@protoaddict said in Rules for Vintage B&R list:

@desolutionist said in Rules for Vintage B&R list:

No matter what happens we’re all just going to be playing worse versions of the same decks.

I'm not sure that a worse version of the same deck is actually the same deck. What is a shops deck with 3 fewer shops? Is it starting to border on being Affinity? Is Trinisphere even worth maindecking in this case, or do stax decks become colorless eldrazi / Null rod style builds.

A Shops deck with only 1 Workshop is still a Shops deck. Just like a Gush deck with only 1 Gush still embodies the spirit of a Gush deck. It would want to play Wastelands, City of Traitors, Crystal Vein, some fast artifact mana and just power out Spheres and Lodestone Golems. If you recall the mtgo classic format, all the best decks were just worse versions of all the current vintage decks. (Classic didn't have the entire Vintage cardpool such as power) No matter how you slice it -- Null Rod or Eldrazi or whatever, its still the Shops deck.

Dredge without 4 bazaar may very well decide to forego the serum powders as well, and maybe that deck becomes a Crop rotation build that now can run utility lands, or a Burning inquiry list with Hollow ones and the like.

Yes but its still the "Dredge" deck. We effectively just made every deck in the format worse, but the matchups are the same and play out the same way.

@vaughnbros said in Rules for Vintage B&R list:

@protoaddict

Look in the opposite direction, what if we unrestricted Lotus, and Moxen? The format would be homogenized super fast due to all of the best mana sources being available as 4-ofs instead of singletons.

I happen to know exactly what happens in this hypothetical metagame. I'm assuming that if moxes are unrestricted, then so is Gush. At which point, the best blue deck is still a Gush deck that plays 15 lands and just a few moxes. So once again, you've created a metagame that features the Gush deck against the artifact-dense "Workshop" deck.

@desolutionist said in Rules for Vintage B&R list:

@protoaddict said in Rules for Vintage B&R list:

@desolutionist said in Rules for Vintage B&R list:

No matter what happens we’re all just going to be playing worse versions of the same decks.

I'm not sure that a worse version of the same deck is actually the same deck. What is a shops deck with 3 fewer shops? Is it starting to border on being Affinity? Is Trinisphere even worth maindecking in this case, or do stax decks become colorless eldrazi / Null rod style builds.

A Shops deck with only 1 Workshop is still a Shops deck. Just like a Gush deck with only 1 Gush still embodies the spirit of a Gush deck. It would want to play Wastelands, City of Traitors, Crystal Vein, some fast artifact mana and just power out Spheres and Lodestone Golems. If you recall the mtgo classic format, all the best decks were just worse versions of all the current vintage decks. (Classic didn't have the entire Vintage cardpool such as power) No matter how you slice it -- Null Rod or Eldrazi or whatever, its still the Shops deck.

Dredge without 4 bazaar may very well decide to forego the serum powders as well, and maybe that deck becomes a Crop rotation build that now can run utility lands, or a Burning inquiry list with Hollow ones and the like.

Yes but its still the "Dredge" deck. We effectively just made every deck in the format worse, but the matchups are the same and play out the same way.

If all these decks are powered down enough it still opens the door for other deck archetypes to have presence that they do not now. In a format with restricted mana bases, less consistent brown decks, slower dredge decks you may see rituals come back. Maybe fish decks. We simply don't have that now.

Also, we lived in a meta not long ago where unpowered eldrazi, ravager shops, and stax shops all coexisted and I assure you they were not the same deck.

@desolutionist said in Rules for Vintage B&R list:

A Shops deck with only 1 Workshop is still a Shops deck. Just like a Gush deck with only 1 Gush still embodies the spirit of a Gush deck. It would want to play Wastelands, City of Traitors, Crystal Vein, some fast artifact mana and just power out Spheres and Lodestone Golems. If you recall the mtgo classic format, all the best decks were just worse versions of all the current vintage decks. (Classic didn't have the entire Vintage cardpool such as power) No matter how you slice it -- Null Rod or Eldrazi or whatever, its still the Shops deck.

Technically, that is true but this won't happen. Reason is that you forget something in that analysis : shop deck are running about 40 artifacts because because 4 workshops make it worth it. Now if you have only 1 workshop and no (or few) way to tutor it would you still want to play that many artifacts ? Would not you want to add some color and get all nice effects that brown is missing ?

Ultimately, you will play a whatever-deck with a more than average number of artifacts to still get nice use of the singleton workshop (could be for exemple some kind of turbo-tezz or something like the 5C shop decks that used to be played). I am not sure if such decks would be still shop decks.

On the other hand, singleton Bazar does weaken Dredge decks but does not kill them : They are called dredge decks not bazar decks ... they loose their best tool but not their reason of being.

@albarkhane said in Rules for Vintage B&R list:

shop deck are running about 40 artifacts because because 4 workshops make it worth it. Now if you have only 1 workshop and no (or few) way to tutor it would you still want to play that many artifacts ? Would not you want to add some color and get all nice effects that brown is missing ?

the card you're trying to think of is called thought-knot seer

@blindtherapy said in Rules for Vintage B&R list:

the card you're trying to think of is called thought-knot seer

I speculated about this for some time a year or 2 ago when I had thought Shops had to be considered. If you restrict shops I see the deck bifurcating in 2 specific lists:

The first deck you would get would be 2 drop ravager shops. You still have a shop and academy, but would have to replace 3 shops with either sol lands like City of Traitors, utility land like inventors fair, or more Moxen or something like that. The deck is already low on the curve but I suspect it would look towards trying to get its top end costs even lower by dropping anything that could clog the hand, including singleton copies of things like Traxos, Scourge of Kroog, Precursor Golem, or Mystic Forge. Other than that it is basically the same deck, it will have a few slightly less explosive starts and it cannot slam all its stuff indiscriminately, but it's basically the same deck.

The second deck would be Brown Eldrazi Stax. Eldrazi already have 2 of its own sol lands in Temple and Eye and probably wants to play a little higher on the curve, I suspect that the way it may be built is similar to the unpowered build we so a few years ago, where the only artifacts it runs are ones without activated abilities so it can run Null rod. I would run the singleton workshop to be able to power out first turn trinisphere, Sphere of resistance, or Null rod, but the rest of the deck would be eldrazi based. Creature base would revolve around 4 thought-knot seers but I could see it either going towards the high end with Cavern of souls allowing uncounterable Reality smashers or stay relatively aggro with Mimic and Matter Reshaper.

Basically the restriction of shops would take nothing from this deck but rather add a copy of shops to it. In the past as soon as you added one shop you had to ask yourself why not just play the better deck, but if Shops is powered down by half a turn and a little more vulnerable, and your drazi deck suddenly has a new tool and is resistant to most of the shops hate, that questions starts to answer itself.

While I do not think you can restrict Shops in a void, I think it needs to happen with other restrictions and maybe even unrestrictions, I 100% content it would be the healthiest thing for the meta.

@albarkhane said in Rules for Vintage B&R list:

@desolutionist said in Rules for Vintage B&R list:

A Shops deck with only 1 Workshop is still a Shops deck. Just like a Gush deck with only 1 Gush still embodies the spirit of a Gush deck. It would want to play Wastelands, City of Traitors, Crystal Vein, some fast artifact mana and just power out Spheres and Lodestone Golems. If you recall the mtgo classic format, all the best decks were just worse versions of all the current vintage decks. (Classic didn't have the entire Vintage cardpool such as power) No matter how you slice it -- Null Rod or Eldrazi or whatever, its still the Shops deck.

Technically, that is true but this won't happen. Reason is that you forget something in that analysis : shop deck are running about 40 artifacts because because 4 workshops make it worth it. Now if you have only 1 workshop and no (or few) way to tutor it would you still want to play that many artifacts ? Would not you want to add some color and get all nice effects that brown is missing ?

Ultimately, you will play a whatever-deck with a more than average number of artifacts to still get nice use of the singleton workshop (could be for exemple some kind of turbo-tezz or something like the 5C shop decks that used to be played). I am not sure if such decks would be still shop decks.

On the other hand, singleton Bazar does weaken Dredge decks but does not kill them : They are called dredge decks not bazar decks ... they loose their best tool but not their reason of being.

Sounds like you've never been run over by shops when they dont draw workshop and just draw 1 of multiple sol lands and any of their thousand or so 2 drops.

I am advocating nothing and just trying cold analysis. It is near impossible to foretell how a meta would evolve but there are still a few obvious things.

@blindtherapy
@Khahan
@Protoaddict

My point is that with only one shop (and no tutor) it is not optimal any more to play 40 artifacts. So what do you put in ?

• I can only agree that Eldrazi creatures are so much better than artifact ones so this way is the most obvious and the easiest.
• @Protoaddict about the first deck you suggested. That was my point : it could exist but it would not be worth it. Other options would be much better.

Starting with existing shop decks and trying adapt them is the wrong way to go. For that particular problem, reasoning should start "from scratch" as if shop decks never existed and brew starting with 1 shop and nothing else.

Or put it another way : if probabilities are very low that you naturally draw your single shop, you should design a deck that does not need it and when you get it, it is just added bonus.

Why would you want to play 2 drops or more when you can now play many 1 drops that will let you draw thousands of cards ? That is why i suggested colored shops but another way to see it is that the single shop would just become academy number 2 for any decks that rely on such a card.

@albarkhane said in Rules for Vintage B&R list:

I am advocating nothing and just trying cold analysis. It is near impossible to foretell how a meta would evolve but there are still a few obvious things.

@blindtherapy
@Khahan
@Protoaddict

My point is that with only one shop (and no tutor) it is not optimal any more to play 40 artifacts. So what do you put in ?

• I can only agree that Eldrazi creatures are so much better than artifact ones so this way is the most obvious and the easiest.
• @Protoaddict about the first deck you suggested. That was my point : it could exist but it would not be worth it. Other options would be much better.

Starting with existing shop decks and trying adapt them is the wrong way to go. For that particular problem, reasoning should start "from scratch" as if shop decks never existed and brew starting with 1 shop and nothing else.

Or put it another way : if probabilities are very low that you naturally draw your single shop, you should design a deck that does not need it and when you get it, it is just added bonus.

Why would you want to play 2 drops or more when you can now play many 1 drops that will let you draw thousands of cards ? That is why i suggested colored shops but another way to see it is that the single shop would just become academy number 2 for any decks that rely on such a card.

I have witnessed enough shops match ups to know that they often have superfluous mana and have plenty of games where they win on sol lands. Shops already did not come up as frequently as that deck wanted and it still dominated for years. The decks most critical drops have always been and are still are 0 and 2 drops, nothing changes there either.

I don't see why you need to throw the baby out with the bath water and redesign the deck from the ground up. We know through heuristics and our observational knowledge that the deck not only still works but is also still competent at doing what it does. We also know that the decks largest predator right now is not mana but rather a free green spell that does not care about your mana.

How good the deck is in the meta has not actually been about the card workshop for some time, it's about the hate that is played and if it can get in under that in the first place. Shops is not good because of 3 mana, it is good because you do not take damage/lose a card/etc to use it. If eldrazi were to become the better of the deck it is almost undoubtably because of other factors.

@Protoaddict
Maybe i am wrong but it looks like we are not talking about the same thing : you are talking about influence of shop restriction in the actual meta whereas i am talking about influence of shop restriction in an hypothetical and mostly unknown meta related to a set of rules for B&R (opening post).

I have witnessed enough shops match ups to know that they often have superfluous mana and have plenty of games where they win on sol lands. Shops already did not come up as frequently as that deck wanted and it still dominated for years. The decks most critical drops have always been and are still are 0 and 2 drops, nothing changes there either.

When you witnessed shop matchup, did you see mulligan choices ? Because it is what is at stake here (later in the game you are right : shop has lot of useless mana). Most of the time, an opening hand with one ancient tomb and lock pieces is a mulligan. Of course, it depends on what you know about your opponent and the other cards in hands but most of the time it is the good choice.

I don't know if you ever played shop but if you did you must know that match up where opponent is running wastelands are very different to ones where he is not. There is a reason for that.

But to answer more directly to what you said (if i understood it well) : of course 1 workshop decks can be played (Legacy MUD decks do exist afterall). My point is not here, what i say is that something similar to nowadays shop builds would not be the best option for a shop deck.

I don't see why you need to throw the baby out with the bath water and redesign the deck from the ground up. We know through heuristics and our observational knowledge that the deck not only still works but is also still competent at doing what it does. We also know that the decks largest predator right now is not mana but rather a free green spell that does not care about your mana.

How good the deck is in the meta has not actually been about the card workshop for some time, it's about the hate that is played and if it can get in under that in the first place. Shops is not good because of 3 mana, it is good because you do not take damage/lose a card/etc to use it. If eldrazi were to become the better of the deck it is almost undoubtably because of other factors.

I agree with what you said but you should go further down that road. The real question is about which deck is stronger ?

• Deck 1 : is running 40 artifacts and made some little adjustements to take in account there is only 1 shop. Basically, the usual shop deck.
• Deck 2 : is running (let's say) 25 artifacts and 15 [add here what you prefer : Eldrazi / blue spoilers / one or several colors / whatever].

My point is that both decks can be played and would be competitive but the deck 1 would be suboptimal compared to deck 2. Reasons are simple : less artifacts mean less relying on singleton workshop, and also means that the nasty free green card will be less devastating. Basically, deck 2 is less sensitive to artifact hate and could potentially have access to blue power, cantrips, draw effects, ... (whatever) , in short strong new effects.

If we want to classify starting by strongest : nowadays mono brown 4 workshops decks > Deck 2 (singleton shop) > Deck 1 (singleton shop).

4 Workshop is the only reason that shop decks are playing that many artifacts, that is just statistic reasons. That is exactly why i would start from scratch to design Deck 2. The only exception would Eldrazi-Deck 2 that would be quite similar to what we have now, but any other would require a very different balance.

@albarkhane said in Rules for Vintage B&R list:

4 Workshop is the only reason that shop decks are playing that many artifacts, that is just statistic reasons. That is exactly why i would start from scratch to design Deck 2. The only exception would Eldrazi-Deck 2 that would be quite similar to what we have now, but any other would require a very different balance.

I do not think that is true anymore. There is so much synergy within the cards that they all feed into each other, outside of even the workshops powering them out.

• Foundry Inspector makes the whole deck cheaper
• Ravager can eat any non land in your deck including spheres you need off the table
• Ballista and hangerback can use ravager tokens
• Traxoses downside becomes an upside in the list
• Mystic forge can play your deck
• All your cards feed your academy
• All your mana sources are rainbow sources for your own cards

There is a lot of reason to play mono brown artifacts in a world with just one workshop

@protoaddict
Is there any reason to build a workshopless workshop deck now? I tried something like that for Legacy with Gaea's Cradle and Crop Rotation (for Ancient Tomb). I'd be interested if anyone thought that would be viable in vintage.

@john-cox said in Rules for Vintage B&R list:

@protoaddict
Is there any reason to build a workshopless workshop deck now?

Absent of a restriction, no there is not. With a restriction the world's your oyster. I ran cradle in my legacy affinity lists to great success. I do not think that translates to vintage because you are not running frogmites and I don't think you would, but options to replace the 3 x shops include:

• Mox opal
• City of Traitors
• Inventors' Fair
• Tower of the Magistrate (for the mirror)
• Buried Ruins
• Crystal Vein
• darksteel citadel

All bring unique value to the table.

@protoaddict said in Rules for Vintage B&R list:

I do not think that is true anymore. There is so much synergy within the cards that they all feed into each other, outside of even the workshops powering them out.

• Foundry Inspector makes the whole deck cheaper
• Ravager can eat any non land in your deck including spheres you need off the table
• Ballista and hangerback can use ravager tokens
• Traxoses downside becomes an upside in the list
• Mystic forge can play your deck
• All your cards feed your academy
• All your mana sources are rainbow sources for your own cards

There is a lot of reason to play mono brown artifacts in a world with just one workshop

Good point. That is were we disagree, i am not sure those synergies would really make it up but there is only one way to know at that point, namely doing some real tests.