@Brass-Man If we only posted threads about cards that met that criteria this board would be vacant of posts save for people congratulating people for tourney wins and talking about when the 37th revision of the Gush book is coming out.

I think there is a line, but most threads are not devoid of content, its not like people are posting draft filler here, and most people can look at a card without play test and at least understand from heuristic metrics if it is worth discussion, not necessarily if it will or won't see play.

@yespuhyren said in [Free Article] Menendian's Suggested Banned and Restricted Lists (2018):

Especially with Traxos just having come out, being able to ramp up counters and toss them on a massive trampler seems insane

I find some unstated irony in the fact that you have issue with Ravager putting counters on Traxos but not the land that lets you play Traxos consistently ahead of schedule.

I disagree with ravager.

1 - I cannot tell you how many times I had heard the following from people on these boards: "Workshops may need to be restricted, but lets restrict Lodestone and see what happens".... "well, workshops is still too powerful, Workshops may need to be banned but lets add Thorn to the list" .... "well workshops is still too strong but lets add ravager to the list and see what happens."

At what point do we stop moving the goalposts for this one card? I've said it before and I think I'll say it again, I don't think there is any other non restricted card in the format that has caused as many restrictions as Workshops.

2 - Ravager has answers that workshops does not. Stifle is actually a powerfully demoralizing play against the modular trigger. The issue there becomes that stifle sees no play because of Mental misstep right now and is something the workshops deck can handle because of sphere effects which are powered out but, you guessed it, workshops.

At the end of the day I just don't see ravager being that big of a deal. The deck was strong before anyone used ravager and the decks it faced were very similar to what the field looks like now.

I'm ok with fastbond in the abstract, less so because your justification for it includes the prominence of Mental misstep. If MM gets to the point where it needs to go (as some very openly speculate it will) then I suspect Fastbond would have to go as well.

Infect affects how creatures deal damage, this simply prevents it. This would "win".

This feels really winmore to me. 4 mana do nothing on its own enchantments do not have any track record to speak of in the format, I actually can't think of any other card in the format right now that does nothing on its own, to the point where I think this is actively bad.

Then, assuming you land it and it's not blown out from a 1 mana counter, you need to resolve another spell, best case scenarios is you resolve Ancestral and draw 6, but you only net 4 cards on the first exchange and you have spent 5 mana, 4 at sorcery speed. A 5 mana voltron to make a slightly better Tidings does not ring out as a winning strategy.

I actually think this card is bad also because it takes up a slot that could have just been a draw spell. Draw spells tend to lead into other draw spells and resolving ancestral into treasure cruise or Ancestral into Snapcaster seems way more reasonable and mana efficient to me than this.

There is a very real possibility that LSG was banned for aesthetic purposes more so than any other factor. Vintage is now being covered in streams and videos and WOTC wants the format to feel more like the other formats when it comes to that. Because WOTC can make money off of streams for vintage, more so than selling cards they cannot reprint.

Regardless of if LSG was balanced or not, some games against a turn 1 lodestone last 5 turns of one player attacking and casting rocks and another player saying land go. Even if these are perfectly acceptable situations for a balanced vintage for the players that happens an acceptable percentage of the time, they give the perception of turn one wins with no interaction to a viewer.

WOTC does not want to stream games that look both boring and like a blow out, they want games that have both players playing over powered cards at each other on camera that make for good TV. They banned second sunrise in modern for this exact reason.

I will never fail to be amazed by people defending Mishras Workshop as some sort of untouchable format pillar and instead just trying to restrict everything around it.

I cannot name another card in vintage that remains unrestricted that has caused so many restrictions because of its legality. One could make the argument that Trinisphere, Thorn, Lodestone, and to some extent Chalice are all on the list either entirely or in part because of the power of workshops. Maybe even Mana crypt. Thorn and Lodestone are mostly innocuous enough in any non shops deck, if they see play at all. Now we are discussing getting rid of Ravager or Inspector, 2 cards that are utterly unimpressive on their own. Ravager has been in the format for how many years without any real presence, and how good would it be without fast mana to ramp it out along with it's pals. Like you say in your article it is a card with inherit risks associated with it. Inspector has the potential for crazy plays, but only if it hits the table early via consistent early game mana, and only one land in the list has the consistency to do that by itself. Even the example given in the article of a stifling turn one play of shops, inspector, sol ring, Sphere cannot happen without shops, any other configuration requires 1 additional card to generate enough mana or lotus, which is as we all know, restricted and cannot be used on subsequent turns to finish off your opponent like shops can.

How many cards on that list are there because of solely because of Bazaar? Or Oath? Standstill? I guess you could make the argument that Brainstorm and Ponder are there because of Force of Will maybe? Library because Island is legal?

That being said I don't disagree about the blue arms race, and perhaps Misstep does need to go, but I contend it may be because of factors other than balancing shops.

I would be curious to know how many of the games you played did not have you land a turn one shops or lotus, or a shops at all, and what the win rate on those matches were.

Well well

Perhaps one of the factors they considered when restricting COTV? Humans are being given all sorts of gifts this set.

I don't think the point of this thread was ever to really dissect what is good or bad in the Standard meta but rather to speak about how mistakes in that format have long reaching effects on non rotating formats and the overall health of the game.

Most of this thread boils down to this: Any mistake in standard, be it actual or perceived, will have a negative result on vintage.

For the most part I think that is correct.

@maximumcdawg said in SMIP Podcast # 78: Dominaria Vintage Set Review:

Does anyone seriously disagree that the Pillars of 98 are really critical to what makes Vintage Vintage instead of Powered Legacy?

I do. Being powered alone to me is enough of a change from the legacy meta that it validates the formats existence. But to be realistic, there are more than just power cards in the format that change the contours of it from legacy.

Actual Power - Moxen, Lotus, timewalk, timetwister, recall
Restricted cards not in legacy that enable prominent strategies in vintage - Demonic tutor, Fastbond, Vampric tutor / Imp seal, Yawgs will, Wheel of fortune/Windfall, Academy, Sol ring, library of Alexandriam, even more.
Cards that are super powerful that are allowed without restriction in vintage - Shops, Bazaar, Survival of the Fittest, Misstep, etc

I contend that the presence of power alone is enough to define the format and are really the only pillars it could have to still be a unique format, but it goes far beyond that. The very presence of any one of some of these restricted cards is enough to enable some lists and disable others that would have otherwise been lists in vintage. it would not be different if you only had 1 shops instead of 4, the formats would still be unique and play out very differently.

I mean, case and point, I think that mono red burn is a tier one list in legacy because of its speed, yet in vintage where you can make it even faster because of lotus and mox ruby its not even a list because the power alone changes the scope of the entire format.

I have no words

This is neat. It's kinda an upgrade on Kuldotha Rebirth but with the utility of a shatter tacked on to it. I know neither are playable in vintage but pretty often innocuous cards suddenly show up when you tack on utility, which this does have.

Of course I expect to see it more in modern where it will probably be very good in a new style bushwhacker deck, but I wonder what the value of 3 gobos is.

Is this good enough? I cannot even tell anymore with the number of 1 mana counters we have.

@thewhitedragon69 I think the argument I would make is because this is good on it's own. Blightsteel and company are shitty without tinker, Doomsday fails if you remove the doomsdays, Oath loses if you remove the Targets, etc. This can be hard cast and ridden to victory in a lot of scenarios, in the right list.

I play living end sometimes in modern, and that deck was very similar in that you wanted to haymaker them with a LE, but you could also cast a giant dork and ride it to victory pretty often. Infect is a combo deck at it's core, but it can drop a Phyreixan Crusader and just tell some opponents you have 5 turns maximum to live. I feel like this is similar, if the shell comes together around it. May not ever happen, but I think it could if the meta ever gets more fair.

@thewhitedragon69 said in [BRO} Phyrexian Fleshgorger:

There are a lot of great cards printed recently that seem powerful and fun, but they almost all fail the "force of will/vigor/negation" threshold that is our new Vintage reality

If your opponent tries to FOV this card, pays 3 life, and then you respond by blinking it, I almost find it hard to believe that you could lose that game.

I agree, the landscape of the game right now is really aggressive towards any new pillars ever forming, but honestly putting your opponent into top deck mode is probably the best thing to do in most matches since every card is a haymaker or land. I would love to live in a world where Hymn to Tourach/Ritual/big dumb fatty is a deck again, and this certainly pushes that archetype closer to viability than not.

@thewhitedragon69 said in [BRO] The Stone Brain:

but this card destroys the color pie

More than Fetches and Duals and Phyrexian Mana? The color pie in eternal formats has been mostly a vestigial organ for years.

I'm almost shocked no one has mentioned this yet. It's a 3/3 menace lifeline ward creature for a ritual/lotus that can be blinked into a 7/5 murder machine. I know it has been some time since Dreadnaught was a deck but this feels like an absolute bomb.

Ramp it out turn one with counter magic backup and your opponent is already on a clock paying to try to kill it, and if you blink it suddenly it may as well have hexproof against a lot of decks. Running blinks means you can also run Grief for value and have a very fast clock.

Lifelink means that once it is in play it's going to be hard to one shot you with Dark Depths or even a ground assault from Dredge, and menace means it can get that killing blow even if you normally would be able to chump with a snapcaster. I think this is really strong, I just think you probably need 1 other thing to ritural out to really make it shine.

I'm thinking a core of cards like this:

4 Phyrexian Fleshgorger
4 Greif
4 Ephemerate
4 Force of Will
4 Force of Negation
4 Mindbreak Trap
1 Mental Misstep
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Timewalk
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Dark ritual
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire

Maybe also run some Sheoldred and thoughtsize? I think there is something to it in any event.

On it's own this can function as an interesting sideboard option for shops to prevent losing to some combos. However I have to believe there is a world where playing multiple of these in a row is a thing.

Snapcaster without flash and costs 1 more, but also casts the card in question for free. Feels like it could have applications or function as snapcaster number 5 if someone was so inclined. It's technically mana positive over snapcaster if you target 2cmc stuff.

Notably it also lets you cast things with no CMC unlike snappy, so you can play a living end or restore balance or whatever.

@blindtherapy For sure it is different, my point is that the genesis of this style of effect is something you can trace back to being an artifact effect.

For what it's worth, it was not a black color pie effect for some time after that as well. We had 2 color lobotomy in Tempest, then a whole 5 color cycle in Urza's destiny with the sowing salt cycle, followed by Haunting echos in Odyssey before we finally get to Cranial Extraction in Champions, and this isn't exactly even that since this replenishes cards in hand where as Extraction did not.

@thewhitedragon69 Removing targeted cards from players decks was an artifact called Jester's Cap long before it was a black effect which I do not think came into being until lobotomy (maybe) and not really in its current shape and form until extirpate. Plus it's not as if Surgical Extraction was really a black card for most decks.