As an organizer of Type II events (back then you didn’t call it “Standard”) and a developer of Old School T2 formats, a suggestion I’m regularly given is the following : why not play with Ice Age ?/so this format is from Revised to Ice Age, right ?/It would be so nice if we could play Necro and shit !

My answer is always the same but is also always incomplete. First, the obvious : I don’t dislike Ice Age per se, I support the Old School 95 format, and though for now Necropotence is restricted, I find IA makes for a more interesting environment than “94” (93/94). Also I played the hell of Necro all ’96 long and had a great time (abusing it). I also love the ErhnamGeddon archetype. I even play some 95/96 now and then with buddies in Paris. But the situation with Type II is different for me. I agree that if a 95 type II format would have the cards Necropotence and Land Tax in it, then those cards shouldn’t be restricted : they’re too iconic in Type II (though the tax got restricted in July ’96). While there’s certainly an history of Necro in Type 1, there’s also an history of Old School Type I, starting with 93/94, tinkering a lot with the B&R lists of yore. And for the better, mind you. Now maybe it’d be for the better to play 95/96 with those cards restricted in Old School Type II too, at least better for the balance of the format, but it’d also be so anachronistic that it wouldn’t make any sense to most of us. But if you do not restrict them, then you mostly have not only a solved format, but a solved format that was solved decades ago. I don’t see any way out of that quandary, and that’s why I’m not interested in playing in such a format regularly. Now I still enjoy the 95/96 format, after all its “big 3” (Necro, Sligh and ErhnamGeddon), are among the most important decks in history, and also among my favourites. That part of the argumentation, I can usually give out in a relatively concise and convincing fashion.

What I haven’t had much the opportunity to expand on is the following. After all, one might say : “But what of the second half of 95, when Black Vise was keeping Land Tax and Necro in check and Vise Age was the type II deck of reference ?”. Of course I’ve considered that option. It would respect my timewalking credo of trying -within reason- to, well, timewalk into historically coherent formats, and according to what history told us, the big card advantage engine enabled by Ice Age would be kept in check by that Black Vise card. The thing with Black Vise is : it’s a bit of a weak card really. Another thing is that our memory, you might even say the mythology, make it a card often remembered as a nightmarish card. See, back then people didn’t know how to build a manabase. They didn’t know how to build a curve. Most decks you faced suffered tremendously from a turn 1 Black Vise. That’s just not the case anymore. And that’s true even on the play, and even in type II. Sure that turn 1 BV on the play will deal 3 for 1 mana, which is already a very good deal. It will probably deal a bit more. But then it will all be over, not just for that Black Vise, but for all the other Black Vises. All the BV you draw are now dead cards. That’s the price for a chance of dealing a generous amount of damage, in case you’d have that turn 1 BV. The chances of you having a turn 1 BV : 40%. So you’ll still won’t even have that, more than half the time. Ergo : you’ll probably sonner rather than later stop playing it as an aggro tool. You still might use it as a wincon in a Prison deck of course, and that matters, but that’s mostly it. But of course, you’d still leave them in the sideboard to fight EG (ErhnamGeddon) and Necro, at least that seems like a reasonable plan. But I tested a lot of those second half of 95 formats (no Alliances so no Dystopia, neither Land Tax nor BV restricted) and while a Black Vise, or the anticipation thereof will slow down those decks, it won’t do enough of that to actually change the ultimate balance of power. Black Vise rewards you for playing cards, The Rack for not playing them. Black Vise is inherently weak.

Vise Age isn’t actually much of a thing really, excepted as an historical artifact. It doesn’t hold up to Necro or EG, in fact it’s quite easy to beat. Howling Mine + BV decks ? Well if they’re prison decks (like Marc Hernandez‘s prison decklist from Worlds 95) they’d certainly have the tools to put a fight.. game 1. Cause game 2 just about any deck but Necro would bring some of the very generous artifact hate available and rightfully put the linear deck in its place. Oh and Necro never really was in much trouble versus those “Icy”-prison decks by the way, those were just a way to resist them. I tested all that. With Necro when you expect Black Vise you regularly play a somewhat different game : instead of playing Necro purely as a card drawing engine, you play it more as a hand-rejuvenating tool. I can’t say a hand-refilling tool, since the plan is to play it on an empty hand, and get 4 cards. The end result is that even that restriction still make it too good of a strategy. The same goes for Land Tax. That’s how broken those cards are.

So, while I have great memories of playing those cards, and enjoy playing them now and then : no. No I can’t say that I know of a way to have a pre-Mirage Old School format with Ice Age that would be neither solved nor anachronistic, both of which are reasons enough to keep me from supporting such an Old School Type II format.