So Many Insane Plays – Unrestricted Vintage: A Magical Experiment

What would be the best, most insane deck you could build in Vintage if every restricted card were unrestricted? That’s the question that came through cyberspace from Matt, an avid SCG reader, via our illustrious editor.

To be honest, it’s a question I’ve never seriously considered before. It seemed too silly to take seriously, even to me. What would be the purpose? It appeared to be a pointless exercise in absurdity. I forwarded the question to my team, on the off chance that it might prompt an interesting discussion. When a discussion emerged, I finally became intrigued. I realized that the obvious answers left me unsatisfied. I would have to investigate this question more carefully.

Anyone can throw together a deck with 4 Black Lotus, 4 Ancestral Recall, and a bunch of other insane cards, but, assuming a real metagame, what actually would be the best deck to build? Would it be a Desire deck? A Flash deck? What? I had to know.

I needed to approach this question in an organized fashion. First, I needed to develop decks to see what was possible. Obviously, I imagined that many of the baseline decks in the format should have a tremendous turn one goldfish percentage. But I speculated that varying degrees of interaction and consistency possible among those hyper-fast decks meant that there were many options that I needed to explore. The first thing I needed to do was to develop those decks and see how they ran.

Here is the first list I came up with:

Unrestricted Flash v. 1.0

4 Force of Will
4 Misdirection
4 Disrupting Shoal
4 Pact of Negation
4 Brainstorm
4 Black Lotus
4 Mox Sapphire
4 Lotus Petal
4 Tolarian Academy
4 Flash
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Ancestral Recall
3 Summoner’s Pact
4 Protean Hulk
1 Reveillark
1 Mogg Fanatic
1 Body Snatcher
1 Body Double
1 Carrion Feeder

What led me to this list first was the possibility of playing with Disrupting Shoal, Misdirection, Force of Will, and Pact of Negation. This powerful complement of Blue countermagic could be accommodated because Flash only costs two mana. The storm decks would have to dedicate at least half of its space to mana to fuel relatively expensive spells like Yawgmoth’s Will and Tendrils of Agony. This deck could escape on running 16 mana sources since all this has to do is cast Flash, and half of those mana source generate more than one Blue mana. As a result, it can pack in a lot more disruption. In short, this was the deck that seemed like it would run the most Force of Wills. Thus, it seemed like the most obvious deck to assemble first.

After goldfishing 30 times, though, I found that there was exactly a 70% turn 1 goldfish rate, with a 30% fizzle rate. Worse, countermagic protection was operational in only about half of the successful goldfishes.

In the 30% fizzle rate are genuine fizzles, such as Ancestral Recalls that do not get you Flash or a Protean Hulk or a tutor to find either, but also turn 2 wins, which do not count toward my goal of having a turn one kill over 90% of the time. About 2-3 games per every ten involved a mulligan or two.

A 70% turn 1 kill, especially when that kill rate only has protection about half of the time, was just too slow. It was insane, but it wasn’t insane enough. I felt it was possible to find a deck with a higher turn 1 kill rate, and that was my first objective.

I made one change. I cut Misdirections for Demonic Tutor to see what might happen.

Here are my goldfish notes:

Goldfish 1: T1 win with protection
G2: T1 win
G3: T1 win with protection
G4: T1 win with protection
G5: T1 win with protection
G6: T1 win.
G7: T2 kill (fizzle)
G8: T1 kill with protection
G9: T1 kill with protection
G10: T1 kill with protection
G11: Fizzle, mulligan to oblivion
G12: Fizzle
G13: T1 kill
G14: T1 kill
G15: Fizzle
G16: T1 win (mull to 4)
G17: T1 win with protection
G18: T1 win with protection
G19: T1 win with protection
G20: Fizzle, mulligan to oblivion
G21: T1 win with protection
G22: T1 win with protection
G23: Fizzle
G24: T1 win
G25: Fizzle
G26: Fizzle
G27: T1 with protection
G28: T1 with protection
G29: T1 (mull to 5)
G30: T1 (mull to 6)

The deck’s turn 1 goldfish rate improved 5% to about 75%, with a 25% fizzle rate. Demonic Tutor was an improvement, but not much of one in terms of speed. In addition, it’s not clear that the 5% increase speed was worth the loss of Misdirection.

Rather than make further tweaks, I decided to try a different deck entirely. I reasoned that Flash might have a fundamental speed limit. In a 60 card deck there is a limit on how quickly you can assemble two cards, even with 7-8 tutors that find each combo part. In addition, unlike the storm deck or a Belcher deck, Flash can’t run Demonic Consultation. This means that it loses the most efficient tutor in Magic. It may be that no matter how you build Flash, you just can’t get it higher than about 80% turn 1 wins. Some of my hands lacked sufficient mana, but if I substituted disruption spells for more mana, I would lose a lot of resilience. Despite the high levels of disruption and potential for resilience, I was very skeptical that this would be the fastest deck I could come up with. I might return to this deck, but first I needed to see if I could build something faster.

As notes for future reference, it had occurred to me that playing Islands over Tolarian Academy, just to support sideboard Chain of Vapors and Hurkyl’s Recall, might not be a bad idea. You can even play Gemstone Caverns in the sideboard to bounce key cards like Leyline of the Void or Chalice before your first turn.

After some suggestions by teammates, I decided to abandon the Flash approach and try a Storm approach. Here is what I came up with:

Unrestricted Desire v. 1

4 Force of Will
4 Pact of Negation

4 Ancestral Recall
4 Demonic Tutor
4 Mind’s Desire
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Brainstorm
3 Yawgmoth’s Will

4 Black Lotus
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Mana Crypt
4 Mox Jet
4 Mox Sapphire
4 Mana Vault
4 Tolarian Academy

G1: Fizzle (kept it on a Brainstorm)
G2: T1 win
G3: Fizzle
G4: T1 win with protection
G5: T1 win
G6: Fizzle
G7: T1 win
G8: Fizzle
G9: T1 Win
G10: T1 Win
G11: T1 win with protection
G12: T1 Win
G13: T1 Win
G14: Fizzle
G15: T1 win
G16: T1 win
G17: Fizzle
G18: T1 Win
G19: T1 Win
G20: T1 Win
G21: T1 Win
G22: T1 Win with protection
G23: Fizzle
G24: T1 Win
G25: T1 Win with protection
G26: T1 Win
G27: T1 win with protection
G28: Fizzle
G29: Fizzle
G30: T1 Win with protection

So, again, we have a deck with a 70% turn 1 goldfish and a 30% fizzle rate, except there is even less built-in resilience.

It appears clear to me that that linearity is a dead-end in terms of achieving a maximum turn 1 goldfish rate. I decided to abandon caution and try a deck with no disruption, but maximum amount of synergies and paths to victory. I was surprised that I couldn’t get a higher turn 1 goldfish rate. I felt compelled to find that deck that won every game on turn 1. That led me to my favorite deck of all time, Long.dec.

Unrestricted Long v. 1.0

4 Ancestral Recall
4 Demonic Tutor
4 Demonic Consultation
4 Burning Wish
3 Mind’s Desire
2 Brainstorm
3 Yawgmoth’s Will
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Black Lotus
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Mana Crypt
4 Mox Jet
4 Mox Sapphire
4 Mana Vault
4 Tolarian Academy

Sideboard:
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Mind’s Desire

After building this thing up, there were two open slots. Rather than put two more Moxen into the deck, I added two Brainstorms.

My first opening hand was:

Ancestral Recall
Tolarian Academy
Tolarian Academy
Black Lotus
Lotus Petal
Mana Crypt
Mox Jet

Is this hand keepable? I wasn’t sure. I have 4 Consults, 4 Burning Wish, 3 Desire, 3 Will, and 2 Brainstorms as business. It’s about even odds that I’ll find something. 16 out of 53 is about 30%. In three draws I need to see a single business spell.

I kept it.

I drew two Lion’s Eye Diamonds and a Mox Jet.

Fizzle.

Maybe I should have mulliganed?

My second hand was much more interesting:

Lotus Petal
Lotus Petal
Demonic Consultation
Demonic Consultation
Dark Ritual
Brainstorm
Mana Vault

This just serves to remind that even goldfishing can be complicated.

This hand is one of those unusual hands that has the odder, less obvious elements. I led with Lotus Petal, which I sacrificed for BBB.

I cast Demonic Consultation, naming Black Lotus. I burned through all but 21 cards in my deck until I found one, but I got there.

Since I had chucked so many cards from game, playing Brainstorm before Consult seemed like a better play. I played Brainstorm and drew Academy, Burning Wish, and another Mana Vault.

I put back the Consult and Academy. I played the Black Lotus and broke it for RRR. I had BB still floating. I played Mana Vault using an R. Then I played another. I tapped one of the Vaults and played Burning Wish and then cast Tendrils. No need to get Will because I have generated exactly 10 storm.

G1: Fizzle
G2: T1 Win
G3: T1 Win
G4: T1 Win
G5: T1 Win
G6: T1 Win
G7: T1 Win
G8: T1 Win
G9: T1 Win
G10: T1 Win (mull to 5)
G11: T1 Win
G12: T1 Win
G13: T1 Win
G14: T1 Win
G15: T1 Win
G16: T1 Win
G17: T1 Win
G18: T1 Win

I had seen enough. I finally found the deck with the nearly 100% turn 1 win percentage. In retrospect, the only reason I fizzled in game one was because I should have mulliganed. After goldfishing the next 17 games, I understood why. Ancestral Recall is basically a mana generator here, and shouldn’t be used to find business. As a result, you can’t keep a hand with just Ancestral for business. But if you have a hand full of business and few mana, Ancestral Recall will be your Ace.

The most efficient path to victory, and the path I kept looking for, was simply mana and Demonic Tutor. If you have extra tutors, tutor up Lotuses and then Yawgmoth’s Will, used DT to find Burning Wish to find Tendrils and that is game.

Which leads me to the conclusion that Grim Tutor may actually be superior to Mind’s Desire. Here is my second version of the deck, which is probably the same in result, but just more efficient in design:

Unrestricted Long.dec v. 2.0

4 Ancestral Recall
4 Demonic Tutor
4 Demonic Consultation
4 Burning Wish
4 Grim Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Yawgmoth’s Will
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Black Lotus
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Mana Crypt
4 Mox Jet
4 Mox Sapphire
4 Mana Vault
4 Tolarian Academy

Sideboard:
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Mind’s Desire

Flash wasn’t this consistent, and neither was the Storm deck with Force and Pact. Not running disruption opens up more space for mana and spells to go off. And unlike Flash, in which a two-card combo that has to be assembled in order to win, this deck just requires a good tutor and plenty of mana. Thus, for the purpose of comboing out, one busted mana accelerant is almost as good as another.

But, how do you beat this:

Unrestricted Stax v. 1.0

4 Mishra’s Workshop
4 Tolarian Academy
4 Black Lotus
4 Mox Sapphire
4 Mox Ruby
4 Mana Vault
4 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Arcane Laboratory
4 Force of Will
4 Tinker
4 Misdirection
2 Ancestral Recall
1 Mindslaver
1 Darksteel Colossus
4 Leyline of the Void

This deck has maindeck Leyline, which attacks both Flash and the Yawgmoth’s Will strategy.

I decided to play some matches without sideboarding, to get a sense of the rhythm of these decks.

First, I had Unrestricted Flash fight unrestricted Uber Stax.

Match 1: Unrestricted Flash v. 1.0 v. Uber- Stax v. 1.0

Stax won the die roll.

Game 1: T1 Trinisphere and Chalice with Force o Will backup. Flash mulled to 6 and had otherwise turn 1 kill off of two Lotus Petals, Flash, and S. Pact. Stax wins.

Game 2: Flash has a turn 1 goldfish (see the screen shot of my hand here). Stax opens a hand with Force and T1 Trinisphere, but figures that is too slow and mulls to 5 and sees Leyline. However, Stax has turn 1 Lotus, Petal, Body Snatcher, discarding Hulk (RFGing it). Flash wins.

Game 3: T0 Leyline, T1 Trinisphere, turn 4 Tinker for Colossus for the win.

So, it’s not that different from how Stax and Flash actually interacted in real Vintage. I think it’s possible that Flash could make tweaks to win this match, like putting Gemstone Caverns in the sideboard and a bunch of bounce spells.

I resolve to try out those tweaks, but I wanted to make sure that my suspicion that Flash creams the Long.dec is true as well.

Match 2: Long.dec v. 2.0 v. Unrestricted Flash v. 1.0

Long won the die roll.

Game 1: Amazingly, Long won through a Force of Will on the play because it could tutor up a second Yawgmoth’s Will and play it after the first Yawgmoth’s Will was countered.

Game 2: Flash had turn 1 kill with much counterspell back up.

Game 3: Flash had a turn 1 kill hand, but no disruption. It had to mulligan. Flash mulligans into: Flash, Flash, Brainstorm, Scroll, Shoal, Shoal. At this point, I am beginning to realize something I had suspected, but that Shoal should probably be Commandeer. If it’s Commandeer, I think I can actually keep this hand. If it’s not, I have to throw it back. I also think it would determine the winner of this game, and thereby the match. I mulliganed, just to see if I could find a Force, but to no avail. It resulted in a mulligan to oblivion. Long’s hand was: Petal, Petal, Mox Jet, Lion’s Eye Diamond, Dark Ritual, Tolarian Academy, and Grim Tutor — an easy turn 1 kill.

So, Long wins this only because, apparently, Flash has an iffy counterspell. Flash could have stolen the Grim Tutor, which probably would have allowed Flash to get Black Lotus. On the other hand, Commandeer does nothing against Trinisphere or Arcane Laboratory. And, it’s not clear that Flash would have even won. The Brainstorm and draw step would have had to reveal a Protean Hulk or a Summoner’s Pact. If Flash didn’t win on turn 1, Long’s top card was Yawgmoth’s Will, and Long would have won on turn 2. Moreover, if I had been running Desire over Grim Tutor there, it wouldn’t have been counterable at all. So Long would definitely have won there as well. Nonetheless, I still think it seems like Flash would have a slight edge in this match despite being much slower.

After this match, I’m beginning to think that Long should probably squeeze some Duresses in there. It seems to me that three maindeck Duresses and one in the sideboard should be enough to tutor one up. Most of the time that decks like Flash will have a counterspell on turn 1, they will probably only have one available. Duress can snag it and clear the path to victory.

More and more as I play these decks, I’m seeing ways in which these decks can be tuned and tweaked. However, it would take some work and time to figure out which tweaks precisely would be the way to go.

Finally, I wanted to run Long up against Stax, just to see how bad it was.

Match 3: Unrestricted Long v. 2.0 v. Unrestricted Stax v. 1.0

Stax won that critical die roll.

Game 1: T0 Leyline. T1: Arcane Laboratory and Trinisphere. That’s game. Easy win for Stax.

Game 2: Stax has T0 Leyline and double Misdirection, but no Force. Long is able to tutor a bunch, then Burning Wish for Desire and win. 1-1.

Game 3: Stax has turn 1 Chalice on 0. That’s game. Stax wins.

Although Stax manhandled Long, it seems to me that the Stax deck is actually incredibly vulnerable to attack at a strategic and tactical level. Even something like this could pose serious problems for it:

Tinker for Colossus? Stingscourger. Trinisphere? Get Vial or Lackey down, win the game. This deck probably wants Simian Spirit Guides though, just to get more mana and beat Trinisphere.

My rock-paper-scissors metagame was already emerging, and before I started to tweak these decks for each other, I wanted to try and couple of other concepts. Chief among there was a Channel deck. Teammate Jerry Yang came up with a supposedly successful Channel list, which I have shamelessly stolen:

Unrestricted Belcher v. 1.0

4 Black Lotus
4 Lotus Petal
4 Mox Emerald
4 Mox Jet
4 Mox Ruby
4 Mox Sapphire

4 Ancestral Recall
4 Channel
4 Demonic Consultation
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Mind’s Desire
4 Tendrils of Agony
4 Time Walk
4 Timetwister
4 Wheel of Fortune

Goldfish:
G1: Fizzle
G2: Fizzle
G3: T1 Win

I stopped right there.

The reason I was fizzling is because I was drawing the wrong mana combinations. If I played Channel, I’d have to sacrifice my Lotus for GGG, which would cut me off from playing Consult or Ancestral or even Twister or whatever. This deck is clearly misbuilt.

I could have actually tried to build a better Channel deck, and run both Jar and Belcher, but I honestly see no competitive advantage from running Belcher over Long. Therefore, I turned my attention to the Goblin deck.

Here’s what I put together:

Unrestricted Goblins v. 1.0

4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Recruiter
1 Stingscourger
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Mox Ruby
4 Black Lotus
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Pyroblast
4 Red Elemental Blast
10 Mountain

I know there is only one Mox Ruby, but I could only squeeze one in. Let’s see how this plays against some of these decks.

Match 4: Goblins v. 1.0 v. Unrestricted Flash v. 1.0

The critical die roll was won by Goblins.

Game 1: Goblins opened with double Leyline, and that pretty much won the game. It’s obvious that no matter how you build Flash, it must have a maindeck bounce spell. Goblins played turn one: Black Lotus * 2, Chalice, and Warchief, with a Pyroblast in hand. That’s game, Flash can’t win.

Game 2: Goblins opens with Leyline again, and that’s game. Flash can’t go off on turn 1, and Goblins then plays Chalice and has a Red Blast up.

If I play this match again, I will put an Echoing Truth main in the Flash deck.

Match 5: Unrestricted Goblins 1.0 v. Unrestricted Long v. 2.0

The Goblins deck was quite lucky to won the die roll in this match as well, which is probably even more important than in the Flash match.

Game 1: Goblins not only opens with turn 0 Leyline, it has double Chalice and a Mountain. Long can do nothing. Goblins has turn 2 Recruiter and it’s all over after that.

Game 2: Goblins opens with two Leylines on turn 0. Long has: Lion’s Eye Diamond, Black Lotus, Mox Jet, Dark Ritual, Demonic Consultation, Demonic Tutor, and Burning Wish. This becomes an easy Burning Wish for Desire for eight, which reveals a Tendrils and ends the game.

G3: Goblins has turn 1 Chalice and that’s game.

This match is a pure coin flip depending on who goes first — at least, as far as these decks are currently built. It seems to me pretty evident that Long needs either to maindeck lands to address Chalice or to run sideboarded lands. Either will do. Also, Goblins needs more ways to interact on the draw. Leyline is great, but not enough in this match. Simian Spirit Guide plus Red Blasts is too unreliable. But is there anything else? Maybe Gemstone Caverns (sideboard them in), or even Force of Will. There are options.

Match 6: Unrestricted Goblins 1.0 v. Unrestricted Stax v. 1.0

Goblins won the die roll, again, but only 10 to 9.

Game 1: Unfortunately, there aren’t many good cards in the Stax deck for the Goblins match. Stax really needs Tinker. I mulliganed Stax into this hand. Seems pretty good, right? Yeah, well, Goblins had turn 1 Lotus, Lackey, Piledriver, Chalice on 0. Good night. A few turns later and Goblin has won the game.

Game 2: Stax has turn 1 Lotus, Mana Vault, Tinker for Colossus, Ancestral Recall with double Force of Will in hand and two Blue cards (Arcane Lab and another Ancestral). But take a look at the Goblins hand! This would actually be a game!

All Goblins needs to do is get Stingscourger into play, and that is game. Unfortunately for Goblins, Stax has two Force of Wills up. If it only had one, Goblins could fight through it with Pyroblast.

Goblins leads with Lotus. What should Stax force? If you were actually playing the Stax deck, would you let Black Lotus into play? It’s a tough question. I would probably force, to be honest. What about Lackey? If Goblins has Stingscourger, Lackey can put it into play around Force. I simply don’t know the answers.

I play Goblins like this:

Black Lotus, sacrifice it for RRR. Play Lackey. Stax lets it in. I play Mountain and then Goblin Recruiter. Stax plays Force of Will. Goblins plays Pyroblast. Stax Forces again. Recruiter is countered. Stax swings with the big guy. Goblins draws another Mountain and scoops.

Game 3: Stax mulligans to five on hands that just have garbage in this matchup. Goblins plays turn 0 Leyline, turn 1 mountain and Chalice. Stax tries to Force, but Goblins taps Mountain to play Red Elemental Blast. Goblins has turn 2 Lackey.

So, Goblins ran through my insane gauntlet and won 3-0. Granted, it won the die roll in all three matchups, which gave it a huge advantage. Nonetheless, it still would have beaten Flash and Stax on the draw, even though it probably would have lost to Long.dec.

I would be lying to you if, at the start of this experiment, I would have imagined that Goblins would be the preliminary ‘best deck’ in the earliest design iteration of “insane Vintage.”

Keeping in mind that the decks I’ve come up with so far are still in relatively early stages of development (although probably sophisticated in terms of their speed and internal dynamics), I nonetheless am going to take another stab at this format, and consider other decks besides. But here are some of the questions I have: How can Stax adjust to beat Goblins? How can Long adjust to not lose when it’s on the draw? How can Flash adjust to deal with Leyline? All of these decks need maindeck solutions to cards like Chalice on the draw. Since we are playing unrestricted Vintage, the primary mana source of most of these decks is going to be Black Lotus and Moxen. That has to be more balanced if these decks actually want to win matches, not just be as fast and broken as they possibly can. Cards like Sol Ring and Mana Vault could prove really important to defeating Chalice.

Lessons

This experiment proved far more interesting and insightful that I could have imagined at the outset. Things which I understood inchoately, if at all, are now clear to me or their importance is evident now. One of the best examples is the first.

Deck Construction Rules Impose Fundamental Limits on Determinism

The interaction of two fundamental deck construction rules, the minimum 60 card deck rule and the maximum four of a unique card rule, results in a fundamental limit on what can be accomplished. Let me be specific. As a result of these two rules, each deck must have at least 15 unique Magic cards, excepting basic lands. This prevents deterministic outcomes that could be essentially achieved if either rule didn’t exist. For example, the rule that you can only play four of a unique card didn’t exist, you could play 35 Black Lotuses, 24 Mind’s Desires, and 1 Tendrils of Agony (or something along those lines), and you could pretty much achieve a totally deterministic outcome, meaning that you could, by design, build in consistency. If the other rule didn’t exist, you could manufacture that consistency by simply playing an eight-card deck.

These two rules work in Vintage because, despite the fact that there are over 9000 unique cards, the best Vintage cards have very weak substitutes. There is no good substitute for Black Lotus. The closest thing is Lotus Petal and Lion’s Eye Diamond, which are both amazing in their own right, but miles away from Black Lotus.

As insane as the Flash deck I built was, it there as a fundamental limit on how fast it can go. Just like you can’t create conditions colder than absolute zero or travel faster than the speed of light, there is a limit to how fast you can make a two-card combo operate. That limit for Flash seems to be somewhere under 80% turn one goldfish rate. What makes Unrestricted Long so fast is the fact that it’s just a giant ball of synergy, mostly all tutors.

Magic is Inherently Interactive

Even in “insane” Vintage, Magic is interactive. Quite simply, there are too many cards that can interact even if you haven’t even had a turn. Cards like: Leyline of the Void, Force of Will are prominent, but cards like Gemstone Caverns plus (Orim’s Chant, Etc), Simian Spirit Guide plus REB/Pyroblast, Misdirection, Foil (?), Commandeer, Disrupting Shoal, and the like, all have a potential role here. The mere presence of Chalice of the Void (and to a lesser extent Trinisphere) in this format actually makes lands powerful, and frankly, necessary. Tolarian Academy is probably inferior to basic Island in many, if not most cases, because of it.

It’s not that the best deck isn’t particularly interactive, but that the best decks get better by becoming slightly more interactive. The goal isn’t to be as non-interactive as possible, because that isn’t an option. There are over 9000 unique Magic cards and answers are simply more efficient than threats. Your opponent’s will interact with you. The question is how you deal with it.

Another lesson is that this format brings into focus what’s really important. It clarifies, in case there was doubt, about the real power, and relative power of some cards. Cards like Mana Crypt are miles better than Mox Ruby, Mox Emerald, and Mox Pearl. I would even run Brainstorm in this format over most Draw7s, in most cases.

I intend to make further tweaks. I believe, based upon what I’ve seen so far, that each of the decks I played can make maindeck and sideboard tweaks to improve their matchups, dramatically in some cases. Before doing that, I would like to get some feedback from ya’ll, to see what you think and to make suggestions about decks I should test. But I will take another stab at this experiment sometime in the future. The implications are many, including for restricted list policy and for thinking about what Vintage really should look like as a format. This experiment shows that even a really, really fast, and potentially ridiculous format is more than a coin flip or black jack. Although Long probably would have annihilated Goblins if it had been on the play, Goblins has a real shot to beat the uber-Stax deck and the hyper-Flash deck on the draw. And if Goblins plays Serum Powders in the board to help it find Leyline on the draw, then that can only improve its chances for winning games on the draw.

So, in answer to the question: What’s the most insane deck I could come up with? Well, it’s pretty obviously Unrestricted Long. That deck has a 100% turn 1 goldfish rate. But it’s also obviously incredibly vulnerable.

My assessment, still preliminary, but supported, is this:

Uber-Stax crushes Unrestricted Long, which crushes Goblins, which crushes Stax. Flash somehow fits in there somehow, but has underperformed against those decks and needs some further retooling. All of these decks could benefit from solid sideboard plans. In short, this insane, unrestricted Vintage format has a real metagame, with real metagaming requirements.

I think it just goes to show how well designed Magic is. Even with the absolutely most busted possible card pool, it’s still somehow… fair. Sort of.

Until next time…

Stephen Menendian