https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/november-18-2019-banned-and-restricted-announcement?wertyui

Narset, Parter of Veils is restricted.

Next B&R Announcement: December 16, 2019

Following up on the recent changes to the restricted list and the results of Eternal Weekend North America 2019, we're making one additional change. In the context of the fast mana and efficient card draw available in Vintage, Narset, Parter of Veils is contributing to one-sided games at a higher degree than is healthy. In order to reduce the frequency at which an early Narset, Parter of Veils' static ability soft-locks the opposing player out of the game, Narset is restricted.

Paradoxical Outcome gets a huge boost back

I think this is mostly a good thing, but I am a fan of singleton style play.

I think the most profound aspect of this is it will prevent Narset from being a core deck strategy with wheels and instead make her just a generally good utility piece in multiple matchups, sorta like balance and Karn. I imagine a lot of people floating Oko for that slow.

More and more decks that are not Dredge or Shops are moving closer and closer to being highlander decks, the the point where I almost wish vintage was just a singleton format.

The explanation is so soft. It seems like they don’t know anything about Vintage. Three sentences isn’t enough. My hopes and dreams destroyed by a careless organization folding to all the hype and commentary.

Their reasoning is contradictory.

-there’s too much efficient card draw, so, we’ll restrict the card keeping it in check.

First card in awhile (to my knowledge), that people weren’t playing four copies of when it was restricted?

Most decks seemed to be 2-3 copies.

@nba84 said in November 18, 2019 Banned and Restricted Announcement:

Paradoxical Outcome gets a huge boost back

gross. please restrict Paradoxical Outcome.

@ten-ten said in November 18, 2019 Banned and Restricted Announcement:

Their reasoning is contradictory.

-there’s too much efficient card draw, so, we’ll restrict the card keeping it in check.

That's not how I read their rationale. Rather, it seems they're making the "Chalice of the Void argument": Vintage is defined by its efficient card draw, and Narset is too strong of a one-sided lock against a defining aspect of Vintage play, and so it has to go.

Chains of Mephistopheles- you are on notice!

@joshuabrooks said in November 18, 2019 Banned and Restricted Announcement:

First card in awhile (to my knowledge), that people weren’t playing four copies of when it was restricted?

Most decks seemed to be 2-3 copies.

There are a fair amount of cards on the list that if unrestricted I'm not sure would see play as a 4 of now, like imperial seal. I'm pretty sure Gitaxian Probe was not 4x when it was restricted either.

@protoaddict said in November 18, 2019 Banned and Restricted Announcement:

More and more decks that are not Dredge or Shops are moving closer and closer to being highlander decks, the the point where I almost wish vintage was just a singleton format.

I've joked for a while that Vintage could move to singleton with the exception of Workshop, Bazaar, and Force of Will and it wouldn't be substantially different

If you restricted Shops and Bazaar along side all non basic lands I'm not sure you would be in a format that required FOW to keep it sane, plus there are quite a few other free counterspells that would become viable like Misdirection, Force of Negation, maybe even Foil or Disrupting Shoal.

I know FOW was long lauded as the formats gatekeeper but if the format was singleton it likely would be far more "fair" and not so in need of keeping.

I'm sure Narset was problematic enough to warrant a restriction, but all I can think of at this point is "what is the next card people are going to complain about for the next few months"? My bet is on Paradoxical Outcome.

These constant restrictions are tiring.

The really interesting question, which is bound to arise as Wizards keeps printing variants of existing effects: once an archetype is oppressive and all of its key components are already singletons, what now?

@evouga That has always been the issue of the restricted list. I remember talking about this when Treasure Cruise came out, because even with the restricted list suddenly every deck kinda had 2 recalls in their deck once that mistake was made. If they make a other similar mistake suddenly we have 3 in the format.

Personally I think restricting the mana bases is a good start. It does change the texture of the format but does protect it for potentially a longer time.

Narset failed to live for two reasons:

1. It's a 3 mana dig through time with a fantastic static ability. Dig through time costs 8 and was restricted. I think that's what they mean by too much efficient card draw. Narset herself is hyperefficient card draw even without her static.
2. She's blue. If Narset were any other color, she'd be a great tool vs blue decks and card draw for decks that rarely have any. By being blue, she just becomes a 1-sided CA wall the same way Karn was a 1-sided null rod, and Karn already got axed. Stopping CA was a great move, but adding it to the color that plays that CA was a major fail. If Narset were 1WW, She'd be an awesome and fair card. Other Narset incarnations were white...they just shifted her in the wrong direction for N,PoVs.

@protoaddict said in November 18, 2019 Banned and Restricted Announcement:

@evouga That has always been the issue of the restricted list. I remember talking about this when Treasure Cruise came out, because even with the restricted list suddenly every deck kinda had 2 recalls in their deck once that mistake was made. If they make a other similar mistake suddenly we have 3 in the format.

Personally I think restricting the mana bases is a good start. It does change the texture of the format but does protect it for potentially a longer time.

I mean, a lot of the Vintage mana base is already restricted, right? Sure, restricting Workshop, Ancient Tomb, Bazaar, and the various utility lands would hit the format hard, but I don't know that Xerox or other blue-based decks would be much phased, given that we already have access to 10 distinct fetchlands (five of which can get Islands), the original five duals and the Ravnica duals (many decks only run 1-2 copies of the original duals anyway), and in a pinch, new printings like Prismatic Vista.

@evouga I have to believe that any restrictions in the world of fetches and duals would be at the least a deck building hurdle for base blue decks. Yes they would have shocks if they needed, but they would be forced top spend life as well as use a wider variety of fetches that may not always be the one they need to fetch with.

People just said Narset was often a 2-3 of card and it needed to be restricted, same logic for lands.

@thewhitedragon69 said in November 18, 2019 Banned and Restricted Announcement:

2. She's blue. If Narset were any other color, she'd be a great tool vs blue decks and card draw for decks that rarely have any. By being blue, she just becomes a 1-sided CA wall the same way Karn was a 1-sided null rod, and Karn already got axed. Stopping CA was a great move, but adding it to the color that plays that CA was a major fail. If Narset were 1WW, She'd be an awesome and fair card. Other Narset incarnations were white...they just shifted her in the wrong direction for N,PoVs.

If she were 1WW instead she'd just end up as another piece to white Eldrazi decks or something, so, eventually would need restricting anyway.

Do people think that perhaps Pyroblast will have less representation now?