I agree about Gush vs. PO. But Wizards will look pretty silly unrestricting Gush again...
But Brainstorm will never be unrestricted. As you say, decks are digging for combo pieces. Letting PO dig even harder and faster won't exactly diversify the field!
I assume Big Blue is stuff like Grixis Thieves while Blue Control is stuff like Landstill.
Thanks for the feedback. I readily admit that I played only 15 or 20 matches.
(1) Yeah my first inclination was to swap one or two loams for one or two more lands maindeck.
(2) Fair enough. Maybe a better way to put it is that I just never felt like I had enough creatures on board, in particular given that this deck wants to dread return moreso than a stock dredge list (hence the 3 maindeck vs. usual 2). You get stuck with a Narco in hand, not a ton of lands to trigger Bloodghast, etc. Just always felt like a struggle to get to 3 creatures on board. Then when you did dread return, you were all in, since it basically wiped your board (except maybe an amalgam coming back).
(3) Point take on not having to rely on bridge. But given that this deck is slower than stock dredge (though maybe you disagree there), I really want some grave hate to slow the opponent down.
(4) On this I guess I would need to fundamentally shift how I think about dredge. Always felt like I needed to maximize game 1 since games 2 and 3 can be so tough. What did you cut for more grudges?
It is certainly a cool take on dredge. I gave this a shot on modo a couple months ago and noticed a few things:
(1) Not nearly enough lands maindeck to make 4 loams castable or worthwhile. Postboard you jam all those lands in and sure.
(2) No bridges made getting enough dudes to dread return (while also trying to flashback therapy) very difficult. No way you're ever turn 2 Griselbranding here.
(3) The mirror match is very unfavorable, especially if they're running leylines (or 4 ravenous traps, which I actually ran into online a couple times!)
(4) Yes, grudge is good against PO and Shops, but giving either of these decks extra time is asking for trouble. Shops can kill you so fast these days. Giving up the explosive plays from dredge is worse than being able to grudge their dudes game 1.
Then why not just lobby to get the Power 9 unbanned in Highlander instead of wanting to fundamentally change Vintage?
A single Scavenging Ooze (plus maybe another in the board) for that Snapcaster/JVP/Yawg Will/Dredge hate. The card is a lot worse than it used to be back when BUG Fish was good, as a vanilla beater was a nice thing to have then (not so much now). Still, the incidental life gain can also occasionally squeeze out another turn you might not otherwise have.
@socialite said in JANUARY 9, 2017 BANNED AND RESTRICTED ANNOUNCEMENT POLL:
I do and this sort of dynamic is why I prefer the current state of affairs to prior generations of this format. Ultimately I can't help but feel as though a lot of these doors are closed due to the intrinsic power level of the format as a whole. It's hard to find merit when most of what you can realistically do in this format is dictated by Bazaar of Baghdad and Mishra's Workshop.
Why not just play legacy then? No snark intended here.
I believe this is supposed to happen "mid-November" according to WOTC. So probably after the update on the 15th.