Farewell Thirst for Knowledge - The June 2009 Vintage B&R

Well, the long anticipated Vintage banned and restricted list update finally happened. Grim Monolith and the recently crippled Burning Wish were expected to leave restricted list for good, and restriction rumors abounded, though most of them were expected to have little effect on the current metagame. The Mana Drain was abuzz for several months with speculation ranging from the unrestriction of Gush, Balance, and Channel to the restriction of Mana Drain.

This time last year, of course, had been called “The Day Vintage Died,” among other things. Wizards of the Coast hamstrung blue by taking away Brainstorm, Ponder, Gush, Flash, and Merchant Scroll. The metagame changed from one of GAT to one of Tezzeret, but the premiere deck maintained its “Restricted List + Force of Will + Win Condition” composition, and blue decks still reigned. Many complained about the loss of Brainstorm; others were confused by the restriction of the innocuous Ponder; and the general feeling seemed to be that Wizards had completely lost touch with the format.

Still, Vintage lumbered on. “We played games. We had fun,” as the saying goes.
This summer’s restricted list announcement continues the theme of giving blue the finger. This time, Wizards tried a new tack of raising up other decks.

Oh, and they restricted Thirst for Knowledge. That came as a surprise to me. I’ll get to the unrestrictions in a minute.

Yes, as a blue instant starting with “Draw three cards,” Thirst for Knowledge is guilty by association with such Vintage one-hit-wonders as Ancestral Recall and Brainstorm. Plus, it has the added bonus of fuelling the caster’s graveyard for future exploitation by Yawgmoth’s Will or Goblin Welder. And it had a handy complement of colorless mana, perfect for Mana Drain’s delayed trigger. Thirst was an engine—a powerful one, if not a broken one.

My only question is where this process will stop. It’s a slippery slope argument, for sure, but it seems to be coming true. Wizards neuters the dominant blue draw engine as soon as it establishes itself. The next best spell takes its place, establishes dominance, and is restricted in turn. Does anybody want to predict the next card to go? Smart money’s probably on Mystic Remora, but I’ll take a flyer on Strategic Planning. If things keep up, they’ll both be gone in another couple of cycles.

This sequence is playing out similarly to the same one that happened during Black Summer in 1995. Wizards restricted everything except the problem. Cards like Dark Ritual, Ivory Tower, and Hymn to Tourach had to go before they smartened up and nuked the real problem: Necropotence itself.

Stop fiddle-farting about, as my mom would say. If Wizards is going to continue to restrict things that play well with Mana Drain, maybe they should just go ahead, bite the bullet, restrict Mana Drain, face the firing squad, and apologize profusely. Having one card replace several on the list seems like a fair trade to me.

Of course, what do I know? I’m only a blogger. I can’t remember ever even having cast a Mana Drain in tournament play.

Anyway, so, unrestrictions.

Unrestrictions are good. We like unrestrictions. And this time four cards came off the restricted the list: Grim Monolith, Entomb, Enlightened Tutor, and Crop Rotation. Quadruple your flavor! Quadruple your fun!

Thank goodness Grim Monolith finally got unrestricted so that we can stop complaining about it’s being ranked among the Vintage power-level elites. It’s significantly worse than Dark Ritual and only slightly better than Desperate Ritual as a one-shot mana source. It combos with Power Artifact, but why play a three-card game-winning combo when you can just play Vault-Key, right? Workshop decks might test Grimmy, but if it’s not getting used as a one-of, I can’t really see it getting used in multiples. I might be surprised, though; maybe turn-one Smokestack is that important.

Actually, I, Belcher Innovator, expect to use Grim Monolith in a future tournament near you. It’s a better sideboard answer to Stax than the Desperate Rituals and Seething Songs I’ve been using. Though they’re all effectively one-shot mana, Grim Monolith has the added benefit of being able to be cast and saved for later. Plus, it has excellent synergy with Goblin Welder. I will also test Grimmy maindeck, but I expect it to once again make a valiant effort but, alas, ride the bench for another season.

Here’s the sideboard I would run currently, for reference:

4x Grim Monolith
4x Storm Entity
4x Tormod’s Crypt
2x Pyroblast
1x Gaea’s Blessing

The other unrestriction expected to cause few ripples is Entomb. The only developed deck that can use Entomb is Worldgorger Dragon combo, and previous iterations of that deck eschewed even the single restricted copy. Whether there is another, as-yet undeveloped deck that will use quad-laser Entomb remains to be seen, of course. There could be a budget reanimator deck that would rather bring back a hasty fatty than a Dragon with a singular disposition. And of course there’s the prospect of Entombing Black Lotus to be brought back with Yawgmoth’s Will. That doesn’t seem unnecessarily complicated.

Did I mention that 90% of the cards sideboarded against Ichorid will also hose Entomb by default? I won’t argue that Entomb’s champions will be unable to play around the various Crypts, Leylines, Relics, and Extirpates. I’m just saying it will be a tough row to hoe.

So Grim Monolith and Entomb will likely go unnoticed. Not so Enlightened Tutor and Crop Rotation.

Enlightened Tutor is not just the backbone of the Words of Weirding deck that combines Zur’s Weirding with Words of Worship to lock the opponent out of effectual draws. It is also now likely to see play as part of a near-guaranteed turn-two Vault-Key deck.

4x Enlightened Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Imperial Seal
1x Time Vault
1x Voltaic Key
51x Vintage Staples

Seems like a completely playable deck, one I definitely expect to see across the table in the coming weeks.

Of course Enlightened Tutor has some other, more conventional uses. In mono-white Parfait control it can be used as a toolbox, setting up the deck’s Tax-Rack draw engine as well as fetching answers from Engineered Explosives and Tormod’s Crypt to Suppression Field and Seal of Cleansing. Combo players could also potentially use Enlightened Tutor to get Yawgmoth’s Bargain, still as fine a win condition as ever there was.

Unfortunately for Enlightened Tutor, those uses seem completely fair and utterly inappropriate for Vintage. If you want to use Enlightened Tutor, I recommend you start by fetching either Time Vault or Voltaic Key and go from there.

By the way, if anyone is interested, I wasn’t kidding about that Words of Weirding deck. It’s a lot of fun to play, and will work significantly better with a full set of ETs. Plus, Howling Mine is such a fun card. Everybody has a friend with a Howling Mine in play. Here’s a basic list if you’re interested:

4x Zur’s Weirding
4x Words of Worship
4x Howling Mine
4x Enlightened Tutor
4x Mana Drain
4x Force of Will
4x Arcane Denial
3x Negate
1x Misdirection
1x Time Walk
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Brainstorm
1x Ponder
5x Moxen
1x Black Lotus
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Vault
1x Mana Crypt
1x Library of Alexandria
1x Plains
1x Tolarian Academy
4x Island
4x Tundra
4x Flooded Strand

Crop Rotation was another surprise. During the discussion about possible unrestriction candidates, it didn’t get a lot of attention, and most of the opinion it did draw was negative. Unrestricted Crop Rotation equates to unrestricted Strip Mine for a lot of people.

Unlike other restricted cards, the singular Crop Rotation did find a home in Five-Color Stax decks and others that wanted fast access to Strip Mine and a host of other broken and utility lands including Workshop, Academy, Bazaar, and Barbarian Ring. Whenever the card was cast the opponent had to consider the implications, and it was always a deceptively powerful must-counter. And it’s even better with Crucible of Worlds in play.

Stax is likely the first home that unrestricted Crop Rotation will find as well. Five-Color Stax was already making a resurgence in the Vintage metagame as a foil to the mana-hungry Tezzeret. Crop Rotation only improves the matchup as it makes the possibility of second-turn Strip Mine lock a very real possibility.

If Wizards was looking for a way to keep Drain decks in check, they may have just done it. The question is whether they elevated Workshops too much in the process. Right now it’s hard to say, but that’s likely not the case as blue decks still have Force of Will as the ultimate trump. Still, even if Workshops do make a significant resurgence, Vintage will at least be fresh for a few months. New decks and strategies will have to arise on both sides of the fight, which will help keep things interesting.

I won’t speculate on a Stax deck here, but I’m looking forward to seeing what the United Mishra’s Workshops will come up with.

Of course, Wizards isn’t done cleaning the restricted list, even if they think they are for now. There are still cards to come off, starting with the newly nerfed Burning Wish and including such archetype-creators as Balance, Flash, and Gush.

I expect at least Burning Wish to be released in September. Wizards may not have recognized the implications of the M10 changes on Burning Wish and will likely test the card over the summer. Burning Wish was already one of the weaker cards on the list, and its no longer being able to access exiled cards hampers it even further.

Balance and Flash are questionable, but I’d like to see other potentially game-shaking cards see freedom, if just for interest’s sake. And if Stax indeed makes a resurgence over the Summer, I think Gush could realistically and safely be unrestricted as well. Spheres of Resistance are already natural predators of Gush, and there would be little sense in keeping a viable deck on the shelf when the tools exist to keep it in check.

Of course, we won’t know what happens for another three months. The waiting and speculation is all part of the fun, isn’t it? We get to play tournaments and build decks to see what effects the changes have while Wizards is busy suggesting and testing the next round. I’m excited to see what happens next from these changes, and I’ll be looking forward to the next round.