TCG mid is a serious problem. Vendors rely on uninformed buyers who look at TCG with their quick phone apps and see a giant number that legitimizes a price. They know the cash value is lower, but when some kid shows up to the trade tables with a binder full of highly liquid standard and modern staples wanting to pick up his first power, or some old Legends card, that arbitrary price means he gets taken to the cleaners. Vendors look at $1500 Tabernacles as an opportunity to take in $2000 in buylist which they can flip for cash faster than the one kid looking to build Lands. It's not malicious; they're just being good stewards of their own inventory and looking to turn a profit. Business is business.

In many ways, we were better off in the days of Scrye. Internet sales were supposed to pinpoint the true value of cards, but in reality it has just become an unregulated market for speculation. The tools we have available are too easily manipulated. I wish a popular site like TCG would start calculating mid prices as an average over time, rather than a snapshot of a single moment. If it took 30 days to drag the needle up on old cards, it would be a lot harder for people to spike a card and cause a panic.

Played him tonight in a local paper vintage event. Pretty standard BUG Fish, using him over Edric or Notion Thief. I ran 3, because I was more interested in drawing and playing him to see how it worked than tight tuning. Turns out he's pretty outrageous.

Other than Oath, which this guy laughs out of the room, I only drew 1 card off Leovold all night. The Spirit of the Lab effect outside of white (without reverting to Chains) is the real power. Drawing cards off targeted effects is just fine, but the influence it has on your opponent's decision making is more powerful than the text on the card. You leave them with no good options.

I was never unhappy to see him, even with 3 copies. At worst it's blue to pitch to FoW, but overall the games where he stuck I ran away with them, and the games where I drew him late or not at all I lost. Ended up 3-1 for the night, losing to Shops (really just TKS and Tanglewire).

@gkraigher I am betting that Felidar Guardian didn't see any significant playtesting at all. The file isn't locked that far in advance of printing, and uncommons are tossed in willy nilly all the time. Someone wanted a revolt enabler for limited, and much like Reflector Mage + Collected Company, no one bothered to see the interaction. Uncommons just don't get the same kind of attention and the designers get tunnel vision on the splashy cards without realizing how powerful certain bread and butter effects like flicker are.

That's my guess, anyway.

@Chase_Dagger Platform isn't really my point. FB is fine, but there's no real conclusion to be drawn from that poll for anything except the specific sample of THAT group, and even then it's not really all that accurate. 122 out of 2042 participants in just that group is about +/-8.5% confidence. That 2042 isn't the entire vintage player population, either.

It's about as useful as a couple dudes bitching about Shops on VSL.

(All low level napkin math. A genuine expert could tell you more, I mostly do qual work.)

Poisoned Memories - 1B
Instant
If an opponent would draw a card except for the first one he or she draws in each of his or her draw steps, instead that player discards a card.

Gaea's Will - GG
Enchantment
You may ignore spells or abilities controlled by an opponent that increase the cost of your spells.
You may spend mana as though it were any color when casting creature or enchantment spells.
(Controlled by an opponent is important, otherwise this is best used with your own sphere effects.)

Hedonism - 1B
Enchantment
Monks, clerics, and knights become 0/1 creatures and lose all abilities.

@ChubbyRain You're doing a huge favor to the community by compiling all of that data. Thank you.

I don't have any constructive criticism, other than to say if you reached into my brain and pulled out a list of 75 cards I most want to play in vintage.... this is probably it.

Except Misstep. I will go to my grave despising that card even if it's a necessary evil in this meta.

@Serracollector I would 100% be fine with a Misstep restriction. It's not playing the same role as Force. Force imposes deck building constraints that Misstep doesn't, and carries a real cost to cast. Misstep is a highly focused and effective Counterspell stapled to Channel. There is zero downside.

I love having a vintage back where the restricted cards matter and you cannot reasonably fit all of them into a single list.

Played Thieves yesterday because it's a pile of 60 cards I enjoy playing. Won't claim it's the best but it's fun.

Cute vs storm triggers.

Should have said "with damage" but yeah, fuck Misstep.

Kills Jace after a +2 in mono-red. That alone is pretty much new territory.

While you can try to go for this off LED, you're stone dead to a Force of Will so it feels awfully risky.

Basically ask yourself: in what matchups would you rather draw Shatter this turn than anything else in your deck?

If so, now you can.

Legacy would mean a ban, which would be wild. The format would look very different without free counters on the offense. Thalia stock would go up too.

I like this the more I think about it. It's not just a functional reprint, there's a real choice here in terms of which card is better for different formats.

The added exile clause is a nice bonus given the sheer power level of individual cards. Dunno if that'll matter for much, but it's there.

Yeah this is strong. The passive can win the game alone and the -2 with restricted artifacts is lolz.

I'm trying to find the MTG Arena angle that's almost certainly behind this, but I'm coming up blank so far.

I wouldn't put too much stock in WotC's methodology unless they actually reveal it. My suspicion is there is a lot more sampling error than any of us think. Any quantitative analysis is about minimizing sources of error, and focusing solely in win% won't do that.

For one thing, you would need identical lists. Comparing archetypes is going to inject error and complexity that is pretty difficult to correct. This is the same reason why things like tracking surveys use identical questions for years and years. Changing even the phrasing can lead to different results and makes the data incomparable.

It's fine provided the results acknowledge limitations and sources of error, but people tend to like making bold statements off data that won't generalize where they want it applied. Honestly, that's where subjectivity comes into play. No one should want a truly data driven format. Subjective experience matters and is measured quite differently from win rate.

WotC should be spending time measuring things like satisfaction with a given format, whether we're talking about Vintage or Standard. They could develop a validated tracking metric and collect data weekly, bi-monthly, whatever, and measure self-report satisfaction with a given format over time. It would help them an awful lot when it comes to delivering sets that are optimized for what people want to play. Their current market research does not impress me.

This is a long winded way of saying win% is a heuristic, not a complete picture.