Actually, the third place deck was surprisingly good against the metagame at Syracuse. The guy who played it is a very skilled player and it was just awesome watching him play.
This top 8 indicates that there is still a lot to be discovered in Vintage in terms of good decks.
I do not think that Mirrodin block was a mistake at all. In a way I commend WotC for actually pushing the envelope every now and then. If every Magic set was balanced and very little broken/good cards, the game would get boring and repetitious awfully fast.
These could possibly come off (I would be cautious with these however):
Time Spiral
Dream Halls
Regrowth
Fact or Fiction
Gush (this could potentially come off asthe current crop of good decks are on par with prerestriction GAT anyway, BUT I would tread with caution on this guy)
Mox Diamond (This one is harder to abuse than Chrome Mox, which definately should stay on the restricted list)
Mind Twist (this spell has lost quite a bit of its momentum over the years, but this one would be a BIIIG if to unrestrict)
I think the following may get restricted either soon or at some point in the near future (Personally I feel nothing should change here, but I am speculating)
Dark Ritual
Mishra's Workshop (enough people complain that this could happen)
Trinisphere
As a corallary, restricting dark ritual could lead to a slippery slope sort of effect. If you restrict dark ritual, combo decks suck a lot and Mana Drain decks become better. If you axe Shop, combo becomes mor broken, only do in both, Mana Drain decks and Bazaar decks become the best decks. So it leads to a condition where if you restrict one, the others must go as well.
And for the final portion, I think these cards should be definately taken off the B/R list:
Balance
Black Lotus
Black Vise
Yawgmoth's Will
Yawgmoth's Bargain
Most: One night last Christmas break I got 13 hours of sleep. I crashed at 7 PM and woke up at 8 am the next morning.
Typical: I normally get 6.5 hours of sleep a night on weekdays, darn Starcitygames.com articles :). On weekends I hibernate and get around 8 to 10 hours a night.
Least: None, I have gone the entire night without sleep on a couple of occasions.
The media seems to miss that our local yocal star, the Sun, has been rising in activity in the past several years as well. For the most part, we cannot control global warming, as that is to the wims of the Sun. But pollution on the other hand, that is another issue.
It might be a good idea to run a Krosan Reclamation for those situations where you have a Tog in hand or in play and your Oath triggers. That way you do not lose the game in some situations due to not being able to draw a card like when you flip your entire library over.
At least from a Standard viewpoint, I think Kamigawa block in general only looks worse than it is because of the power level disparity caused by Mirrodin block. I bet that Kamigawa cards will see a lot more play come next rotation.
Blue is by FAR my favorite color. I cannot think of any decks I have built in the past year that did not have blue as the main color. My second favorite color is black. Black is my most frequent secondary color in most of my decks with blue.
(Assuming you can add more power 9 and expensive to the deck)
-4 Rancor
+4 Force of Will
+1 Mystical Tutor
+4 Polluted Delta/ Flooded Strand/ mix of the two
+1 Mox Pearl
+1 Mox Ruby
+1 Time Walk
+1 Ancestral Recall
+1 Tropical Island
-2 Underground Sea
+ 3 to 5 Island
-4 Force Spike
+4 Mana Drain (or 4 Counterspell I suppose if you cannot afford to run drains)
Rancor is total ass in a control deck. Why waste a slot to it? 4 fetchlands + 1 Tropical Island and maybe two Underground Seas lets You run more basic land so you do not get hit by nonbasic land hate. 3 to 5 Islands are awesome for keeping you out of nonbasic land hate range.
Rancors should just turn into Force of Wills like, now. A full compliment of moxen lets you power out Oath sooner. Brainstorm is some good. You have no reason not to run Time Walk and Ancestral Recall. Time Walk is very important to Tog since it effectively gives tog haste, pitches to FoW, blah blah blah. 1 Inuition + 1 Mystical tutor gives you more tutor power to fetch out your bombs like Oath and Ak's. Mana Drain is awesome in Oath and is way better than Force Spike. Duress already does what Force Spike does and then some.
So take any of these suggestion how you will, but really if you optimize this deck and set it up anymore you will end up with something close to Meandeck Oath or Duress Owns All (UBG Oath wil Duress and Black for a more comboish nature) with a different win condition.
This top 8 indicates that there is still a lot to be discovered in Vintage in terms of good decks.
Mind over Matter
Voltaic Key
These could possibly come off (I would be cautious with these however):
Time Spiral
Dream Halls
Regrowth
Fact or Fiction
Gush (this could potentially come off asthe current crop of good decks are on par with prerestriction GAT anyway, BUT I would tread with caution on this guy)
Mox Diamond (This one is harder to abuse than Chrome Mox, which definately should stay on the restricted list)
Mind Twist (this spell has lost quite a bit of its momentum over the years, but this one would be a BIIIG if to unrestrict)
I think the following may get restricted either soon or at some point in the near future (Personally I feel nothing should change here, but I am speculating)
Dark Ritual
Mishra's Workshop (enough people complain that this could happen)
Trinisphere
As a corallary, restricting dark ritual could lead to a slippery slope sort of effect. If you restrict dark ritual, combo decks suck a lot and Mana Drain decks become better. If you axe Shop, combo becomes mor broken, only do in both, Mana Drain decks and Bazaar decks become the best decks. So it leads to a condition where if you restrict one, the others must go as well.
And for the final portion, I think these cards should be definately taken off the B/R list:
Balance
Black Lotus
Black Vise
Yawgmoth's Will
Yawgmoth's Bargain
Okay Okay I'm just kidding on the last bunch :).
Meandeath
High Tide
Burning Desire (4 Mind's Desire storm combo, ala type 1)
Typical: I normally get 6.5 hours of sleep a night on weekdays, darn Starcitygames.com articles :). On weekends I hibernate and get around 8 to 10 hours a night.
Least: None, I have gone the entire night without sleep on a couple of occasions.
-4 Rancor
+4 Force of Will
+1 Mystical Tutor
+4 Polluted Delta/ Flooded Strand/ mix of the two
+1 Mox Pearl
+1 Mox Ruby
+1 Time Walk
+1 Ancestral Recall
+1 Tropical Island
-2 Underground Sea
+ 3 to 5 Island
-4 Force Spike
+4 Mana Drain (or 4 Counterspell I suppose if you cannot afford to run drains)
Rancor is total ass in a control deck. Why waste a slot to it? 4 fetchlands + 1 Tropical Island and maybe two Underground Seas lets You run more basic land so you do not get hit by nonbasic land hate. 3 to 5 Islands are awesome for keeping you out of nonbasic land hate range.
Rancors should just turn into Force of Wills like, now. A full compliment of moxen lets you power out Oath sooner. Brainstorm is some good. You have no reason not to run Time Walk and Ancestral Recall. Time Walk is very important to Tog since it effectively gives tog haste, pitches to FoW, blah blah blah. 1 Inuition + 1 Mystical tutor gives you more tutor power to fetch out your bombs like Oath and Ak's. Mana Drain is awesome in Oath and is way better than Force Spike. Duress already does what Force Spike does and then some.
So take any of these suggestion how you will, but really if you optimize this deck and set it up anymore you will end up with something close to Meandeck Oath or Duress Owns All (UBG Oath wil Duress and Black for a more comboish nature) with a different win condition.