Vintage is close to dead in France but about 6 months ago we tried to set up a monthly tournament. The agreement with the shop that is hosting us is very simple :

• unsanctionned event with a very low entrance fee and very little prizes (we don't care, our goal is to play and have fun)
• playtests cards for several reasons : trying to get Legacy players into the format, we don"t want to carry 20k worth of cards and the shop does not want to have to worry about that too.
• playtests can be as nicely done as people want but they must be easily recognized as playtest cards (that is : no fake cards around). By the way a friend of mine has a foil beta P9, just so beautiful !

So far, the results are quite promissing : we manage to play monthly, we are not a lot but people are slowly coming in, and we are having a lot of fun !

In the 1994 Pocket Players' Guide (so revised edition), the rules are quite clear and they namely explain the differences from the First edition. Here are some quotes from it :

In the chapter : MTG revised edition rules

Sacrificing (Page 58 and after)
If a card call for a sacrifice, you must choose an appropriate card in play and place it in your graveyard. This card is considered buried and thus may not be regenerated (see Destroyed, Buried, and Removed from the game). You can not sacrifice a card under another's player control or a card that is already leaving play.

[... here was an exemple ...]

A sacrifice is a cost that cannot be prevented. Any effect that would normally prevent a card from beeing destroyed or damaged do not protect the card from beeing sacrified. Also just as mana is spent as soon a spell is announced, a sacrifice is taken as soon the spell or effect requiring it is announced. If this spell or effect is countered in some way, the card beeing sacrified still get buried, just as mana spent on a countered spell is still spent.

[... here was an exemple ...]

Selene says : note that sacrificing something is not the same as destroying it. A card that says it can not be destroyed still can be sacrificed. (...). Sacrificing a card is a distinct action you take as a player to meet the requirements of another card; it is treated differently from destroying, burying and other effects that remove cards from play.

In the chapter : Differences between first edition and revised edition MTG

Sacrifice (Page 111)
Under revised rules a sacrifice is a cost that can not be prevented, and the card goes to the Graveyard immediately, at the speed of an Interrupt. If a fast effect involves sacrifying a creature, put the creature in the Graveyard as soon as the fast effect is announced, rather than waiting until all other fact effects are announced. (Any benefit or result from the sacrifice still waits until its proper place in the effect-resolution sequence). Even if a spell or effect is countered in some way, the card beeing sacrificed still gets buried, just as mana spent on a countered spell is still spent.

Card errata (Page 112)
Most of the First Edition cards can be played "as is" under the Revised rules. Some Revised cards have minor changes in what they do when compared to First Edition; when playing with mixed sets, play each card by wording on the card itself. However, just because one version of a card says something explicitely and another version doesn't, this does not mean they function differently. Some of the cards text contain reminders of things that are already part of the rules. The presence or lack of such text on one card versus another should not be interpreted as meaning that rule does not apply.

A few cards do need their wording changed, as follow :

These card say "discard" and should say "destroy" : Bottle of Suleiman, Balance, Black Lotus, Chaos Orb, City in a bottle, Conversion, Cyclone, Disenchant, Drop of honey, Jihad, Pestilence, Tranquility, Unsummon.

(...)

In the chapter : MTG FAQ (Page 216-217)

Q: Are the terms "kill" and "destroy" synonymous ?
A: Yes. In both cases, you may attempt to regenerate the creature beeing killed or destroyed.

Q: And "goes to the Graveyard" ?
A: This means that the card must be placed in the graveyeard. Once a creature is Sacrificed, it must go to the graveyeard, and can't be regenerated or other fancy stuff. Protection, Guardian Beast, Consecrate Land, and other protective effects cannot save cards that are sacrificed or "placed in the graveyard".

Q: what about "discarded"?
A: If it refers to a card in a player's hand, the card is simply placed in the graveyard and generate no effect. If it refers to a card in play, it is synonymous with "destroyed" and the card may be protected or regenerated.

Q: Are the terms "gone to the graveyard", "killed", "discarded" and "destroyed" synonymous?
A: These are all past tense. If a card actually goes into the discard pile, then it was killed/discarded/destroyed/sent to the graveyard.
The Revised rules have clearly defined "kill" and "destroy" as identical, and have replaced "destroyed without possibility of regeneration" with "buried". This saves space, and works for any type of card (instead of just creatures).

My 10 cents

So, to sum it up, under Revised Rules :

• Serendib Djinn wording was still "destroy" and as such the combo with consacred land or pyramid were still legal.

• The rules allowed any card to be sacrificed, not only creatures (even if i fail to find any other card in those sets who would ask for it).

Edit :
I found the official errata in the Duelist number 7 (Page 99) so in 3rd quarter of 1995 and still under Revised rules :

Q: When i choose a land for my Serenbib Djinn to destroy during upkeep, can i prevent that destruction?
A: No, Serendib Djinn should be read as if the land were sacrificed.

(by the way, it was in the same errata that the Guardian Beast/Disk combo did not work any more as they also say : consecrate land, guardian beast and pyramid may no longer save permanents from themselves).

As a long time shop player, i knew i would run such a deck at MKM series Paris. For many months Ravager shop has been objectively the best shop deck but i don't like it. Nothing special, it is just that i enjoy different kind of decks ... so when new Karn went out, i knew there was something there. The problem was the very short time before the tournament. I had a look around at what people had found and saw some interesting ideas but was not 100% convinced by them.

Namely, people want to get an early Karn and they use lots of mana artifacts to get those 4 non-shop mana. I agree that a turn 1 Karn is a blast but actually any competitive vintage deck can have broken opening hands so i usually judge decks by cheking how they behave when things are going not so well. So "what happens if i don"t have a Karn in my opening hand ?", or "what happens if my opponent plays an early stony silence/null rod ?". To make it short, is that explosive start worth the price ? MTGO results imply that it could be but i decided i would try another path and see where it leads.

I tried to forget everything i had seen and started from scratch. I checked each decks to find how they can be hated out. For example, Ravager shop has no answer to ensnaring bridge + null rod. I did that for a gauntlet of decks and found a core deck that could adress the expected meta : sphere, null rod, ensnaring bridge, revoker, Witchbane orb. Most cards are quite usual in shop decks but that quite tight package shows that a prison/stax direction is possible.

The plan was clear then : i would play a stax deck that happens to use Karn as a win condition. I don't want to use too many mana artifact so the plan is to play Karn in late game only. Getting the 4 non-shop mana could be a problem and i tried to find a balance there. I liked the inventor's fair that can tutor (for example crucible for recursion) and help with life point. The deck was ready very late so i could only do little testing. I knew the real problem was to play null rod but it was worth a try as it gives an edge in some difficult matchups (ravager shop, elrazi karn, PO). I was not exactly sure about the whole balance of the deck too. There was a trial the day before the main tournament so i decided to use it as a test. If it went really wrong, i could always switch back to a more classic list. However i was quite confident because it ends up not being very different from some lists i had seen in internet (credit to volrathxp for example).

Here is the list i used at the trial :

// 30 Artifact
1 Black Lotus
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
4 Sphere of Resistance
1 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Trinisphere
3 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Null Rod
2 Crucible of Worlds
4 Tangle Wire
2 Smokestack
1 Mox Opal
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt

// 9 Creature
1 Lodestone Golem
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Walking Ballista

// 18 Land
4 Ancient Tomb
3 Inventors' Fair
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Wasteland
1 City of Traitors

// 3 Planeswalker
3 Karn, the Great Creator

SB: 1 Ensnaring Bridge
SB: 4 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 3 Witchbane Orb
SB: 1 Mycosynth Lattice
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Null Rod
SB: 3 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

After getting some friends and a 5 hour drive, here we are for the trial :

• Round 1 : win against URW Pyro/mentor (2-0)
  My opponent was playing more counterspells than usual. I had no real trouble winning those games.

• Round 2 : loss against URW Xerox (0-2)
  The list looked quite standard. I had some trouble with my own null rod in first game. He had a great opening in second game and i could not deal with everything he played. I conceded to a timetwister with Narset on the field but actually i had already lost to Dack a few turns before.

• Round 3 : win against Jund (2-0)
  A friend of mine so i know his list is budget but really solid actually. He is a great deckbuilder. Unfortunately for him, he had to mull to 4 on first game. Second game was more difficult for me and i went very low. I was really lucky with mana crypt die rolls and i managed to survive long enough to stabilize and finally lock him out of the game.

• Round 4 : win against enchanteress (2-1)
  A very unexpected matchup ! I lost game one because of stony silence on a mana rock heavy opening hand for me. I quickly won game 2. Game 3 was quite funny : i was quite happy to play Karn, get Lattice and play it when my opponent show me the stony silence he had played some turns ago (i had totally forgot it lost with all those enchantments), he smiled and said 'i guess we are both locked'. Looking at my board i saw my stax and smiled back. A few turns later, he had nothing on board and he conceded ... Note for later : think twice before making hasty plays !

So i was 3-1 and left with one bye for the main event on saturday. Not so bad for a first tournament with that list. I tried to analyze that trial :

• There was lots of blue decks and they were quite different, obviously people were trying new things. I was the only shop deck and
  some creature decks were there (goblin for example) but no eldrazi.
• Every one there agreed that because of Karn and Narset (that saw lots of play too), there will be no Paradox deck tomorrow.
• In each of the four games i sided out 2 null rod and 1 ensnaring bridge and i sided in 3 Tabernacle. Obviously i should consider again my choices there.

Finally, I removed the 2 null rods MD and put 1 expedition map and 1 tabernacle instead. I also switched 1 ensnaring bridge for 1 one more stax (that was very good in each game i played it). Map is great because it can catch utility lands but more important it can catch Tolarian Academy for non-shop mana.

The plan now is : play like a classic stax then use one of the two tutor pack (namely inventor's fair or Karn) to end the game. Before, probability to get either tutor were equal but now because of expedition map inventor's fair is slightly more probable (this is important for choosing what to side in or what to leave in side to be got by Karn). I also changed some cards in sideboard but to be honest i had not enough time to check deeply what was best so i am quite sure it can be still improved.

So the list for the main event was :

// Karn STAX

// 29 Artifact
1 Black Lotus
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
4 Sphere of Resistance
1 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Trinisphere
2 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Crucible of Worlds
4 Tangle Wire
3 Smokestack
1 Mox Opal
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Expedition Map

// 9 Creature
1 Lodestone Golem
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Walking Ballista

// 19 Land
4 Ancient Tomb
3 Inventors' Fair
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Wasteland
1 City of Traitors
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

// 3 Planeswalker
3 Karn, the Great Creator

SB: 1 Ensnaring Bridge
SB: 4 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Witchbane Orb
SB: 1 Mycosynth Lattice
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Ratchet Bomb
SB: 1 Sorcerous Spyglass
SB: 1 Duplicant
SB: 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
SB: 2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

Main event

• Round 1 : bye

• Round 2 : loss against URW Xerox (1-2)
  My opponent was the one i met in round 2 the day before. In game 1, my deck worked much better against him and getting a main deck Tabernacle with map was really great. I still lost but it was a very close game. I quickly won game 2. I stupidly lost game 3 by keeping a hand that i should have mull.

• Round 3 : win against Dredge (2-1)
  Game 1 my hand was slow but with a wasteland, unfortunately he had 2 bazaar and i quickly lost. I have many cards to side out against him and what i can bring in is decent. He had to mull some to get his bazaar but i quickly hated him in both game 2 and 3.

• Round 4 : win against BUG (2-0)
  I had a strong hand in game 1 and there was not much he could do. Game 2 was longer but Stax + Tabernacle is really strong.

• Round 5 : Id
  I know my opponent is on Storm. The matchup is for me but if i loose i am not sure to get into top8. I decided to do it safe when he offer to Id.

• Top8 : win against storm (2-1)
  My opponent from Round 5. Game 1 is long but quite simple : 3 sphere then 10 turns to kill with a revoker ! I had to mull to 5 in game 2 and missplayed by playing chalice at 0 instead of 1. Lesson learnt : my next 3 draws were moxen and crypt ... Basically, i made many mistakes in that game (and my opponent made a big one too) so in the end sounds only fair that he won. I played more conservatively in game 3, locking him and tutoring for a witchbane orb.

• Top4 : loss to Eldrazi (0-2)
  I knew before we started that it would be really difficult. My opening hand was not good enough (and should have been mull) in game 1 and i lost quite quickly. Game 2 was more balanced but the other Karn (scion of Urza) sealed the deal finally.

A friend of mine (playing survival) lost his Top4 too (to a Xerox deck) so we decided to battle for the honor of the 3rd place. We had played a lot together and the matchup is favorable but i guess he was less tired than me and he quickly won. In the meantime, Eldrazi crushed his opponent and won the tournament.

Top8 was :

• 1st - Paul Ridoux (Karndrazi)
• 2nd - Matej Turan (Four-Color Xerox)
• 3rd - Damien Colomb (Survival Salad)
• 4th - Laurent Rippert (Karn Stax)
• 5th - 8th :
  Thomas Ribet (B/R Goblin Squad)
  Cedric Germain (Jeskai Xerox)
  Andreas Allikmets (U/R Agro)
  Niklas Holtmann (Dark Petition Storm)

Conclusions

• The deck can be improved but it works.
• Expedition map and Tabernacle main deck were a blast the whole day.
• At the end of the day, i did not used the Karn + Lattice combo that often, most of the time i could win without Karn and when it hits the field i often used it to kill moxen or to get another utility artifact.
• The meta is shifting because of those new planeswalkers and people are brewing !

I hope that reading was not boring and i will welcome any question or suggestion.

Edit : more info on Top8

My view on all this is very practical :

• Vintage has always been my favorite format and i try to play at least one (usually very small and when i can bigger) paper tournament every month.
• For the last two years power creep in the format has been quite obvious and even more recently. IMHO we are now at a point where a game is mostly decided by our opening hand so the only really important décision is keep or mulligan. i quited several competitive tournaments just because playing was just boring because of that. Not every games are like that but much too often. This was bound to happen sooner or later and that means really strong décisions (whatever) should be taken if Wizard wants a future for Vintage. I put it short so it might sound quite dark view but IMHO if we are not there we are very close to it : power level is much too high now.
• I don't mind big changes in Vintage if it will allow it to stay a format that can be played.
• As for compagnion, i don"t mind if in a few years there is one or two decks that uses such strategy (in the same way there is a dredge deck in the format) but if the goal is that every one is playing one compagnion then i will just stop playing Vintage and will find another format. If i wanted to play with a commander i would play Commander format, plain and simple.
• If every one agree that Lurrus is broken then i see no reason to wait. Ban it as compagnion and do not let the few vintage players left in the world struggle with an biased meta.
  This is just my feeling about all this and still hope it will go for the best.

I was very curious about this deck so i test it a bit and bring it to a small paper tournament today. The list was the last one suggested by Vroman and running life from the loam (see a few posts above). The mail was slow so i missed a few cards and made some minor change to it.
Namely -1 balance / +1 needle for MD.
The side was : 4 dark depths, 4 thespian stage, 4 leyline of the void, 1 needle, 1 vengeful pharaoh and 1 ancient grudge.
The results were average but mostly because the pilot did not master enough the deck.

Here are a few thoughts :

• i really missed 1 ichorid to trigger amalgam, i think i will put it in the balance/needle slot.
• i agree with Zias about Darkmor Salvage. Rifstone portal and some slow dredging can let us get loam running and getting the lands but it is really slow. Not sure what to cut yet but i will definitively want 1 or 2.
• i know that it is not exactly the plan but since i had 1 free slot in sideboard i tried ancient grudge. I found it quite neat to deal with cage, needle and time vault. Ray of revelation could be interesting too in sideboard but much less useful.
• Maybe i played the deck really bad but i am not convinced by Hollow one. It is great when you get it in opening hand or if you happen to get it with bazar when drawing instead of dredging, but most of the time it just get away when dredging. I know people love it in dredge decks but this deck is not exactly a classical dredge deck so maybe it is different. I don't know and will test much more.
• strip / loam lock is a thing.
• Hardcasting a 16/16 troll is just a blast !

My 10 cents

Pro and high level players choose their decks according to the meta and what they feel would be the best strategy. In theory this is the best way to do but in the real world they are just a very small % of vintage players. Most of us are just playing one kind of deck (or a very small number of them) because it is the kind of deck that suits our playing style and we have fun with it (another reason is card availability/price of course but that is not the point here).

From that point, the (theorically) best metagame would be the one where each 'playing style' can be incarnated by at least one deck (several would be best of course). As an example, i am just very bad at playing combo decks : whatever the deck or the format and how hard i try ... i always loose. It is just not my style. On the other hand, i know players that seem to be always playing combo decks whatever the incarnation or format (storm, belcher, elves, ....). I don't know what would be an adequate list of 'playing styles' but i presume you understand what i mean here.

I won't come back on what has been said on the classification of decks from a meta management point of view, but what i just said can put a different light on that problem. Note that i am advocating nothing nor judging here, i am only trying to put some light on the facts :

Let's have a look at the recent restrictions as an example : golem, chalice and thorns restrictions lead to the fact that prison shop does not exist any more and shop archetype is now only ravager builds. Let's see how people react to that :

• For 'blue' players a shop deck is a shop deck and they don't care about the details. So they look at the numbers and see that shop archetype as a whole is still high so they scream "Nothing changed, we need more restriction and so on ..."
• Aggro shop players are quite happy (i presume)
• Control/prison shop players are frustrated. Unless they find another deck in the format that suits their style (and they can afford to play) they won"t have much fun. They could try ravager decks but it is a really different style (same difference as between 'Death & Taxes' and '4C control' deck in Legacy for example).

So basically the result of those restrictions is that the overall frustration of the vintage communauty has increased. Maybe they were a necessary evil, i don't know and i won't judge but this is a result that can explain some of those endless talks on that topic.

My conclusions are :

• Some amount of categorization is necessary because it is not the same people who play decks that could look very similar from a quick glance. 'Playing style' could be a criteria (i don't know if that can be done practically or if it would lead to something different from the usual criterium).
• Statistical are great but they are tools, the real stuff are people who are playing.
• The 'perfect' metagame for me would be one where any new player who wants to try the format and looks at the available/competitive decks could always find one that will suit his playing style and have a reasonable chance of winning with it.

@cutlex
When your plan is null rod, you must built differently your shop deck. I had tried snare thopter some time ago and it is a quite good creature.

Edit : as for the wasteland, there are only 56 cards in the deck list so i guess they are there.

This card stops workshop, ancient tombs and academy. It is a MUD deck hoser much better for the format than any kind of restriction. Thank you, Wiz.

A well balanced card in my opinion with lots of potential.

@The-Atog-Lord said in Ichthyan Taxonomy:

Best of all, Naga are sometimes snakes and sometimes naga.

Please don't mess with snakes ... in french cards, 'snakes' and 'serpents' are both translated as 'serpent' and i saw so many (well at least one actually) people get desperate when they find out that their tribal serpent deck was just falling apart.

@Stuart He was true when saying that people were ready for the shop matchup. Some people were even paranoid about it : i met a BUG deck that was running (post side) : 4 trygon predator, 4 nature's claim and 3 energy flux. Obviously i lost ...
Shop is sort of similar to dredge : when you take it seriously, you win against it.

Maybe i missed some recent cards but that is quite surprising to see Phasing come back.

If welder shops were still a thing it would be an obvious include. Less interesting in more classic builds but i like the card and will definitively get a playset.

@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.

@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.

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.

@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.

@smmenen said in Is it possible to have vintage be community run and maintained?:

But compared to what? I think it's important for people to pinpoint when they felt game play was so much better. Too often, however, it's just a generalized feeling rather than a specific period or instantiation of Vintage.

Of course, there can be many reasons behind such a feeling. The only thing i can tell is that at some point they disliked the experience so they quited to do something more pleasant in their eyes and they never came back. Many of them still have the cards but they just don't feel like coming back (often but not all play OS instead).

What i was trying to pinpoint with that exemple was just that people enjoy Vintage because of the high level of play and that tricky choices often decide who wins or loose. When choices are not important any more (whatever the reason : one deck too strong, too much variance, ....) , people loose interest for the format.

The whole point of my long text was just to say that sooner than we may want we might have to face a "playability" problem in vintage. If that happens, the only solution is drastic power decrease and that is something that most players don't like. So maybe some anticipation is best.

However this only "gut feeling" from a (very) long time Vintage player and i have no answer to that nor many objective arguments to back it up.

I read a bit earlier in the thread people trying to compare with old school (OS) management. I must react to that because old school is so much different from vintage on that point :

There are several B&R lists (and rules) for OS because of the 'Gathering' part of MTG. When OS was a brand new format, various people agreed to gather around something they enjoyed. They experienced and agreed about what they think is the best experience. This ended up in those different R&R and rules. And there is wisdom in having them still exist : OS cards are a bit less than 1000 so sooner or later the meta is solved (or close enough). Each different B&R produces a different meta which renews the game and make it a more interesting experience in the long run.
In a way, problem that Vintage has to adress is exactly the opposite.

Going back to the subjet of that thread.

I am not very fond of a player management of the format. IMHO the main reason is that it misses the real problem : vintage is not dying because of the B&R management. There are the obvious reasons (reserved list, ...) that every one knows of but i think the real problem is the overall power level in vintage nowadays. Of course, B&R can deal with that but up to some point where it fails. Let me try to elaborate.

In 2011, i went to a BOM tournament and when thinking about what i would play i quickly found out that the meta was basically : play turbo Tezz or play Kudoltha forgemaster (Dredge was there too of course). Historically, Vintage meta has always been quite small but it was the first time i found it that small.

In the following years, a change happened with what was called then the 'Legacy like' decks. It started with BUG and Delver and it never stoped since then. People may say vintage has became powered Legacy but fact is that meta broaden much because of that and that is a good thing in my mind.

But, why did that happen ? When i started Vintage, first thing i learned was 'it is a format where creature strategies are not strong enough'. Somehow, this became false suddenly. Balance between spells and creatures has been a problem since MTG very start (why bother summon a force of nature when opponent need only one mana to sword it ?). Creature power creep is obvious when looking at the various editions and at some point (about 2014) they became good enough for modern vintage. That is not a problem but a hint about something. Power creep in MTG can't be avoided but only slowed down.

In another thread, Brian linked an interesting article about the way Wizard R&D was dealing with it for standard format.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/play-design-lessons-learned-2019-11-18

To make it short, they explain that they set the power level range that standard should have and that level is a bit higher than it was. They also design much more cards than before to try to make each standard format a great experience. Results of that is that more and more cards are leaking into Vintage format. I used to be buying playsets of every cards that looked promissing when a new set was published but i stopped : there are just too many of them now !

To sum up before going back to vintage, fact is we are going to see more and more new cards in Vintage.

Some of those cards are too strong in vintage context and the B&R list can deal with them. Still, one of them find a place in most Vintage decks. Some new cards don't deserve being restriced but they do improve existing decks. IMHO the real problem is the density of those cards. Decks are getting stronger and stronger and the pace at which this is happening is making it very problematic (if not out of controle). Out of experience, take a deck you were playing last year or the year before and try it in the current meta. Chance are that you will find the deck to be obselete ... not 'need to be updated' but most probably one turn too slow. That power creep is making the format much quicker than it was up to a point were the critical turn is much too often 'opening hand'.

What are MTG games that you remember or enjoyed ? The ones were you had to battle, where your choices were critical. Mulligan choices are important but there is not much satisfaction in games that end there : you play at your best and objectively make no mistake but you loose because opponent hand was just stronger. This has always happened in MTG games but when it happens much too often it is a real problem.

I am not saying that new cards in the format is a bad thing but saying that managing power level in the format is like walking on the very thin line.

I asked many former vintage players why they stopped. There were personnal reasons of course but the most common answer directly related to the game was : games were boring and not interesting.

Ultimately, the B&R can't deal with that problem unless a really big number of cards are banned and restricted (i am not advocating that but that is just the point : going to that would hint its failure). I don't know what is the good answer to that but i presume it would be a drastic change in the format.

To ends in a more positive way, there is an OS variant that i tried recently that has an interesting rule. Basically the format is no sideboard, exactly singleton 60 cards and 7 points. For example : lotus, LOA, trall and sol ring costs 4 points, moxen mindtwist and walk 3 points, and so on. What is interesting is that system balance card power in a deck but it also adress card availabily (if you don't have power you know that if your opponent has chosen to be playing moxen he won't be able to play other strong cards that you will be playing). I don't know if this would work for vintage (probably not because there are too many cards) but it is an example of alternate way to deal with power level in a format.

My view on all this is very practical :

• Vintage has always been my favorite format and i try to play at least one (usually very small and when i can bigger) paper tournament every month.
• For the last two years power creep in the format has been quite obvious and even more recently. IMHO we are now at a point where a game is mostly decided by our opening hand so the only really important décision is keep or mulligan. i quited several competitive tournaments just because playing was just boring because of that. Not every games are like that but much too often. This was bound to happen sooner or later and that means really strong décisions (whatever) should be taken if Wizard wants a future for Vintage. I put it short so it might sound quite dark view but IMHO if we are not there we are very close to it : power level is much too high now.
• I don't mind big changes in Vintage if it will allow it to stay a format that can be played.
• As for compagnion, i don"t mind if in a few years there is one or two decks that uses such strategy (in the same way there is a dredge deck in the format) but if the goal is that every one is playing one compagnion then i will just stop playing Vintage and will find another format. If i wanted to play with a commander i would play Commander format, plain and simple.
• If every one agree that Lurrus is broken then i see no reason to wait. Ban it as compagnion and do not let the few vintage players left in the world struggle with an biased meta.
  This is just my feeling about all this and still hope it will go for the best.

I like that they produce cards that can adress planewalkers but this one looks far too weak to be of any real use in the format.