Well well

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

@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.

@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.

So eldrazi decks looking to splash basics for colored mana (or wastes for bloodmoon) and anything using crucible just found a new best friend. This seems to me like it could be a real player, as the cycling is uncounterable outside of stifle and it feeds delve mechanics. I will certainly be picking up 4 copies of this card, I think people really should be on the look out.

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.

@botvinik said in [MIC] Gorex, the Tombshell:

The reason I have rather little hope for this card in vintage is the decks that can use that body effectively, get creatures in the yard fast enough to activate it, and make black mana to cast it, would much rather have cards in the yard for things like the gak then cast a 2 mana 4/4. This is a bad sign but the ability is interesting and maybe saves it? Unfortunately, no delver would really like its spells back in it's hand but hogaak wants them in the yard to take advantage of. Keep in mind I am not a zombie lord my skill lies far more with the doomsday decks so I may just be wrong but this one looks like a miss to me.

Gak requires far more of a commitment to include, since the delve number is so high. This needs 3 creatures which you can typically just get in the yard through course of play. There are probably also some shenanigans you can do with Anger and the like to make this more aggressive. It reminds me a little of Soulflayer, which has always been a pet card of mine, in that it needs a creature heavy shell to work, but as pointed out Wraith and Deaths shadow both work great here as well.

I think this is quite good. Obviously does a pretty good Grumag Angler / Tombstalker impression, but it also reminds me of Ethereal Forager which was a secretly good card that everyone passed over at first. Bigger body, Deathtouch, bigger cost reduction, and trigger on attack and death makes me think there is a place for this somewhere.

@moorebrother1 I don't think it takes the world by storm or anything, I just think it has a place. I mean honestly if the card by itself is good enough to stop 1 prominent archetype such as PO or Oath, and does so in a list that needed that particular tool, then it is a vintage card, end of story.

Meddling mage had seen play in it's time, and this is cheaper and often harder to remove, which makes all the difference in it's pliability.

I am suprised this has not come up yet. It is very likley a sideboard card but it seems like it can be a real strong hoser against any deck with an all in strategy, plus when it is broken it cantrips for you, possibly drawing you into countermagic.

The places where I could see this doing a lot of work are against Oath and PO. Probably works against bloodmoon strategies as well but those are just much less prominent.

@botvinik There are a non 0 number of decks this affects that are not specifically blue decks. Looking at the deck by color as opposed to archetype in vintage is a lacking evaluation strategy to be honest.

Getting this down early against shops can yield a lot of damage on that first turn. Likewise survival decks cast a lot of free madness stuff that all trigger this.

My biggest question about this card is honestly is it actually better than pillar? Generally speaking when you play pillar you do not care about the self damage so this being one sided may not matter much in many matches, but pyro can potentially hit every spell, not just the ones after the first, and is not a targeted card. Pillar does not see much play so if this card is questionably better than pillar it would be hard to imagine it seeing much play.

@thewhitedragon69 said in [MID] Infernal Grasp:

@protoaddict Hollow One is a thing, no?

Are you beating decks that play Hollow One with 2 mana, 1 for 1 removal that also costs life? Even if, was dismember not doing the job for you?

In a format with 4 gushes I think this could be fantastic, but as of right now it may just be to hard to pull off. It could be ok if the other things it brings to the table (no max handsize and repeatable draw engine) were needed, but I think it may fall short.

EDH and cEDH all star for sure.

@blindtherapy said in [MID] Infernal Grasp:

@wagner heartless act is bad vs ravager/ballista, but so is all removal really.
power word kill failing to hit griselbrand doesn't matter much, as if griselbrand hit play the game is already over, but failing to hit sprite dragon does matter.

I mean, I think you can say the same for Go For The Throat. It does not matter if it cannot hit artifacts as you are not siding it in for that match, and that is basically the only match where artifact creatures exist in the format.

@moorebrother1 Black has so many options, including edicts and hosers. Again the 3 card you mentioned are all killed by a number of cards in all colors in the same exact way.

Pyro/REB - Dead
Victim of night - Dead
Geth's Verdict - Dead
STP/Path - Dead
Lightning bolt/Dismember/Tragic Slip - Conceivably dead

Hell if you use something like Innocent blood you don't even trigger Leovold. I'm just not seeing how this is so much of an upgrade, or sidegrade, that it crosses the threshold when 2 mana remove is generally considered to costly now days.

@moorebrother1 said in [MID] Consider:

You might count Gitaxian Probe

In Murktide I don't see why you would not count this. I might also count Street wraith to be blunt because in decks with the other cantrips you can often set up something to be drawn with the cycle.