October 17, 2017 Banned & Restricted announcement

@vaughnbros I'd assume that if you're playing a 4 Jasconius deck, you're also playing Spreading Seas. The UUU to Untap is bad, but you don't need that, just fetch for another one!

MaximumCDawg

@vaughnbros This is still my fondest wish in Magic.

#FreeTheFish

@poxeveryturn said in October 17, 2017 Banned & Restricted announcement:

Unless it were also considered its own island... and a new meta emerges.

Well sure. If it's an Island for fetching purposes, it's an Island for all purpose. It also taps for U.

Card is super broken.

Sure but so is like 50% of all cards we play in Vintage.

Khahan

@fsecco said in October 17, 2017 Banned & Restricted announcement:

@poxeveryturn Uncounterable, fetchable 6/8 on turn 2 is also good enough for me.

Turn 2? I'm playing this with fastbond for the turn 1!

John Cox

@vaughnbros said in October 17, 2017 Banned & Restricted announcement:

@john-cox

The island subtype would include dual lands. You can only play 1 card with Island written on it.

Restricting Island subtype along with Workshop and Bazaar is a scorch earth strategy.

When that happens we'll have gone really deep down the "restrict creatures" rabbit hole.

ravager101

In the wake of vintage champs and multiple MTGO challenges it seems pretty clear that shops is still the clear best deck. Even specially built Oath decks to take down shops have fallen short. So the question remains, what next to restrict?

Imo we either hit foundry inspector, sphere, ravager, or some combination. However it is becoming more and more clear that workshop itself must go eventually. As an alternative tack, unrestricting mental misstep could allow the format to develop in a different direction, and possibly hurt shops

Sovarius

@ravager101 mental misstep is unrestricted. Did you mean git probe?

I think it could be revoker or ballista. I dont think workshop should go because it enables an archetype. Workshops, on the surface, sounds playable if you restrict revoker and ballista. Theres not a significant shortage of aggressive colorless aggressive meat to play instead. Possibly move towards eldrazi variant.

Serracollector

The obv culprit this champs was Oath. Restrict Forbidden Orchard.

Wintage

I'm surprised the t8 consisted of only 2 archetypes. Are Workshop decks really that much more consistent than any blue decks? With the deck being down to 8 lock pieces there should be enough hands with none or just one, but apparently the all in affinity approach is also enough to win consistently?
Also, what happened to Paradoxical and the Baral deck? Or decks with 4 hurkyls in general?

ajfirecracker

@wintage The issue is that they're printing good cards for the Shops archetype faster than they're restricting them (and 1 restriction + 1 equally powerful printing still leads to a net rise in power level, since you can keep the restricted card as a 1-of)

IMO other archetypes are not trending up as quickly as Workshops in terms of power level, particularly because the obviously powerful new printings for those archetypes keep getting restricted - the Khans block cards in particular

13NoVa

Guys, the sky isn't falling. People were underprepared for Workshops. Yes, something probably needs to be restricted, but in the Article I'll be writing I will be writing a clear argument that it is NOT Mishra's Workshop.

Culprits: Phyrexian Revoker, Foundry Inspector, Walking Ballista, Arcbound Ravager.

Those will all be cards I talk about. Relax though, and have a good sideboard plan, and we'll get through the Shop Dominance.

Besides, let us take a look at the workshop players:
@Montolio has been the best performing workshop pilot, and player in general, for YEARS. He won NYSE in 2016, then Top 8ed Champs that year. He also won several of the Power 9 Challenges back when they were only monthly and much larger. He's the real fucking deal.

Rich Shay is fucking bomb dot com at this format. He's extremely analytical, incredibly intelligent of all aspects of this game (and Life!) and he plays a ton, and with #TheAcademy, which for those under a rock is a think tank of the best minds currently in vintage.

Brian Larken played very well, and is all around a great magic player who is relitively unknown in Vintage because he plays in the Shark Tank that is the East Coast. It was only a matter of time until he breaks out - he's friends with Nick Dijohn, so obviously he has some good coaching for playing Workshops.

Eric Vergo was unknown to me before this tournament, and snuck in his second bye by winning one of the Grinders on Thursday by going 5-0, to Join Sean O'Brien and I in the 'Two Bye Club'. He then played magic like a fucking pro all weekend, and had some insane record 8-2 and then 9-1-1 if I recall correctly, for a TOTAL Record of 22-3-1 on the weekend before he got beat in the top 8 of BOTH EVENTS as he was the only person to ever top 8 Legacy and Vintage Champs both in the same year (at least that I can recall). Look for special things from this kid.

The other guy (Sorry, I can't remember your name) I don't know much about, but he seems to be one of the Team Tusk guys, who all seem to be solid magic players from when I've played them or watched them play.

Basically, what I'm getting at is, sure, you need to be lucky to get to the top of these tournaments, but you also need to be a fucking great magic player. And all these shop players would have been pushing the top 64 or 32 anyway.

Hell, if you gave me @Montolio , @brianpk80 , and Rich Shay against the field, when the field had magic cards and the 3-team was armed with a Ham Sandwhich, a Deck of Yugioh cards, and a subscription to Club Pengiun, I'd probably bet on those 3 to at least go 50/50.

Horologium

@13nova said in October 17, 2017 Banned & Restricted announcement:

Guys, the sky isn't falling. People were underprepared for Workshops. Yes, something probably needs to be restricted, but in the Article I'll be writing I will be writing a clear argument that it is NOT Mishra's Workshop.

Culprits: Phyrexian Revoker, Foundry Inspector, Walking Ballista, Arcbound Ravager.

Those will all be cards I talk about. Relax though, and have a good sideboard plan, and we'll get through the Shop Dominance.

I don't think anybody is panicking (e.g. "the sky isn't falling.") Shops variants have been a large portion of the meta for years now. Whether or not people are "prepared" to play against workshops is a tangential issue. The main concern, as you alluded to with your culprits, is that Shops decks are improving at a faster pace relative to other pillars of the format.

Cut a head off the hydra (restrict a card), and two more grow in it's place. Newer, better, more aggressive cards continue to be printed. The acceleration of shops is outpacing the restrictions.

Winterstar

Two thoughts from reading this thread.

One: Soly is being the voice of reason. The format is definitely in a weird place.

Two: I look forward to your tournament report. I've always enjoyed our games.

13NoVa

@winterstar said in October 17, 2017 Banned & Restricted announcement:

Two thoughts from reading this thread.

One: Soly is being the voice of reason. The format is definitely in a weird place.

I'm also arguing that Workshop SHOULDN'T Be restricted.

Seriously...

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!

mdkubiak

@apollogod said in October 17, 2017 Banned & Restricted announcement:

@13nova said in October 17, 2017 Banned & Restricted announcement:

Guys, the sky isn't falling. People were underprepared for Workshops. Yes, something probably needs to be restricted, but in the Article I'll be writing I will be writing a clear argument that it is NOT Mishra's Workshop.

Culprits: Phyrexian Revoker, Foundry Inspector, Walking Ballista, Arcbound Ravager.

Those will all be cards I talk about. Relax though, and have a good sideboard plan, and we'll get through the Shop Dominance.

I don't think anybody is panicking (e.g. "the sky isn't falling.") Shops variants have been a large portion of the meta for years now. Whether or not people are "prepared" to play against workshops is a tangential issue. The main concern, as you alluded to with your culprits, is that Shops decks are improving at a faster pace relative to other pillars of the format.

Cut a head off the hydra (restrict a card), and two more grow in it's place. Newer, better, more aggressive cards continue to be printed. The acceleration of shops is outpacing the restrictions.

I would argue a bunch of people are panicking. If you're apart of the vintage Facebook group, there is just thread after thread about people talking about Mishra's Workshop and restriction. To the level of giving me a headache and reminding me why I don't partake in that group much anymore. This is not me arguing one direction over the other about Workshop on why I'm getting a headache there. Mostly due to the arrogance of people there (but let's not get sidetracked on this... moving along).

Side note: I'm for keeping it unrestricted.

Format is garbage right now. Haven't played a paper event since April 2017. Qualified for NYSE, didn't attend. Skipped out on champs. Prepaid for last months local vintage 1k, skipped out.

Diversity is at an all time low. Competitive options are at an all time low. You either play islands, bazaars or workshops and that's it. The format would capture a larger portion of magic players if there were options aside from these. The format is also poorly managed. It's going to die off eventually if changes aren't made.

Shops needs to get nerfed.
Misstep needs to get restricted.

3-5 additional non-bazaar/shop/island archetypes would be playable with a misstep restriction.

Tournament attendance is down. This is also another telling factor. EW lost over 100 competitors last year since it was in ohio, down from 2015s numbers. EW was brought back to PA in 2017. The numbers were still down from 2015.

Changes need to made or all your cards will drop substantially in value and vintage will go 6 feet unders.

WOTC/DCI need to axe misstep like they axed TOP in legacy.

Whoever the person with the most influence/power over this format needs to make a phone call to WOTC/DCI otherwise it will get worse and worse.

nedleeds

@13nova said in October 17, 2017 Banned & Restricted announcement:

Guys, the sky isn't falling. People were underprepared for Workshops.

You weren't. Three f'ing basics. FML.

Brass Man

I believe that shops is the best deck in the field right now, though I don't think it's good enough to consistently get 5/8 top 8 slots on its own merits.

I believe that it's totally plausible that shops could be a serious problem, and require a restriction.

Unfortunately I also believe that we'll never find out whether or not it is, because I'm confident something will be restricted out of it before people start seriously trying to beat it.

Anecdotally I had a lot of conversations with people at EW and saw a lot of decks that looked like they were actively sacrificing the Workshop match to get edges elsewhere. This isn't in and of itself a problem, it's a valid metagame call, but I feel that not everyone knows that's what they're doing.

If someone went to a tournament boarding in 0 cards against dredge, I wouldn't take much stock in their argument if they claimed Dredge needed a restriction. I would feel the same way if they boarded in 15 basic Forests against Dredge, lost, and then argued "I brought in my whole sideboard! obviously Dredge is a serious problem!" If 100s of people did this and Bazaar got restricted, I would feel frustrated and powerless, even if I personally did not like playing against Dredge.

I get that some people believe the deck is just unbeatable, and I concede that it might be ... but there are just too many people so obviously not trying to beat it (even if they think they are) that a restriction at this point would, for me, be extremely frustrating, regardless of whether I personally enjoy playing with or against the deck, regardless of whether the decks I like playing have a good matchup against it or not.

I predict, however, that the metagame will not change, most players will not adapt, and something will be restricted. I don't personally care which card it is.

13NoVa

@nedleeds Yeah, not going to lie, that was a major reason our match was epic... you turning on my spells for me.

nedleeds

@13nova said in October 17, 2017 Banned & Restricted announcement:

@nedleeds Yeah, not going to lie, that was a major reason our match was epic... you turning on my spells for me.

I'll watch the replay when I get home but playing Tabby was certainly wrong. I suspected you had mentor in hand and didn't want to lose to Time walk. But it was still wrong you'd have needed Walk, cantrips and Lotus or maybe sol ring in addition to Mentor to get your blue stew cooking. I just felt so naked with no spheres.

13NoVa

@nedleeds Your chance to close out the game was in Game 3, and you were doing a fine job of it - I think you DO Close out game 2 against less prepared decks. And also, if I wasn't on 4 snapcasters, I think you just bash with Factory through Jace Vryn's Prodigy.

In Game 2 when I played the Snapcaster, Ambush Vipered your Factory, and then floated Swords to Plowshares around, it stopped you from casting any other threat there because it goes farming - had that Snapcaster instead been Jace, vryn's prodigy, (A) your Factory lives and (B) any threat you would have drawn that turn would have been live.

It was an interesting game of inches.