It's Banned and Restricted List Time!

“Buffalo Bob” Smith: Hey, kids, what time is it?

Peanut Gallery: IT’S BANNED AND RESTRICTED LIST TIME!

(There should be nobody playing Magic right now who gets that reference firsthand. Okay, well, maybe Mark Trogdon.)

That’s right, now that B&R changes happen on the 20th of months divisible by three, we’re just a week away from September’s sweeping changes to the Vintage format. I always look forward to B&R time with great apprehension, since there’s always the possibility for new archetypes to be created or old ones to die to the loss of a key card.

We actually got a preview of this with the recent Oracle update that changed the function of Illusionary Mask. As Mark Gottlieb says in his updates article, “What a weird, weird card.”

Illusionary Mask
2
Artifact
X: You may choose a creature card in your hand whose mana cost could be paid by some amount of, or all of, the mana you spent on X. If you do, you may cast that card face down as a 2/2 creature spell without paying its mana cost. If the creature that spell becomes as it resolves is face down and would assign or deal damage, be dealt damage, or become tapped, instead it's turned face up then assigns or deals damage, is dealt damage, or becomes tapped. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.

Previously, Ol’ Googly Eyes let players sneak creatures into play without casting them as an activated ability. As with Aether Vial, the Masked-in creatures couldn’t be countered. Now, however, the Mask simply allows players the opportunity to cast creatures face down, and since they’re cast, they can be countered. Plus, now the face down creatures are 2/2 blanks, just like face-down morph creatures.

This was disappointing news for the players of the Illusionary Mask-Phyrexian Dreadnaught combo. Whereas it used to be once they resolved Mask, the Dreadnaught was home free; now the Dreadnaught is in danger of being countered as well (thought it does still avoid the comes-into-play trigger). There’s also less control over when the face-down creature gets flipped, since it only happens when the creature assigns or deals damage, is dealt damage, or becomes tapped, rather than at the Masker’s discretion.

The combo’s losing some resiliency is a shame. The deck was a fairly popular fringe deck, and was one of those builds a player was likely to get hooked on and play for several months at a time, trying to perfect it. However, the changes did align the wording more closely with the original, and I can’t fault them for that. Frankly, this wording makes a lot of sense to me, especially since it can be grokked just by reading the actual card.

Oh, and in a widely overlooked Oracle change, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale no longer kills Darksteel Colossus (or any indestructible creature).

Tabernacle, as printed, gives all creatures an upkeep of one, and reads, “If the upkeep cost for a creature is not paid, the creature is destroyed.” Fair enough. That was errata’d previously to be “sacrificed” instead of “destroyed,” and now it’s being changed back. I don’t know who would have brought in a Tabernacle against the Tin Man, but they shouldn’t anymore. It won’t do anything because Darksteel Colossus cannot be destroyed!

Anyway, it’s banned and restricted list time!

In July, Wizards unrestricted four cards (Crop Rotation, Enlightened Tutor, Entomb, and Grim Monolith) and restricted Thirst for Knowledge. The unrestrictions have proven, so far, to be uneventful. The monster Stax deck that was projected with unrestricted Crop Rotation has failed to emerge, as have the second-turn Time Vault deck with four Enlightened Tutors and the degenerate Dragon combo list with four Entombs.

I, myself, attempted a Grim Monolith Belcher list with several Voltaic Keys and Time Vault, but was disappointed with the results and eventually discarded the idea.

Thirst for Knowledge’s restriction has been subtly effective: Tezzeret is still the best deck in the format (despite a recent scare by the Steel City Vault combo list), but it isn’t as dominant as before. In fact, it’s weak enough now that a non-blue deck is making waves in the form of a GWB Beats disruption deck. If that isn’t a successful restriction, I don’t know what is.

So, really, the July restricted list changes were excellent. The removed cards are safe and are probably, in fact, underused. The lone restricted card has hindered the dominant strategy, but hasn’t killed it. Hooray!

Of course the question now is, “What can we change next?”

I don’t think there are any cards that need to be restricted at the current time. Some cards are making questionable advances—Impulse, I’m looking in your direction, you naughty blue instant, you—but nothing is dominating the metagame beyond the normal powerhouses we’re already used to.

And we know they’re not thinking about restricting Mana Drain or Force of Will or Mishra’s Workshop or Dark Ritual, right?

However, there are cards that could stand to come off the restricted list. At least six by my count, though I’ll only argue for three most likely candidates here. I figure Wizards is more likely to do things in small batches to see how they turn out rather that doing a major purge and trying to pick up the pieces should anything serious go wrong.

And, no, not one of the six is Ponder. That card is stupid good. Stop asking.

Burning Wish

This card’s time has come. The Wishes all took a major hit with the M10 rulings since they can now only tutor for cards in the sideboard, rather than for cards that were removed from the game by, say Yawgmoth’s Will or Demonic Consultation. Basically, there’s nothing threatening left to get with this, because you want all of the threatening cards in your deck, not languishing in your sideboard.

Look at it this way: the most degenerate card you can get with this is the most degenerate card ever, Yawgmoth’s Will. So you’re going to put Yawgmoth’s Will in your sideboard, so you can grab it with your Burning Wish? That makes Yawgmoth’s Will cost 3BR, and gives your opponent two chances to counter it. That seems terrible! Put Yawgmoth’s Will in your deck son you can grab it with your Demonic Tutor, and so if Demonic Tutor gets countered, you can topdeck Will like a champ and win the game anyway!
Burning Wish is largely off-the-radar for Vintage deckbuilders as a one-of right now.

If it gets unrestricted, it might get some consideration in a fringe combo deck like Belcher (but not by me). Or maybe it will lead to a Burning Wish-powered control deck, because, you know, control decks love doing stuff at sorcery speed.

Flash (Ah-aaaahhh!)

I remember playing against Flash and hating it. It was the most annoying deck since it would either kill you on turn one or build up a handful of counters and kill you on turn three with quadruple back up.

However, that wasn’t a function of Flash so much as it was a function of Brainstorm, Ponder, and Merchant Scroll, each of which happens to work really well in a deck where you have combo pieces you don’t want to draw and a blue instant that you want to find and play as soon as possible.

Flash is probably safe now without its li’l blue helpers. If it draws one of its combo creatures, it will have more trouble putting it back into the deck. It will also have slightly more trouble finding a Flash or counter backup for it.

It will still be annoying, no doubt, but I think the format will be able to handle it. A stronger blue-based combo deck will be a natural predator for Tezzeret and similar control decks, while the Flash combo itself is fragile enough that Fish and Stax won’t have too much trouble adapting to keep it down.

Balance

Let’s just try this out, okay? Just a little. Just to see how it feels.

Unrestricted Balance could, I’m not going to lie, be ridiculous. It might, like Gush, be a candidate for immediate re-restriction. (Though I question Gush’s re-restriction as well, which might give astute readers a hint to another one of my six possible unrestrictions).

At the same time, Balance would probably create an entirely new archetype—a non-blue, non-aggro based control deck. I say non-blue because Drain decks love their mana, don’t they? And Balance sort of puts the kybosh on that by, you know, blowing up a bunch of lands. Likewise, non-aggro because Balance neuters creature superiority.

Too much? Maybe. But I’m willing to take a chance on one of these.

So that’s it. Burning Wish should come off because it’s decidedly not broken anymore. Flash and Balance can come off because they could lead to new archetypes, possible contenders against Drain decks like Tezzeret.

I think they will be powerful, but Vintage is filled with the most powerful cards already. If a format with Black Lotus, Tinker, Ancestral Recall, Mana Drain, Mishra’s Workshop, and Goblin Charbelcher (ha!) can’t handle these cards, I will eat this blog.

For the record, I think Library of Alexandria, Frantic Search, and Gush could all be unrestricted as well, for similar reasons. I would be thrilled to see any of the six cards I’ve mentioned come off the restricted list.

Like I said, just for a try.

Stuff needs to happen.