This was the format that made me, and many other people sit out on drafts. For all the issues other formats had over the years, I never stopped playing limited without taking a break from Magic as a whole, but this set was god awful. It had a good amount of interesting constructed cards, but it was ****, and I know I down talked Scars, but this was amazingly worse in every way possible... I did a couple limited events and then just stopped and played Cube.
Ok, can we please stop this 2 for 1 discussion? this is not a 2 for 1, if you kill the creature it's enchanting it's a 1 for 1, if you kill the Rollicker it's a 1 for 1. There's no 2 for 1 here. At best it's a 1 for 1.5 if the heroic trigger did anything beyond give +1/+1 triggers or scry.
That being said, yes Rollicker is a very powerful bestow spell, it has a place in draft and it should be a decently high pick if you plan on going into that strategy.
Ok, if it's just a premium version of a card you can get normally, I don't care and you can do whatever, but if you want to make cards that are only ever a "super mega turbo super-duper power rare" then go to hell.
The Leader
The Outwiter The Dominatrix
The Conqueror
The Thriver
Well, Leader and Conqueror sound cool, not so sure about the others...
And "Destined to Outwit"? That seems like a rather lousy destiny compared to the others...
Uh... Well that one movie came to mind, Werewolf Women of the SS. I originally linked the trailer but it showed nipples in one scene, so you know, that was bad.
Vintage isn't as dead or stagnant as people make it out to be. The reason people think it is, is because the format is very heavily based around Proxy Tournaments (10-15 proxies allowed in 1k-5k or higher level events), and as such it can't be sanctioned. Yes, Sanctioned Vintage in my area is picking up, and it's forcing more innovation, but people still hesitate and as such it's almost an underground format that thrives but isn't visible... Then again Unpowered Merfolk made 20th at Vintage worlds, so you know, Power isn't the end all be all.
As for stagnation, well the decks that are good don't generally stop being good, it's just new decks are introduced. Sure, some people might say it's stagnation, but in reality it's that Vintage isn't so much archetypes as it is pillars, the pillars are basically archetypes but they're about abusing specific cards as opposed to strategies. For instance, Bazaar decks are often times Dredge, but they can be Dragon... Dragon is a reanimator deck, Dredge is a combo deck, Dredge is also and aggro deck, it's messy... All of them utilize the engine that is Bazaar. Workshop is even trickier, there's aggro shop, forgemaster shop, welder shop, terra-nova shop, etc, etc. They all play differently, from combo, to prison, to toolbox, to aggro, but they all revolve around sol lands and Workshop.
As for diversity, well let's look at Legacy Champs, Vintage Champs, and Bazaar of Moxen, which all happened in one weekend.
Legacy Champs top 8:
2x White Weenie (D&T)
3x Delver (RUG and UR)
1x MUD
1x Tendrils
1x UW Miracles
Legacy BOM:
1x Elves
2x White Weenie (D&T)
3x Tendrils
1x America Delver
1x Maverick
Legacy Deck types: 7-9 depending on how much you differentiate URW, RUG, and UR Delver.
Vintage Cahmps Top 8:
1x Mono U Merfolk
2x RUG Devler
1x 4 Colour Control
1x Burning Oath of Druids
1x Dredge
1x Tendrils
1x UW Resto-Angel Control
BoM top 8 Vintage:
1x BUG Edrich Fish
3x Forgemaster Workshop
1x Almost Blue (Talrand Gush Combo)
1x Sneak and Show
1x Doomsday Maniac
1x Demon Oath (Ok I'll count this as just Oath, even though it's more of a control deck than a combo deck getting Rune-scarred Demon instead of Griselbrand and playing things like Jace and Counters as opposed to redundant combo parts)
Total Vintage Decks: 12 (13 if you differentiate the Oath Decks)...
Even if you're willing to be generous about the Delver lists in Legacy, Vintage already has them beat in diversity of Top 8s without knowing half of the BoM results. It's such a strange and diverse format, but people focus on the random little things and refuse to do research... Oh well, what can you do about it?
Also, for those of you who lick watching Vintage decks play, there's tons of awesome coverage from the people who do Sanctioned Vintage in Bridge Water MA at Scholars:
I don't really understand why it's a belief that the majority wants strong creatures and weak spells... While it's semi anecdotal, if creatures were what people wanted, why didn't the current "You make the card" turn out to be a creature? Both lands and Enchantments far surpassed Creatures in votes.
It really seems like MaRo and Zac are the people who want creatures to do everything, with spells taking a back seat, while the rest of the community just wants to enjoy the game in all sorts of facets. Sure, the game is growing more and more, but it's always been growing in one way or another, outside of Combo Winter and Raffinity, and that's not so much an issue with combo as it is oppressive combo. Combo can be oppressive, more so than any other archetype, but really if there's an aggro deck that's too dominant, or a control deck, or whatever, people still will hate it... After all, Raffinity was more of an aggro deck than a combo deck, then there was Caw Blade which was a control deck.
So yea, we've seen things banned from Combo, Aggro, and Control so far. No one thing should ever be above the rest.
I didn't really like it. Some of it was true, and he touched on the topic of "non- comparable" items that keep the game going but didn't go into depth about it.
I also agree with you, the whole Creatures vs. Spells thing kind of bothers me as someone who played in the older days of magic. While a spell often times gives more initial versatility a creature will give you a cumulative advantage. This has been seen with the Titans, who simply provided advantage each attack phase they got to swing in, but even then that Shock might be easier to kill things with, but it will only ever do 2 damage alone, while Kird Ape will do 2 damage each time it attacks, so on the second attack it has done twice the damage Shock has, but not necessarily to the target you truly wanted.
Oh, and it's absolutely pure bunk that "spells dominated early Magic", it wasn't until Urza's Saga that the game became spell focused, and that was in like 2000, and they fixed that rather quickly. Want proof, here's the winning deck list from the Type 1 Championship of 1997:
Type I Championship 1997, 1st Place By Marvin Paguirigan
3 Kird Ape
2 Gorilla Shaman
4 Dwarven Miner
2 Goblin Tinkerer
3 Frenetic Efreet
1 Serendib Efreet
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Psionic Blast
1 Fireball
1 Black Vise
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Sylvan Library
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Braingeyser
3 Mystical Tutor
1 Recall
1 Regrowth
1 Zuran Orb
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Library of Alexandria
3 Mishra's Factory
3 Gemstone Mine
4 Volcanic Island
4 Tropical Island
4 Taiga
4 Strip Mine
And the excerpt from the book this was in by Stephen Menendian.
Marvin had originally been interested in more controlling decks, but found that he had difficulty competing with the new style of Zoo decks.67 Rather than try to fight them, he decided to join them. Marvin’s deck was well tuned for the Type I Championship, and he successfully piloted a Zoo deck to another first place finish for the archetype.
Oh! And let's look at the world Championship decks for 1996 and 1997:
1
Don't believe me, look at what Jackie Lee wrote about this train wreck of a set: http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=10530
Zack Hill is a moron of the highest degree for making this vomit stain of a set...
Please don't flame people from within the Magic community, even if they might not be active users here.
-Sene
1
That being said, yes Rollicker is a very powerful bestow spell, it has a place in draft and it should be a decently high pick if you plan on going into that strategy.
1
Ok, if it's just a premium version of a card you can get normally, I don't care and you can do whatever, but if you want to make cards that are only ever a "super mega turbo super-duper power rare" then go to hell.
1
Uh... Well that one movie came to mind, Werewolf Women of the SS. I originally linked the trailer but it showed nipples in one scene, so you know, that was bad.
1
As for stagnation, well the decks that are good don't generally stop being good, it's just new decks are introduced. Sure, some people might say it's stagnation, but in reality it's that Vintage isn't so much archetypes as it is pillars, the pillars are basically archetypes but they're about abusing specific cards as opposed to strategies. For instance, Bazaar decks are often times Dredge, but they can be Dragon... Dragon is a reanimator deck, Dredge is a combo deck, Dredge is also and aggro deck, it's messy... All of them utilize the engine that is Bazaar. Workshop is even trickier, there's aggro shop, forgemaster shop, welder shop, terra-nova shop, etc, etc. They all play differently, from combo, to prison, to toolbox, to aggro, but they all revolve around sol lands and Workshop.
As for diversity, well let's look at Legacy Champs, Vintage Champs, and Bazaar of Moxen, which all happened in one weekend.
Legacy Champs top 8:
2x White Weenie (D&T)
3x Delver (RUG and UR)
1x MUD
1x Tendrils
1x UW Miracles
Legacy BOM:
1x Elves
2x White Weenie (D&T)
3x Tendrils
1x America Delver
1x Maverick
Legacy Deck types: 7-9 depending on how much you differentiate URW, RUG, and UR Delver.
Vintage Cahmps Top 8:
1x Mono U Merfolk
2x RUG Devler
1x 4 Colour Control
1x Burning Oath of Druids
1x Dredge
1x Tendrils
1x UW Resto-Angel Control
BoM top 8 Vintage:
1x BUG Edrich Fish
3x Forgemaster Workshop
1x Almost Blue (Talrand Gush Combo)
1x Sneak and Show
1x Doomsday Maniac
1x Demon Oath (Ok I'll count this as just Oath, even though it's more of a control deck than a combo deck getting Rune-scarred Demon instead of Griselbrand and playing things like Jace and Counters as opposed to redundant combo parts)
Total Vintage Decks: 12 (13 if you differentiate the Oath Decks)...
Even if you're willing to be generous about the Delver lists in Legacy, Vintage already has them beat in diversity of Top 8s without knowing half of the BoM results. It's such a strange and diverse format, but people focus on the random little things and refuse to do research... Oh well, what can you do about it?
1
Also, for those of you who lick watching Vintage decks play, there's tons of awesome coverage from the people who do Sanctioned Vintage in Bridge Water MA at Scholars:
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=45755.0
1
It really seems like MaRo and Zac are the people who want creatures to do everything, with spells taking a back seat, while the rest of the community just wants to enjoy the game in all sorts of facets. Sure, the game is growing more and more, but it's always been growing in one way or another, outside of Combo Winter and Raffinity, and that's not so much an issue with combo as it is oppressive combo. Combo can be oppressive, more so than any other archetype, but really if there's an aggro deck that's too dominant, or a control deck, or whatever, people still will hate it... After all, Raffinity was more of an aggro deck than a combo deck, then there was Caw Blade which was a control deck.
So yea, we've seen things banned from Combo, Aggro, and Control so far. No one thing should ever be above the rest.
1
I also agree with you, the whole Creatures vs. Spells thing kind of bothers me as someone who played in the older days of magic. While a spell often times gives more initial versatility a creature will give you a cumulative advantage. This has been seen with the Titans, who simply provided advantage each attack phase they got to swing in, but even then that Shock might be easier to kill things with, but it will only ever do 2 damage alone, while Kird Ape will do 2 damage each time it attacks, so on the second attack it has done twice the damage Shock has, but not necessarily to the target you truly wanted.
Oh, and it's absolutely pure bunk that "spells dominated early Magic", it wasn't until Urza's Saga that the game became spell focused, and that was in like 2000, and they fixed that rather quickly. Want proof, here's the winning deck list from the Type 1 Championship of 1997:
And the excerpt from the book this was in by Stephen Menendian.
Oh! And let's look at the world Championship decks for 1996 and 1997:
What's up with all of these weenie aggro decks in the era of busted spell magic!?
1
The most relevant book promo was Mana Crypt because a lot times it's better than a Mox.
Others were: Arena, Sewers of Estark, Windseeker Centaur, and Giant Badger.
More recently we had Jace Beleren.
You can tell what came from a book by the little paint brush symbol.
3