@vaughnbros said in August 26, 2019 Banned and Restricted Announcement:

Look at any major sport and there is a players union fighting for/against rule changes. I don’t see why magic should be some great exception. No one is going to advocate for a change that they think will kill the game.

I absolutely think objectivity is a good thing. Most players are unable to see what their proposed actions will accomplish beyond the immediate future. This is not a knock on people, it's just not a skill players of a game need to develop.

Of course nobody is going to advocate for a change they think is going to kill the game. But the problem is that a change players want might not necessarily give them the result they want. Someone emotionally and financially invested is not necessarily going to consider opposing points of view. Objectivity lets you do exactly that.

@ajfirecracker said in August 26, 2019 Banned and Restricted Announcement:

I think the idea that the DCI has better Vintage experts than the actual Vintage players is pretty suspect

You can have the best players in history but if you aren't able to manage the format while holding a dispassionate and objective view of the long-reaching ramifications of your actions, being a good Vintage player means nothing. Management of a format takes more than simple player skill, as evidenced by some of the restrictions proposed by skilled players of the format on this very forum.

Seeing 4x Necro being a consideration makes me so happy. I hope it follows soon, nothing would please me more.

@evouga said in (M20) Vilis, Broker of blood:

One notable interaction: you can mini-Tendrils yourself (no matter how much life you have) to draw an absurd number of cards without losing any life.

This is hilarious and actually makes me wonder if there's something there with this interaction.

Griselbrand also draws without needing mana. Each activation for this guy costs B.

I think this would be quite playable in some decks as an instant. As a sorcery though, meh..

So I can't speak for everything regarding Old School vs Vintage, but I've found the breakneck pace with which people demand change in Vintage to be extremely harmful to paper Vintage. Since MODO moves so much faster, people are tired of a new metagame in a week and begin to loudly proclaim on social media and wherever else that the format "sucks" and that we need a change and X should be restricted and whatever else.

On the flip side, we used to have one Vintage event every few months. When you have zero investment in a format that you're sure is going to change by the time the next event comes around, it's really not something you want to get into. Add onto the fact that people loudly proclaim the format isn't fun when you've barely begun to even play it, and it's not hard to see that there is not much desire to play. We no longer have Vintage events every few months.

Old School, on the other hand, fulfils this desire extremely well. This is why I don't believe proxies will do much to change anything since the cards clearly exist. The desire to play Vintage as it currently is just isn't compatible with what players on MTGO want.

I think some proxies is absolutely necessary on any level to get new blood into the format. However, I've found that 100% proxy events tend to create not much care or investment in the format. A potential player would come to play hoping to spike a Vintage event for the EV and have 60 basic plains sharpied with the latest deck that won a MODO challenge. There would be very little investment in the format itself for such a player, and in which case it is not growing the format at all. I'm not sure that's the sort of event I'd be interested in going to.

To clarify, I do think proxies are needed as I wouldn't have gotten into Vintage without it. But limited proxies are sufficient. Anywhere to 10-15 proxies sound fine to me.