I started this article on the subject of deck-building philosophy, and then the DCI dropped a bombshell on us. If you haven't heard, Legacy lost Dig Through Time and gained Black Vise. Vintage received some changes as well.

Restricted Restricted Un-Restricted

If you play Vintage, these changes affect you, no matter what. I'll briefly go into what I think these changes will do, and what they won't. Afterwards, I will examine what implications they have in my pursuit of "Bringing Order to Chaos".

First off, the Delve spells have been a known quantity ever since Carsten Kotter first spoke up and screamed, "These cards are broken!" Months later, after Vintage Champs 2014, Treasure Cruise gets restricted. While listening to Andy Probasco do a guest appearance on the "Serious Vintage" podcast with Nat and Geoff Moes, they discussed the mild shock they felt over the fact that Treasure Cruise had been restricted so quickly, with nary a word spoken out against its partner-in-crime, Dig Through Time. Dig is such a good card, and you're almost guaranteed to get a better card quality with a Dig, as opposed to the top three with Treasure Cruise. I've bricked on Treasure Cruise more times than I can count, and I can count the times I've bricked with Dig Through Time on one hand - and I've cast Dig a lot!

With Dig Through Time restricted, decks that were playing it will just adjust their card-drawing suite slightly. Delver-style decks commonly ran three Digs and one Cruise to try to emulate their pre-restriction Treasure Cruise glory days, but many decks were running one Treasure Cruise and two Dig Through Time, like Grixis Therapy and many Grixis Thieves builds. Subtracting one Dig, maybe two, will make a difference. It won't kill those decks though, and other spells can fill in that little gap, Gush for instance, could help. Most Delver-style decks have been running three Gush, my inclination would be to go up to four and see how that would work out. Another card that could fit into the space created by the restriction of Dig is a familiar face. This poor soul was just released from solitary confinement...

Thirst for Knowledge is a card that had its heyday before my time in Vintage, so it's harder for me to get a read on how powerful it will be in the modern Vintage metagame. I've played with the card quite a bit in other formats (Modern. Blue Tron), and I can say it's a very powerful piece of cardboard. Digging three cards deep for three mana is a terrific rate, comparable to Ancestral Recall (albeit much, much less powerful). Being an instant is also exactly where you want your blue card-drawing cards to be. The discarding-effect on Thirst for Knowledge keeps it from being better than it otherwise would be, except for the fact that savvy deck-designers have been turning that drawback into a bonus for years.

We all know that ditching cards to fuel our now-restricted delve draw-spells is a great strategy, but in years past there were even more common uses for the selective discard of Thirst. Do you need that Blightsteel Colossus in your deck to Tinker for? Thirst For Knowledge! How about more fodder for Goblin Welder? I'm thirsty all of a sudden... Got a massive Yawgmoth's Will on the itinerary? TFK all day, every day Bro! The point is that there are a metric ton of tricks to be pulled with Thirst now off of the restricted list, and I'm looking forward to participating. Even on the night of the DCI announcement, during some late-night play-testing I was shredded by the combination of Mana Drain and Thirst for Knowledge. The existing Grixis decks have a lot to gain from running multiple Thirsts, and it's possible that even cards like Goblin Welder and his friends will come back from the fringes and see mainstream play.

Chalice in ONE-derland.

The newly-restricted card that is likely causing the most discussion is Chalice of the Void. Opinions differ on the current strength of Mishra's Workshop decks, but the numbers show that these decks have a very high average success rate. Just because a Workshop-based deck didn't win Vintage champs doesn't mean the deck isn't as good as some people claim, going down to ninth place there were three very similar builds of the Workshop pillar.

The question as to why these various Prison, MUD, and Aggro-Shops decks don't always win tournaments might have more to do with coin-flips and die rolls than one might think. I don't know the exact statistics of how many games a Workshop deck will win on the play, but I can tell you it is much higher than most other decks. One of the myriad of reasons for this is Chalice of the Void.

When I was playing Shops, one of the most common ways I'd lose was due to my opponent drawing an ample amount of land. Mana is great at counteracting a mana-denial strategy, and that is really the heart of these Mishra's Workshop decks. With a Chalice set to zero, on turn one, on the play, a Workshop pilot could potentially turn an opponent's playable hand into absolute garbage. With cards like Sphere of Resistance, you'd need more than one on turn one to stop someone from playing their Mana Crypt or Black Lotus. As a four-of, Chalice of the Void sure felt oppressive and it made for some un-interactive games. It's a given that a prison deck tries to prevent the opponent from playing Magic, but we don't have to have it be that easy either.

That's just Chalice on zero. Don't get me started on Chalice on one... Seriously, with a halfway decent board, sitting across from a MUD deck and assessing your situation sounds like this: "I can't play anything for zero or one, or Chalice eats it. I have a two-mana answer, but it costs five to play right now..." Granted, that type of situation is just part of the game, but a restricted Chalice should lend a shred of hope to the downtrodden. Those stuck under Mishra's boot heels have a little ray of sunshine in the distance.

Does Chalice being restricted mean that these types of decks aren't good anymore? Not at all. I'm sure most savvy Shops practitioners have found a great work-around, or have just declared that they don't even need the card anymore. I can surely understand if a dedicated Mishra's Workshop player is annoyed or upset at the restriction, but I'm pretty sure they haven't lost a card since Trinisphere, so it seems overdue to me.

There's a card in Vintage that hasn't seen a ton of play recently that is poised to do a lot of the work that Chalice of the Void once did. Null Rod was once so ubiquitous that it's been named one of the Vintage "pillars". While the system of pillars in the format is somewhat of an antiquated concept, the fact that the card was once considered that important says a lot. Look up "Vintage Deck Discussion" on www.themanadrain.com, and you'll find a category named "Null Rod-based Aggro". Vintage decks have, throughout their history, relied heavily on non-land and artifact sources of mana. Most combo decks have made use of the mana-producing Moxen, as well as cards like Time Vault. Affinity-style Steel City Vault decks go the extra mile and play cards like Seat of the Synod. Those decks cringe at the mere mention of Null Rod. Controlling versions of Workshop decks can put immense pressure on an opposing mana base with a combination of Null Rod and Wasteland.

A turn-one Chalice of the Void for zero is much cheaper (as in, free), and more effective than Null Rod at that point in the game. In later turns however, Null Rod can do a better job. A turn-two Chalice of the Void sometimes isn't fast enough, as it will not stop someone from dumping all of their mana on the battlefield. I still think that Chalice of the Void was much better, but it was also oppressive and made for much less interactive games.

So, now that everyone knows what is gone, and what is here to stay, we can delve into today's topic a bit further...

Chaos Theory

Magic: the Gathering is a game of strategy played with cards. When you're playing a match, there are some elements intrinsic to each and every game. There will always be hidden information, this starts with both players playing with their own unique decks. The cards in each player's library are kept face down. Cards in both player's hand are also obscured. Beyond that, there is the randomization of each players deck. Shuffling the decks adds another layer of information that is hidden at the beginning of a game, and as the game progresses more and more information is revealed to the players via cards drawn and cards played on the battlefield.

What this hidden information and randomization creates is chaos. Chaos is partly responsible for making the game interesting. Many times the most interesting plays are ones that nobody expects. Something random and crazy happens, we embrace the chaos and enjoy it. There's another, opposite element that is responsible for making the game enjoyable, and that is order.

Magic is played with a set of rules, these rules represent order. Each game is different due to randomization, but we're all trying to make our decks consistent. By using a certain deck of cards, we are all trying to utilize the rules text on those cards in approximately the same way every time we play. We're attempting to tame the chaos with consistency.

The consistency we're all striving for is the antithesis of chaos. I know that this seems so obvious, but the more you think about it, it seems to be something that is known but by-and-large undiscussed. So, we have an inherent chaos in our favorite game, but we're all trying to fight against it by making our decks more consistent. This is something that affects Vintage players even more than other formats, as we are beholden to a restricted list.

So, what does any of this have to do with the philosophy of constructing a deck?

The Rule of Four

Deck building comes down to numbers most of the time. There are certain abilities or effects that we want to utilize, and we want to be available when needed. One of the most common numbers of a card to see in a Magic deck is four. Four is the maximum number of a card allowed in a deck. It makes sense to max out on a card if it's something integral to the strategy we're going for. What do we do when four is not enough?

Sometimes, you'll hear people refer to a single card included in their deck as their "fifth X". For instance, I make a deck and decide that I need Lightning Bolt so badly, that I'll play one copy of Chain Lightning to increase my chances of drawing a one-mana, three-damage burn spell. Chain Lightning isn't as good as Lightning Bolt, but it's close enough that including one is almost the same as playing five of the important spell.

What kind of decks in Vintage use this type of philosophy?

Above is a very popular style of deck that uses more than four of very similar cards. This particular build went for a healthy eight two-mana "spheres". There are four Sphere of Resistance, and four Thorn of Amethyst to increase the chances of finding at least one (and hopefully more) of these effects in the first seven or eight cards. While these cards don't have the exact same effect as each other (Thorn only taxes non-creature spells), they both provide the same basic function of making an opponent pay more in order to play their cards.

I played a Workshop deck designed by Roland Chang in the past that ran seven "spheres" in the main, and one Sphere of Resistance in the sideboard. I can only assume that Roland felt that seven copies made his opening games consistent enough, and that having an eighth Sphere effect in the sideboard would be enough. This plan worked wonderfully when I was playing the deck, and it shows that care was taken in choosing those specific numbers. A small amount of room was created in the main deck by shaving one card and playing seven of that effect, but the number was still high enough to ensure that the majority of games start with one of more of them.

Both the MUD deck (above) and Changster's Martello Shops list utilized the numbers they did to try and be a rock-solid killing machine. Mishra's Workshop decks are known for their consistency, and they have to be this way. These decks do not contain a card-drawing engine, or a way to manipulate their draws. Playing too many singletons could possibly hurt the consistency enough to make a Shops list fail to be a contender in a large tournament.

Carefully adjusting the amount of each individual card is how we attempt to compensate for the randomization of our decks. We start with the mana base, choosing the numbers to try to ensure just the right flow of mana at the right times. This goes on with every single non-restricted card that we have access to. Being consistent is one of the best attributes a deck can have, and although it is an important concept for any deck, "fair" decks more than any other deck can't afford to lack consistency. Decks like Delver, Grixis Pyromancer, or Landstill lack the kind of "I win" cards like Time Vault or Yawgmoth's Will. Beyond choosing adequate numbers of removal spells and Counterspells, most decks need card-manipulation to set up powerful draws and turns.

Digging and Cruising.

As I mentioned before, the restricted list makes playing a deck of all four-ofs nearly impossible in Vintage, with very few exceptions. Another factor that helps us cope with the chaotic nature of a card game is cards that fall into the category of card-manipulation. Cantrips, tutors, card-drawing spells, and even cards like fetch lands all enable us to reduce the variance we experience in a game of Magic.

If it wasn't for these card-manipulation cards, Vintage games would play out much differently. We all know that cantrips can help you hit land-drops, and tutors can assemble combos or fetch some key sideboard card like Grafdigger's Cage, but the numbers we use of these are even more important than one might think.

When I'm Tinkering with my Oath list, I count the combo pieces I'm using, and I count all of the ways I have to find it and I try to maximize that without cutting too much into my control package. The other way I decide which numbers to shave or to increase is by looking at my mana curve.

It's not enough to just have a lot of card-draw and tutors. I like to click the button in my collection tab that organizes my decks by converted mana cost. This way, I can see what the odds are of having a play on turns one, two, and three. The mana curve concept is very helpful and should always be taken into consideration. Do not forget, however, that in a format with Moxen and its pals, "jumping the curve" is very common. Still, the amounts of one, two, and three drops in your deck is critical.

In Legacy, the default cantrip suite is generally four Brainstorm, and four Ponder. Any additional copies might be Preordain, if more than eight of that type of effect are desired. In Vintage, we don't have that, because Ponder and Brainstorm are restricted. This causes a lot of decks to run only six of this type of effect, with four Preordains being commonplace. What would we do if we wanted closer to eight (or more) of that effect in our decks? We could look at cards with the same converted mana costs and similar effects. I wouldn't recommend Serum Visions, but a copy of Sensei's Divining Top could act as a seventh one-mana card manipulation card. In practice, Top is much different than Preordain, but it is on-curve and provides an early play that helps to set up future turns.

Cantrips are very important to many modern Vintage decks, as most decks are as land-light as humanly possible. I've drawn plenty of decent-looking hands that I ultimately decided were not playable because they didn't have something as simple as a Preordain in them. A one-mana hand with no cantrip could fall into this category. Even though you may have chosen all of your cards carefully, and calculated good odds at ripping something you need next turn, Magic is still chaotic and it's very possible to draw the short straw. The trick is to make sure that the odds really are in your favor. Cutting the number of early plays or card-manipulation spells can be a death sentence, so don't neglect to inspect your curve.

Most of what I've written about on this subject has pertained to decks featuring blue as a primary color. If you're playing one of the various Null Rod aggro decks of the format, the card-manipulation suite is not a factor. Instead, your mana curve will consist of which creatures can be played when, removal spells, and any mana-acceleration you might be playing. These decks almost always come packed with hate-bears, and picking which ones to use is a metagame call.

If you take a quick look at the Humans list above, you see a variety of hate-bears and value creatures. Notice the four copies of two very important cards to the deck, Deathrite Shaman, and Dark Confidant. Both of those are cards that you'd want to see in your opening hand, and four copies of a card is the gold standard for things you want to see in your opening hand. Tuning a deck like this would primarily consist of shifting numbers to reflect the deck's anticipated match-ups.

Embracing the Chaos

For a long time, I've been a proponent of "safe decks". I've always felt that decks like Delver or Shops were better than other decks due to their consistent nature. I've started to come around quite a bit, mainly due to the number one and number two slots at Vintage Champs going to "broken decks".

Decks full of broken and restricted cards do tend to have higher variance, but the payoff can be much larger. A card needs to be very powerful to be restricted, so it stands to reason that making a deck out of the restricted list (like the original Steel City Vault deck) leaves us with a very powerful and wildly unpredictable pile of Magic cards. The key to being successful with a deck like X-City Vault or Robert Greene's Grixis Thieves is to find a way to make those decks more consistent.

Taking Grixis as an example, for a long time this deck had to deal with a smattering of restricted card-draw to get by. This added variance to the deck, and could also lead to losing Counterspell wars. Delver decks always had Dig Through Time to stay ahead. Now, Grixis has its own draw-engine in the form of Thirst For Knowledge. My opinion is that Thirst is adding much-needed consistency to Grixis decks, and I think that's enough to push these decks closer to the top of the heap.

Playing with a draw-spell package consisting of all singletons may be powerful, but having access to multiples of at least one of those effects allows a pilot to plan out their turns more effectively. It really is amazing how much difference playing one of a card can make, as opposed to playing three or four. Dig Through Time, Treasure Cruise, and Ancestral Recall are all very powerful, but each one functions differently, and that adds some complications to the decision trees a player faces. Gush has always been a great early to mid-game card to use, because you could usually count on seeing one in a game and you'd be able to plan accordingly. Now Thirst for Knowledge joins that club, along with the fringe players like Gifts Ungiven.

Beyond playing with a large amount of restricted cards in your deck, there is another method that some people seem to employ that seeks to embrace chaos. That is to say that some people are comfortable with a large amount of non-restricted singletons. Adrian Sullivan has written about his love of the "fun-of", and while I don't share his enthusiasm for the added variance of running large numbers of singletons, there are some valid points to his philosophy.

There are some cards that are extremely powerful, but they're not something you ever want to see in your opening hand. Sometimes it's a Tinker target like Blightsteel Colossus, and sometimes it's a miser's copy of Hurkyl's Recall to pull you out of a jam against a Workshop deck or a main-decked Grafdigger's Cage.

People sometimes run one copy of a certain spell for random "gotcha!" moments. If you get someone once with a card like Daze, Stifle, or Mindbreak Trap, you can sometimes throw someone off their game and get a win as a result. This is a high-risk and sometimes high-reward strategy, so I wouldn't employ this without a lot of forethought.

I try to play three and four copies of the majority of my cards, and sometimes I try to play five or more of the same basic effect. Knowing when it is ok to shave your numbers of various cards down below three per deck isn't always easy, but it's important. The rule of thumb that I was taught as a youngster is that any card that you want to see in your opening hand every time is an automatic four-of. When you want to see a card in every game, but don't want or don't need it in your opening hand, then you want three copies. Unrestricted cards featured as a one or two-of should be cards that you don't want in the top seven cards of your library. Those numbers are just a suggestion , but they've worked well since I first read of them in an article on The Dojo.

Chaos and order are the two competing forces in Magic, and learning to work with and around them is key to successful deck building. I think that this is a topic that deserves discussion, and I hope that people continue to be mindful of the concept in the future. I think about my numbers a lot, and I'm always trying to decide if I've really made the right choices.

Thanks for sticking around. I hope you enjoyed this, see you next week. I'll have some additional results to report from the MTGO Vintage Swiss player-run events, and we'll know more about how the metagame will shift.