I think if you cut 3 workshop and added city of traitors, mana vault, and maybe some metalworker, Shop decks would survive just fine. They'd be taken down a peg, but it's hardly eradicating the deck. If the deck is worthless -3 workshops, your basically saying a workshop deck can't win unless it has workshop in its opener. That's hardly the case. Workshop in the opener (plus moxen) make it degenerate, but it is not a useless nerfball without workshop by far.

There is a solid card to hit that only affects shops...Mishra's Workshop. The card is dark ritual on a stick. It is on a mana-ramp power level comparable to black lotus (and it's reusable!). As a 1-of with tombs and cities and solomoxcrypt and maybe manavault, shops still has reasonable (but not degenerate) ramp. There's also metalworker to supplement the loss of 3 workshops in a deck.

I miss my Illusionary Mask. I want that to go back to the original functionality!

The nuetering of illusionary mask was a travesty...loved the shops deck from back in the day that ran that.

Unrestrict Ancestral Recall....aaaaand discuss!

eats popcorn

Should check out some of the circa 2000 decks for some awesomeness ;) hehe

@thecravenone I <3 Ashiok. In all formats.

@joshuabrooks It's situationally better, but not always strictly. If you are playing madcap experiment/platinum emperion, you can tap city for painless mana...you can't tap mana confluence at all. :)

There are many ways to win turn 1 now...but they can all be stopped. I would love to see any 75 that would consistently win turn 1 through FoW and misstep consistently. The ONLY thing i could think of is 4 lotus tendrils, playing lotus and triple thoughtseize followed by broken....but that is already 4 cards out of a hand of 7, and leyline of sanctity is a thing. I put out the challenge for anyone to show me a 75 of all non-ante cards allowed as a 4-of that will win turn 1 no matter what the opponent does.

There should be no restricted list. Only the ante cards should be banned. This is vintage. Let's play with all the cards in max quantities. If everything is unrestricted, I'd love for someone to show me what THE best deck would look like. I think you'd have plenty of diversity. FoW is still a thing.