All B/R update speculation.

[Telperion]

I still do not understand how people can argue for non-interactivity as a criterion for banning candidacy. Does anybody really enjoy getting counter top locked out of a game or getting Loam-wasteland locked? How about getting bolted 7 times? Tidehollow Sculler, Stoneforge Mystic, and Wild Nacatl are still a thing. Most interestingly, both top 8's are only about half Force of Will decks.

[Bahamuth]

Let me start with saying Ad Nauseam isn't a sorcery but and instant.

Furthermore, with Mind's Desire in your deck as the engine rather then Ad Nauseam it becomes so much easier to run FoW/Misdirect instead of discard. You'd probably run 2-3 copies of Mind's Desire along with 8-12 cantrips, 4 FoW, 1-3 Misdirects and 2-4 discard spells, making the deck even more resilient against hate and counters.
You don't just swap out Ad Nauseam for Mind's Desire, you built a different deck.

Although this is true, there's no way you would run less than 4 Desire in a dedicated deck. Desire for 6 storm is not very impressive, and hitting new copies of Desire is what you need to push it's consistency.

The most obvious advantages that Desire has is that it can't be countered and that you get to run high CC cards. That being said, I do not think it would be insanely good. Anyhow, I don't think the format would become more fun with Desire in it (I would enjoy it, but I don't think the majority would).

[Julian23]

At least Mind's Desire would actually be able to make good use of Personal Tutor.

[Malchar]

First of all, even invoking the idea of an RPS metagame undermines my ability to listen seriously to your criticism. I assume you're not trying to be literal but it's still infuriating that anyone in the year of our lord two thousand fucking twelve actually thinks that's how metagames work.

I'm offering an explanation. If mine is wrong, than what is yours?

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazin...nd12/welcome#1

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazin...nt12/welcome#1

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazin...tl12/welcome#0

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=48021

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=48610

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=47816

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=47490

Counterspell is not dominating the meta. It's hardly being used even in the decks that want it. None of the decks that you linked use 4 copies, and most of them only use 1. Besides, my point stands: you can't consider historical power level when determining whether or not a card should be banned now.

By contrast, here are the first six stax-style decks that I found when searching for decks with any number of ancient tombs. They all use 4 ancient tombs except for the B/W build which uses 3.

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=46803
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=47244
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=46654
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=46504
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=48141
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=47521

There is nothing in here that could be read as anything other than a tortured justification for saying that Workshop must be too good because look at this narrowly drawn and absurdly arbitrary process I have decided on to declare it so. I mean, really, "We can discount the Moxen and Lotus?" No. No we fucking can't. I'm pretty sure that those cards play a big role in defining Vintage Stax, little as I know or care to know about the format.

Yes, I have created a criterion for measuring whether or not the card is fair to unban. If you disagree, then offer your own criterion. I reiterate that if you have to draw the line somewhere on which cards to ban and which cards to unban, it should be based on the five pillars in order to maximize diversity between the formats.

[bruizar]

Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin
I mean, really, "We can discount the Moxen and Lotus?" No. No we fucking can't. I'm pretty sure that those cards play a big role in defining Vintage Stax, little as I know or care to know about the format.

Its not about moxen nor lotus, its about turn 1 trinisphere and chalice of the void on the play. See, whether you cast a chalice for 0 in vintage on the play or a chalice for 1 in legacy, it's both crippling.

Now, when you start adding 4 trinispheres (I played vintage during the time when trinisphere was unrestricted) and you get to do nothing for the first two turns while you watch how metalworker pumps out 8 mana on turn 2 and overwhelms you with beats and locks before you can even get a single plowshares online, people get upset.

last remark: Shop decks often don't even play Black Lotus. You know why? Because they have something better. They have a land that taps for lotus mana EVERY TURN, UNRESTRICTED.

[Michael Keller]

Something tells me if - and that's a ridiculously big if - Workshop was legal in Legacy, you might want to run 3-4 Serum Powder in your MUD/Stax deck. Open-handing that land would just be ridiculous; there really isn't an argument about that.

[Bryant Cook]

@ The Mind's Desire argument - I've actually put thought into this before. Mind's Desire in a deck like ANT or TES is just worse than Ad Nauseam a majority of the time. I would get one maybe two copies of the card, just in case I wanted to play one maindeck, but it's primary role would be a better sideboard option than Diminishing Returns. It wouldn't become the focus of the deck.

However, Spiral Tide decks would become degenerate with this card.

[Dark Ritual]

Its not about moxen nor lotus, its about turn 1 trinisphere and chalice of the void on the play. See, whether you cast a chalice for 0 in vintage on the play or a chalice for 1 in legacy, it's both crippling.

Now, when you start adding 4 trinispheres (I played vintage during the time when trinisphere was unrestricted) and you get to do nothing for the first two turns while you watch how metalworker pumps out 8 mana on turn 2 and overwhelms you with beats and locks before you can even get a single plowshares online, people get upset.

last remark: Shop decks often don't even play Black Lotus. You know why? Because they have something better. They have a land that taps for lotus mana EVERY TURN, UNRESTRICTED.

Ummmm, most shop decks do run lotus as turn 1 wurmcoil is pretty busted. Or turn 1 steel hellkite. Heck you could just use lotus with workshop on turn 1 to drop 3 2 drops or 2 3 drops. Every single deck in vintage should be running lotus except dredge in my eyes, as the card is fucking ridiculous in terms of what it can do and what it does. In workshop it's just as broken as it is everywhere else in vintage i.e. you can do stupid things with it when you open with it in your opening hand.

Bryant is right about desire in high tide decks. It wouldn't surprise me if solidarity ran mind's desire alongside quicken just to abuse the card. In a sorcery speed version of high tide desire is actually just more copies of time spiral as resolving a desire for 5 in high tide decks will typically win the game. At worst it replaces meditate. At best it creates a degenerate deck that will quickly take over the metagame seeing as how decks with 4 desire can literally just win when they flip a desire off of a copy of desire. That's the other thing that greatly affects desire. The ability to run 4 of the card is absolutely insane but when you're restricted to one copy in your deck the card becomes infinitely more fair. Legacy doesn't have that option as cards are either allowed as 4 ofs or banned. Desire in TES or ritual based combo is pretty fair. But in high tide the card could easily wreak havoc as time spirals 5-8.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Power 9 is not a pillar, but null rod/stony silence is.
The pillars in vintage are:
Bazaar based strategies
Dark ritual based strategies
Workshop based strategies
Null/rod based strategies

Umm... Currently that is all kinds of wrong.

Null Rod is practically unplayable right now.

[Lemnear]

Umm... Currently that is all kinds of wrong.

Null Rod is practically unplayable right now.

The Talk about the pillars in vintage is a joke. WotC wanted 5 pillars but in fact they are not existent. World Championships of vintage where held at GenCon this weekend with a Top 8 of 4x Workshop, 2x dredge, 1x bomberman, 1x UBR snapcaster. In this Top 8 only 3 pilllars were present because 2 are unplayable due to the printings of the Last few years

Workshop - got more and more resistors over the years. Fullfills the job to Slow Down the Game for the opponent mich better than nullrod. Historically Workshop players had to choose between kill and lock components (Aggro workshop or staxx Types). Today those 2 strategies melt together into cards like Lodestone, revoker, steel hellkite, etc. Which caused the dominance.

Bazaar - Even this pillar only able to abuse very niche cards gets support. More and more i-win-dread Return-targets and Free cards like gravecrawler

Dark Ritual - no card printed with multiple Black mana cost but new cards like thOrn of amethyst, Lodestone, misstep, flusterstom, mindbreak trap, thalia, cannonist, endless stream of hate. Completely dead.

Mana Drain - pretty similar to counterspell in Legacy: the meta is too fast. Workshop locks you Out Turn 1, dredge floods the bord with zombies Turn 2 and most UB archetypes already have Bob, trygon etc on board until this comes online. Non the less, respect to the Top 8 bomberman player Running 3 drains.

Null Rod - only still Good against the Time vault archetypes but without any chance against Workshop or dredge. The idea of cheap Tool creatures and cheap denial got implemented into the Big UB archetypes (Bob, scm, trygon + Time vault). Not existent atm for competitive Play :/

[bruizar]

@the pillars:

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazin...ncon12/welcome

@Don't bite me holmes: Stony Silence/Null Rod may be unplayable right now, but it has had a very big impact on vintage in the past. The same is true for Dark Ritual. Only brave (read:crazy) men bring rituals to vintage tournaments imo.

Here's the top 8 of the Gencon 2012 vintage championship:

1 Control - (no drains)
2 MUD
3 MUD
4 Bomberman
5 MUD
6 Dredge
7 MUD
8 Dredge

Tell me that doesn't show the power of Mishra's Workshop.

Edit: I think Lemnear's assessment is pretty accurate on vintage's current state. They should get rid of Lodestone Golem imo.

[rufus]

...
However, Spiral Tide decks would become degenerate with [Mind's Desire] .

Can you elaborate? I'm trying to understand in what -otherwise losing- scenarios Mind's Desire would help the deck win: It seems like desire is likely to fizzle at low storm counts, and at high storm and 6 mana, the deck already has strong lines of play from tutors like Intution.

.... In a sorcery speed version of high tide desire is actually just more copies of time spiral as resolving a desire for 5 in high tide decks will typically win the game...

Without extra mana, back-of-the envelope, I'd think it's something like 35% chance to fizzle. (Unless you can flip a Turnabout, a Time Spiral, or another Mind's Desire, it'll leave you high and dry. The odds do improve a little if the deck has Cloud of Faeries -> Turnabout as a possible line of play.)

[Lemnear]

1 Control - (no drains)
2 MUD
3 MUD
4 Bomberman
5 MUD
6 Dredge
7 MUD
8 Dredge

Tell me that doesn't show the power of Mishra's Workshop.

Edit: I think Lemnear's assessment is pretty accurate on vintage's current state. They should get rid of Lodestone Golem imo.

Just for the notes but #1 ran 2 drains ... He ran them for the lategame only

[dontbiteitholmes]

@the pillars:

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazin...ncon12/welcome

@Don't bite me holmes: Stony Silence/Null Rod may be unplayable right now, but it has had a very big impact on vintage in the past. The same is true for Dark Ritual. Only brave (read:crazy) men bring rituals to vintage tournaments imo.

Here's the top 8 of the Gencon 2012 vintage championship:

1 Control - (no drains)
2 MUD
3 MUD
4 Bomberman
5 MUD
6 Dredge
7 MUD
8 Dredge

Tell me that doesn't show the power of Mishra's Workshop.

Edit: I think Lemnear's assessment is pretty accurate on vintage's current state. They should get rid of Lodestone Golem imo.

First off it's dontbiteITholmes.

I played in Vintage Champs to a 17th finish, losing in the last round to Raffaele Forino in 3 games to miss out on Top 8 (he ended up finishing top 4). I also played in the Prelims to a 2-2 drop at 10AM and a top 4 finish in the 4PM prelims. I saw all of one deck all weekend playing Dark Ritual and a grand total of ZERO Null Rods. I don't care what the pillars of Vintage used to be, that is irrelevant to anything. We might as well say the pillars of Legacy are Goblins, Tradewind Survival, and UW Landstill if we are talking about Null Rod in Vintage.

The one thing I can say with 100% certainty is that Workshop is about 10000 lightyears ahead of anything else going on in Legacy. Shit is just not fair, even in Vintage. I am pretty bad at Vintage as a whole, but it doesn't even matter when every game is just Sphere, Sphere, Wurmcoil, Tangle Wire, then turn sideways a couple times.

[Lord Seth]

However, Spiral Tide decks would become degenerate with this card.

Could you clarify? Because I don't see how. There was some discussion about this a ways back, and the arguments seemed pretty strong that Mind's Desire isn't that amazing in the deck (or any deck, really, but we're taking High Tide). Until you actually go off it's just a much weaker Time Spiral, and once you have gone off...well, you've gone off. The most it seems the card could possibly do is increase your chances of not bricking post-Time Spiral, and Meditate already does that. Granted, Mind's Desire does have some advantages over Meditate (and disadvantages), but that doesn't make it actually degenerate.

Mind's Desire might make the deck stronger, but I'm having trouble seeing how it would actually make it degenerate, unless you're using the word more loosely than I would.

[Vacrix]

Slightly Dangerous:

Mana Vault
Mental Misstep
Mishra's Workshop
Mystical Tutor
Necropotence
Survival of the Fittest (assuming Vengevine is banned)
Tolarian Academy

I see Tolarian Academy on here. Frankly I have never played with the card as a 4'of. And then of course there's Crop Rotation and such. How would this card fit into the current state of Legacy? What decks would play this card? I feel like its such a powerful land in Vintage and used to be in Legacy back in the day that nobody even brings it up anymore.

I can see some affinity variants playing it maybe in Tezzert control or speedy lists with Glimpse and such. It could also be dangerous because then storm combo can play a bunch of artifacts and use Academy as an uncounterable accelerant, and then go straight for the throat with Ad Nauseam or power out an Empty the Warrens with Petal/Mox as the red source and then just lay down a bunch of artifacts or something. MUD is the only other thing (at least considering the existing archetypes) that I can think of that might want to consider playing this card and even that would be a stretch because they have stuff like Metal Work and City/Tomb to power shit out quickly.

So does Affinity get that much more dangerous with this card unless it somehow enables ridiculous bullshit with Crop Rotation, Retracts, Glimpse of Nature, a bunch of 0cc dudes, etc. Affinity already barely competes, barely wins anything these days. It might be good or higher on the tier list but there is so much great artifact removal and stuff like Deed, EE, to fuck with Affinity's game plan anyway that I don't see Academy being degenerate here.

Also, if MUD wanted to play it (do they?), it would probably make the deck more playable but I can't see it being degenerate when they already have such great accelerants. The 0cc artifacts that would make this card strong enough to do something like fast 3sphere would be overcosted cards post-sphere and its not like MUD has good library manipulation. Top? Sure, but thats it. No cantrips, no Brainstorm.

Then there is storm combo and even then its not particularly great when you need that starting blue source to cantrip into some 0cc artifacts, or you are sitting on 2 legendary lands when you'd rather have City + Sea so you can actually cantrip and play protection. Granted, there are a lot of 0cc artifacts so its probably busted in storm combo but not in the current lists. I see it being the biggest problem here.

Thoughts on this?

[Kanti]

Academy would be insane and probably find it's way to being a 2-4 of (most likely a 3-of) in every TES list. That deck would go back to running 4 Moxes and you would just go like Petal, LED, Academy, win. Or Mox, Petal, Academy to power through. This is with like 0 additions to the list. I think other forms of storm combo would be phased out.

I'm sure Academy would be abused with Candelabra, and Crop Rotation would make it busted.

@Time Spiral; Time Spiral can be Forced, Pierced (6 freaking mana is huge) or even Daze. You can't do that to Mind's Desire. You can Stifle it, but that's about it.

[Darkenslight]

Could you clarify? Because I don't see how. There was some discussion about this a ways back, and the arguments seemed pretty strong that Mind's Desire isn't that amazing in the deck (or any deck, really, but we're taking High Tide). Until you actually go off it's just a much weaker Time Spiral, and once you have gone off...well, you've gone off. The most it seems the card could possibly do is increase your chances of not bricking post-Time Spiral, and Meditate already does that. Granted, Mind's Desire does have some advantages over Meditate (and disadvantages), but that doesn't make it actually degenerate.

The fundamental aspect of Desire is casting free stuff, thus combining saving mana with getting more Storm. It makes the deck considerably more consistent in that you're not going to lose turns, as you do with Meditate. The only downside, really, is that it's double the mana cost of Meditate. And if you manage to hit a Time Spiral as well...well, then you're really uinlikely to lose to a free six-land untap, which equates to between 6-24 mana. You cxan cast a lot of spells with that kind of mana.

[Infinitium]

The common play to ramp up to 6 mana in Spiral Tide involves what, the High Tide and untapper? And you still want FoW protection? With 3+ lands in play? I hardly see Mind's Desire for 3 wrecking the format.

[xfxf]

The inherent weakness of Spiral tide is that it's a combo deck which can combo out on turn 3 at the earliest, while still needing a High Tide, an untapper/Time Spiral, free counterspell (yes on turn 3 you can't cast Spell Pierce or Flusterstorm) and a whole lotta luck from that point on. It is a very resource intensive combo compared to "I cast Show and Tell, do I win? OK, I'll win next turn." These inherent weaknesses can't be patched by Mind's Desire alone.