As I continue in my quest to understand the meta game, I look back at Vintage and see that this is the only format that has a viable prison deck with the exception of Old School.
A lot of players HATE prison. It is not very interactive and it sneaks up on you. The part of Vintage that is broken needs to have some variation of a viable prison deck.
The Shop decks that attempt this are OK, but not good enough to make it into tier 2 or tier 3. I do not want Trinisphere or Chalice or Lodestone back as 4 of's. If Thorn was unrestricted how much would that hurt the meta?
Damping Sphere was a flop but there has to be some incremental was to slow down the low to the ground Shop deck. If Shops added White or Red spells could we get a viable deck here?
Eldrazi plays some of this strategy but without Thorn it is not getting there. I am not a player who loves play prison or playing against it but I see that this school of magic is needed to open up the format a bit.
This type of deck forces people to play the format with some fear of being locked out.