspective. You ban them.

Turning the original reserved list cards into purely collectors items seems like a reasonable solution to paper cards. However, they now exist online as well. That bridges me into my feelings on the reserved list...

Online is the future of Vintage. While paper will always have its loyal players, the format can not grow that much with such an enormous price barrier for major tournaments like Worlds.

I have had this discussion locally as well. Wizards never needs to reprint RL cards. The exact moment they need to, they print something better.

The card I came up with is

"Tarnished Lotus"
Artifact
Tap, Sacrifice [this]: Choose one

Add three mana of any color to your mana pool
Or
Add <><><> to your mana pool

@vaughnbros Going online only is indeed the path of least resistance. And, yet, it's basically acknowledging the inevitable decay of paper vintage...

As for banning three original power; Yeah, that would work, but be unpopular. Is there a way to design cards such that they replace or compete with power without supplementing them?

Like @xxHazardxx s suggestion. That one also technically isn't a List violation. But it's just lotus #2, so you still need the first one.

Heres some questions to help understand what I'm driving at.

1. What games rules do Power break? Could you get competition by breaking other rules instead? (Dredge does this)
2. What are the deckbuilding limitations of using power? Can you exploit cards that power up decks outside this range?
3. How direct can a new card be about invalidating the original? Can you just print a self-banning clause on new lotus that prevents you from using the old one?
4. What can you change about RL cards other than abilities? Wizards changes the type to creature all the time. Can this be used to differentiate?

@maximumcdawg

I heard an idea at one point was adding a new "Banned" list to the formats. But it was called a "Combo Banned" meaning, this combination of cards is banned, you can have one or the the other, but you can't have both. So to use your question specifically, Black Lotus and Black Lotus 2.0 would be "combo banned". Both would be on the restricted list, and both would be banned in conjunction with each other.

An interesting point about your question 2 (What rules do the power break), and basically the main rule is "1 mana per turn" (Whether that is straight up free mana or ridiculously undercosted spells.) Workshop decks have always been the deck design to make all those players play by the same rules (Chalice, spheres, nullrods etc) and slowly over the course of Vintage, even those strategies have been deemed too strong. My point being that they tried "nullifying" the power and that hasn't done really well.

While falling asleep last night, I was attempting to change the P9 so as to have an equally power level (but different). Note, these would all have to fall into a Combo Banned system. Obviously if you have access to both it just exasperates the problem.

"Tarnished Lotus"
0
Artifact
Tap, Sacrifice [this]: Choose one

Add three mana of any color to your mana pool
Or
Add <><><> to your mana pool

"Wasted Mox [Color]"
0
Artifact
Tap: Add 1 [color] to your mana pool.
Tap: Add <> to your mana pool.

"Recall of the Ancestors"
U
Instant
Draw three cards. <not, NOT Target player draws three cards. 98% the same, but fundamentally different>

"Time Waltz"
1U
Sorcery
Target player takes another turn after this one.

I loved the idea of Tribal Duals...

Sirens Cove
Tribal Land- Island Swamp Siren

The question that I find interesting is, lets use my examples of the "Tarnished" Jewelry/Lotus. If you had access to both, which one would you use? The new ones are technically more powerful, no opportunity cost to using... but, not our original pretty old school pieces.

Thoughts?

@maximumcdawg said in The Reserve List - The Reddest Red Herring:

How direct can a new card be about invalidating the original? Can you just print a self-banning clause on new lotus that prevents you from using the old one?

You'd could do something like Shadowborn Apostle. A deck can't contain ~ and X. It doesn't seam right to me though.

@benjamin_berry said in The Reserve List - The Reddest Red Herring:

@maximumcdawg said in The Reserve List - The Reddest Red Herring:

How direct can a new card be about invalidating the original? Can you just print a self-banning clause on new lotus that prevents you from using the old one?

You'd could do something like Shadowborn Apostle. A deck can't contain ~ and X. It doesn't seam right to me though.

Yeah, it faces some practical problems; do you want every game to start with a deck check? How, as a player, will you know to call a judge on someone who might be using both versions of the P9 card? Shadowborn allows you to do something, so there's no need to check the deck, but restrictions on deck building certainly do.

Now, you could do things like allowing your opponent to Jester's Cap for the original when you play the substitute, but then you've still got a higher density of the P9 card in your deck to start with, so that doesn't really work either.

What about something like this:

Memory of the Lotus 0 Artifact
When this enters the battlefield, choose an opponent. That opponent searches your library for a card named "Black Lotus." If the opponent can find the card, then you lose the game. Shuffle your library afterwards.
T: Sac for three $$$

That's probably still a suboptimal version of Lotus given the shuffle and free information, but it's closer.

@xxhazardxx said in The Reserve List - The Reddest Red Herring:

The question that I find interesting is, lets use my examples of the "Tarnished" Jewelry/Lotus. If you had access to both, which one would you use? The new ones are technically more powerful, no opportunity cost to using... but, not our original pretty old school pieces.

If you wanted to play optimal decks, you'd always run both. So, like, Delver would run two Sapphires and two Lotuses and two Rubies. Paradoxical Outcome would run all 12.
(I mean, unless you did that "combo ban" thing you were talking about. )

@maximumcdawg said in The Reserve List - The Reddest Red Herring:

If you wanted to play optimal decks, you'd always run both. So, like, Delver would run two Sapphires and two Lotuses and two Rubies. Paradoxical Outcome would run all 12.
(I mean, unless you did that "combo ban" thing you were talking about. )

Definitely in the Combo Ban world. Obviously with out it, people run both and the problem is still there.... (and probably worse).

@benjamin_berry said in The Reserve List - The Reddest Red Herring:

Just add an extra effect that's mostly irrelevant like. If ~ entered the battlefield from you hand gain 1 life.

Not mostly irrelevant, many decks will still play enough of these they gain a couple life. Strictly better duals seem ridiculous, since they are already bonkers anyway.

@xxhazardxx said in The Reserve List - The Reddest Red Herring:

"Tarnished Lotus"
Artifact
Tap, Sacrifice [this]: Choose one

Add three mana of any color to your mana pool
Or
Add <><><> to your mana pool

I don't see any point in deliberately printing awful cards like this though. It's really, really poor game design and just spits in people's faces imo. I don't see any way in which WOTC on purpose prints a card they know ahead of time needs to be banned/restricted, that is explicitly just better than the single best card in the game.

And it doesn't solve the price barrier problem, because now people will play 2 lotuses. I am fine owning a lotus and presuming everyone has 1 copy of this high variance bs power level card in their deck, but having 2 when your opponent has one is just so much worse than 1 to 0.

The above scenario is exactly the kind of thing i would not consider a 'new lotus' to solve. Players who want to play paper but give up because they cannot afford a lotus (lotus is not really the only barrier here, anyway) are not suddenly playing a $50 'new lotus' and competing just fine, when others have 2 in the deck now.

Both really violate the spirit of the reserve list, too, i feel. Mark has said as much regarding "strictly better versions" and that they have no intention of doing so.

@maximumcdawg said in The Reserve List - The Reddest Red Herring:

Yeah, it faces some practical problems; do you want every game to start with a deck check?

Well, you don't deck check your opponents at the start of every match to make sure they aren't playing 2 Black Lotus. I could probably play a lot of games against someone with two Lotuses in my deck, without them noticing. Am i mistaken in thinking this is actually not different?

@maximumcdawg said in The Reserve List - The Reddest Red Herring:

Memory of the Lotus 0 Artifact
When this enters the battlefield, choose an opponent. That opponent searches your library for a card named "Black Lotus." If the opponent can find the card, then you lose the game. Shuffle your library afterwards.
T: Sac for three $$$

Besides being broken and probably unprintable for poor game design, this also doesn't make you lose if you have the Black Lotus in your hand. You could tweak the idea to include that, the graveyard, exile, and 'on the battlefield'/'owns a Black Lotus on the battlefield'. It makes it a really bad black lotus, but that is still beyond overpowered. Like it seems 100% playable if you can't afford a Black Lotus.

I think certain power is going nowhere. Not the format we want bans in, i think 'strictly better' or 'strictly kind of different sort of' variants are really poor game design, i think combo bans are really bad.

Wotc should looks towards printing cards that don't obsolete power or replace power for those who can't afford it, but rather more cards that make it easier to play decks that don't contain power. A little extra creature action to pressure the planeswalkers and low Swords counts, a decently castable okay creature that has the awesome ability of Channel 1G: Discard ~this, destroy target artifact or enchantment/G for less than 3cmc.

I think Nimble Obstructionist is a great card, it may not be Vintage playable, but it sure is an incredible design imo. There could be more of those styles in the future, but unfortunately the others are not so great.

Abolish is great design, but doesn't work for the format because everyone is greedy and is allowed to play moxes and Dack Fayden and skip lands in favor of having 10 draw spells. Maybe something like that design works better instead of paying the mana cost it has the ability that you exile it and artifact you control to exile target artifact.

Some stuff to play with along those lines.

I don't exactly like the trend of printing good hate cards onto creatures at a low cost, but perhaps instead of a Null Rod creature (which would be just berserk, right?) you get some 1W 2/1 that allows players to only activate one artifact ability per turn.

There's just so many hate cards that crap on people's best cards already, they just don't necessarily play well when you want to cast your own power cards. So maybe hoping for more of the same is not going to help. You'd rather play Ancestral than Spirit, you know?

The one thing I feel people still discussing Reserved List don't understand is that the reason it's still there is because Wizards doesn't WANT to abolish it. Doing so and printing a Vintage Masters IRL would take away so much attention from Standard that it'd probably kill the game in the long run. It's as simple as that. It has nothing to do with investors or sueing, etc. That probably would happen, but there are ways to let people know in advance what's going on and the old cards value wouldn't sink too much - you can just take a look at Antiquities Triskelion vs other Triskelions and you just know - the only cards that would take a hit are probably dual lands.

Anyway, the reason is not value, it's the health of the format that makes Magic still exist (Standard).

@fsecco said in The Reserve List - The Reddest Red Herring:

The one thing I feel people still discussing Reserved List don't understand is that the reason it's still there is because Wizards doesn't WANT to abolish it.

NO ONE is talking about abolishing the RL in this thread. I can't stop you from talking about it, but I really wish you wouldn't. That way lies dragons.

@sovarius said in The Reserve List - The Reddest Red Herring:

Both really violate the spirit of the reserve list, too, i feel. Mark has said as much regarding "strictly better versions" and that they have no intention of doing so.

Helldozer and a bunch of other cards exist and do exactly this. In fact, my whole thesis is that WotC is perfectly free to do this.

However, if you have a quote from WotC saying something like "better versions of RL cards violate the spirit of the RL" then let me know, because that'd be relevant, of course.

I think certain power is going nowhere. Not the format we want bans in, i think 'strictly better' or 'strictly kind of different sort of' variants are really poor game design, i think combo bans are really bad.

Well, not with that attitude

Seriously though, it seems like it's really just a design and development challenge. There's got to be SOME way to print new cards that would allow people to buy into Vintage without having to sell their house to do it.

There's just so many hate cards that crap on people's best cards already, they just don't necessarily play well when you want to cast your own power cards. So maybe hoping for more of the same is not going to help. You'd rather play Ancestral than Spirit, you know?

Totally! Cards like Chalice and Null Rod and Stony Silence are a kind of way to print Vintage playables that actively dissuade you from playing the older power cards. You could keep going down this route. Imagine a tribal theme where the point of the tribe was to tax cards only at specific mana costs. Like, a bunch of creatures who said "Whenever someone casts a spell with a converted mana cost of 1 or 0, counter that spell unless its controller pays 3." That would specifically hose power more than anything else, and be very difficult to play along side it.

That's another way to go, though it's not exactly what I was talking about in the OP.

@fsecco Hasbro is not going to let WOTC abolish the reserve list, and letting people know in advance you are going back on a promise does not make it more possible. I don't see how Vintage Masters could possibly take away from Standard. Does Modern Masters? Or Eternal Masters? Or Conspiracy? I'm totally lost here.

@MaximumCDawg Neither Helldozer nor Demonic Hordes are ultra powered though. Black Lotus, Ancestral, Time Walk, and the Moxes are the most grossly overpowered cards in this game (any game? lol). I really don't think making 'strictly better' versions today is something they want to play with, and Rosewater has said as much regarding the spirit of the reserve list (which i will find, i believe it was about Ancestral Recall that drew 4 cards).

Helldozer is also quite different. It's not strictly better, but it is better every single time (which 100% is different that strictly better). Helldozer is so much more different than Hordes than Black Lotus and "Black Lotus, but it also sacs for colorless".

Sedge Sliver and Plague Sliver both kind of push it, if you want an example that's better than Helldozer. However they are also different in that their abilities stack with multiples and specifically interact with +50 other cards.

I don't think making 'more playable' card in the form "Resounding Thunder Spirit - 1WW, Flying, First Strike, 2/3" is the answer, nor do i think it will happen.

We would see more like Helldozer i think.

And you could technically add a color, like they did with Harmless Offering. But i don't think we will see "White Lotus - 0, Tap, Sac: Add 3 mana of any one color or CCC to your mana pool, White Lotus is all colors (even i this card isn't in play)".

They could, but unlike Harmless Offering, this is not only a stupid design (deliberately broken and preemptively banned/restricted, why?) but it is breaking the spirit of the reserve list on an iconic and enormous card. And it might not even be possible, Harmless Offering and Twincast are very different from their RL counterparts because they cost different mana, while my White Lotus actually still isn't functionally changed in how it is cast or what decks can cast it.

And White Lotus still doesn't solve the problem of Lotus costing $3-4.5k. Like i described before, it still just means a new player can play 1 lotus, and some people can play 2. Having 2 against an opponent with 1 is a better advantage than having 1 vs an opponent with 0 (not including the difference in deck construction, like having Null Rods main if you don't have Moxes).

And a combo ban still is just violating the spirit of the reserve list, just another way to try to finagle a new super broken card into the game, and won't help anything. Making a strictly better but technically different lotus, White Lotus, and banning the pair in a deck just makes having Black Lotus pointless and still craps on the value (not for collectors, but for the non-zero sum of people who are seriously paying $3k to play Vintage).

Relevant stuff re: spirit of the reserve list:
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/63096512894/while-against-the-spirit-of-the-reserve-list
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/112986254288/can-functional-reprints-of-reserve-list-cards-be

Some other relevant stuff:
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/32012175825/if-fork-is-on-the-reserved-list-why-is
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/120989317873/sedge-troll-and-crimson-muckwader-are-verry

His tumblr is freaking out on me in an unpredictable and inconsistent manner on me all of a sudden, or would find others.

@MaximumCDawg Helldozer was printed before Wizards re-commited to the RL and said they wouldn't do functional reprints anymore. So it's not a good example.
Printing newer versions of RL cards is something Wizards can't do, so if you want to do that then yes, you're talking about abolishing the RL, even if you don't think you are. I understand there's a thin line separating what is and what isn't a functional reprint, but printing something that's the same and strictly better than a card in the RL, imo, is what they can't do. We can say whatever about Treasure Cruise or shock lands, but they're NOT better than the originals.

@Sovarius Modern does steal a lot of attention from Standard. There's a reason they stopped doing Modern Pro Tours for a while. If you make the cost to enter Legacy way way lower, with high availability of crucial cards (dual lands mainly), there's a non-trivial amount of players that'll prefer a format where you don't need to buy-in every season. I have no doubt that the attention Wizards gives Standard would make it viable, but any screw up they make in Standard loses them players, and having a cheap Eternal format where you don't need to deal with Wizards' design variance is something that would definetely attract players. So yeah, I do believe it would ruin Standard in the medium-long run.

Eternal Masters doesn't screw up Standard because it doesn't reprint RL, so it actually helps only a few handful of people to enter Legacy/Vintage. It's mainly a Commander/Modern oriented set despite the name - a few cards for Legacy like Sneak Attack and Jace and a bunch of Vintage cards we don't need like Balance and Mystical/Vamp.

EDIT: Sneak Attack doesn't help anyone into Legacy since you probably need a bunch of City of Traitors to play it anyway, for example.

EDIT 2: no one commented my dual land design. Is it bad? Too good?

"Land - Plains Island
<Card name> comes into play tapped unless it's the only nonbasic land you control"