Here are a few snippets from the forums in response to the Banned/Restricted Announcement on Wednesday:

"they absolutly killed 1.5 it's nolonger even worth having the format" - BadphisH

"Congratulations, Wizards, you destroyed a perfectly healthy format. You took years of work and threw it out the window. As someone other than me so eloquently put it 'GG 1.5' - TeenieBopper

"What were they thinking! They have completely killed the 1.5 format with these changes. These changes have taken out at least six decks (Food Chain/Gobvantage, Dragon, Mask, Oath, Replenish, Workshop, just to name a few.) Plus, why does Land Tax need to be banned? This is now just going to be a bad version of Extended." - morph1ings

"Before this butchering of our format today, 1.5 was a fast growing format, with exactly 900 members on the source. It was very competitive, with many type one portovers being rather successful. wMUD, Dragon, Landstill, 7/10 split, and FCG were all decks worthy of respect. Today, all of those decks died. I forsee 1.5 becoming MORE broken than type one until they realize the insane power boost they gave to the format." - FyndhornBrownie

The general consensus over at The Source (the premier site for all things 1.5 blah blah blah) is that Wizards has no idea what they're doing and just ruined a perfectly good format.

You fricking crybabies. Wizards finally gave us what we've been clamoring for, and you whine like a bunch of spoiled brats. What is it going to take to make you happy?

For those of you living under a rock, on September 1^st the DCI announced some changes to the banned/restricted lists of Extended, Vintage, and an unnamed format we used to call Type 1.5. And it seems they have finally given the Vintage community what it claimed to want. First of all, popular opinion held that there were a few cards on the Type One restricted list that no longer needed restriction. So the DCI unrestricted four of them - namely Braingeyser, Doomsday, Earthcraft, and Fork. Second of all, they did what a majority of us have been asking them to do for a long time: they separated the Vintage and Type 1.5 banned/restricted lists. Type 1.5 is its own format now. Hallelujah! In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.,"Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

So what's the problem? I'll tell you what the problem is. A lot of the players in Syracuse and the 1.5 community think they're experts on Type 1.5 because they're the only ones that play it. A lot of them think the 1.5 metagame is healthy because there are at least half a dozen viable decks. A lot of them have been playing 1.5 for 2-3 years, and they think they know what's best for the format. Bull-puckey.

I love Type 1.5. I love Syracuse. It's my hometown, and I think of the players there as my family. I appreciate all the hard work they've put into developing the format. But it's time for a wake-up call. Please, keep in mind that what I'm about to say is said out of love and a desire to see the 1.5 community improve.

The players in Syracuse aren't that good.

Not by a long shot. They aren't that innovative. A lot of them can't see past the ends of they're noses and their inflated egos. They're big fish in a little pond and think that makes them the gurus. But they're not. The only pro-caliber players in the area were Alex Melnikow and Isaac Haxton. They rarely played 1.5 and didn't take it that seriously when they did. Now the 1.5 community has a website called The Source where they discuss all things 1.5. And if you check out all the"tech" that's come from their brainstorming, you'll find a mishmash of old Extended decks, some of the newer Vintage decks, and pretty much nothing we haven't seen before somewhere else. There are a few exceptions. They can claim Landstill as a development success, but even that's just a rehash of The Deck. Oshawa Stompy was a short-lived, but new deck. I'm sure I'm missing a couple - and I'm absolutely positive I'll hear about it in the forums - but not much innovation has come from the core of the 1.5 community.

Here's a list of"dead" decks kicking around the forums.

Landstill
Workshop based decks
Dragon
Parfait
Food Chain Goblins
Replenish
Oath
Spoils Mask
Hermit Druid decks

The only change that affects Landstill is the banning of Mana Drain. That hardly"kills" the deck. Parfait hasn't won anything in quite a while. Neither has Replenish. Or Oath. And who in the hell plays Hermit Druid decks? As for Workshop decks, Dragon, FCG, and Mask decks, we should be glad to see them go.

I have been playing 1.5 since the format was first created. So if you've only been playing 1.5 for two or three years, listen up. None of you would be playing 1.5 right now if it weren't for people like Chris Murray,"Big" Brian, Mike Glow, me, and a few other central NY old-timers. And in the absence of the others, I have a few things to say about our format.

Wednesday, September 1, 2004 was a great day for 1.5. In one fell swoop the DCI removed both the broken Vintage decks and the broken old-Extended decks from the format. Instead of being clogged with cast-offs from other formats, the new 1.5 will be populated with its own defining archetypes. For years we've had the opportunity to develop our own decks and metagame, but we've been too content with the scraps from Type One's table and too narrow-minded to consider new ideas. Now Wizards has forced us to think for ourselves. We have no choice but to stop depending on old ideas and come up with new ones. Zeke said in the forums,"Now, I think the new 1.5 will be fun and exciting. Instead of just jumping into old decks, we have to look through what they gave us now and create new decks. It's the birth of a new format, a chance to define the metagame again and craft it to what we want it to be. I for one am all for it." You aren't the only one Zeke. I haven't been this excited in a long time.

If you're confused about some of the bannings, I'll give you my thoughts and you can see what Aaron Forsythe had to say about everything here.

Bazaar of Baghdad, Goblin Recruiter, Hermit Druid, Illusionary Mask, Metalworker, Oath of Druids, Replenish, Skullclamp, and Worldgorger Dragon are all pieces of overpowered combo decks that distort the format. Most of them were banned in Extended at one time or another, and they should come as no big surprise. Mishra's Workshop should likewise come as no surprise. In a format without SoLoMoxen, it gives one deck a huge advantage over the rest of the metagame. The two big surprises are Mana Drain and Land Tax. At first glance they don't seem overpowered, so why did they get the axe?

Mana Drain breaks an unwritten rule for control decks. It allows the control player to steal mana from his opponent to play answers while keeping mana open for countermagic. Instead of tapping out on turn 4 to play Nevinyrral's Disk or Wrath of God, he can Drain a two- or three-mana spell to pay the cost and not allow a window for the opponent to play another threat. In vintage, threats can be played before an opponent has Drain mana up because of Moxen and Lotus, thus taking some of the sting out of Mana Drain. In 1.5, playing a three-mana spell on turn 3 is like giving your opponent a free turn. And if the control player goes first, a two-mana spell on turn 2 carries the same liability. If Mana Drain remained legal, cards like Crucible of Worlds and Ball Lightning have a big neon"Drain Me" sign on them.

And then there's Land Tax. If any 1.5 player knows how broken Land Tax is, it's me. Just ask anyone who played in Syracuse a couple of years ago. Of all the cards to get banned, it's the only one that I'm sorry to see go. But maybe it needed to, and here's why:

Turn 1 Plains, Land Tax
Turn 2 Tax for 2, Plains, Soltari Priest
Turn 3 Tax for 3, Plains, Empyrial Armor, swing for 11
Turn 4 Tax for 3, swing for 13, gg.

Joe Weber once told me it was the most broken card in 1.5. He wasn't too far off.

So what do we do now? First off, quit your bitching. Say a fond farewell to all the hand-me-down decks you've been playing and move on. It's time to build a new format. You may have noticed that the most expensive staple card left in the format is a dual land. That opens up the doors to a lot of new players. The response from the forums seems to indicate that there are a lot of players willing to give the format a try. When I see posts like this one, it's music to my ears:"This is great news - I am actually excited about playing 1.5 now, as it looks like it will actually be a much different experience than playing unpowered Type 1 decks."

We'll have to wait to see what else Wizards has planned for the format, but for now be glad that they're finally paying attention to 1.5. And keep in mind that those of us who've been playing it for a while are ahead of the curve. Wizards just gave us a golden opportunity. Let's take advantage of it.

Sebastian Smith
Pellius@msn.com