On Monday, March 3rd the DCI released their latest edition of changes to the Type 1 restricted list. Many of these changes were prompted by responses to Aaron Forsythe's article on MTG.com asking Type 1 players their thoughts on the restricted list. One of the letters featured in the article referred to a poll at The Mana Drain where 62.88% of those polled thought that Berserk should be unrestricted.

Apparently, Type 1 players, who pride themselves on being more mature than people that play Limited and Standard, are lacking in math skills, especially regarding simple multiplication, such as "10 x 2" (my attempt to get them to evaluate "X" was answered with "REPRINT DUALS!" which is incorrect.) With that kind of public support in hand, the DCI decided that Berserk (along with Hurkyl's Recall and Recall, which no one will ever play with ever) should be unrestricted.

The Type 1 community, which is louder than the Standard and Limited communities combined despite Type 1 tournaments only making up 3% of the total number of sanctioned tournaments a year, panicked. Then after regaining their composure, they returned to their usual form and bitched at the DCI some more.

"WHY WOULD THEY EVER UNRESTRICT BERSERK!?" one anonymous scrub asked. When I offered the possibility that it was because "you asked for it" his response was "DON'T THEY TEST ANYTHING?!!1" I am not sure how he managed to pronounce that "1." Another suggestion that I posed was that perhaps it isn't a good idea for the average player to make important policy decisions like this. This was obviously incorrect, and of course is because I am an "elitist asshole" who "killed Beyond Dominia." Or something. Many Type 1 players, who usually insist that their entire decks be composed of the rarest possible versions of each card, were also worried about the price of Berserk rising. My favorite response was the following: "Beatdown is dead now because control decks will run creature removal!"

Handsome young man and The Mana Drain administrator Darren "Azhrei" Di Battista, offered me his take: "Well, the DCI has heard the voice of the people, and that voice is the semi-coherent sound of hundreds of fools forming strong opinions about issues of which they are fully ignorant. Hey, I'm sick of paying taxes. Let's go have a vote to abolish them, so then we can all bitch the day after when we realize we don't have roads, schools, or police. Jackasses."

Also, Jewish lion and aspiring Pro Tour bad boy, Yan 'Negator' Margolin, who dabbles in Type 1 in much the same way that he and his fellow aristocrats dabble in fox hunting at his palatial, Bengal tiger-guarded mountain citadel and whose opinion on anything is far too important to disregard, issued this statement to me: "They live in a dream realm where there is no competition, yet there are egos; where there is constant agitation for B/R changes, but they are always greeted with "chicken little" syndrome when the changes actually occur. They don't exist on earth. Oh, and you can doctor these words however you like just as long as you don't make me endorse a certain Filipino Magic player by the name of 'Oscar Tan.'"

The restrictions of Entomb and Earthcraft caused a barely audible amount of whining, although by Standard status would be deafening to all but the most iron-willed. The complaint here was that these restrictions killed two "budget" decks, SquirrelCraft and Worldgorger Dragon Combo, two decks which each contained around a dozen rares. When I informed them that they could build a Standard U/G Madness deck which would also be legal in Extended for years and would cost as much as a couple of the dual lands in one of those decks, their heads exploded at the thought of playing a different format. I then had to cut my interviews short after I had been given death threats after asking them "I like 8th Edition's layout. What about you?"

The overwhelming success of the poll has also convinced the DCI to hold a similar poll at FNM's. According to popular opinion, flying will be emergency-banned in Standard on April 1st.

PS-They have also asked me to inform you that Type 2 sucks and that Limited is for deformed troglodytes.

Discuss this article in the ">Magic: the Gathering Forums!

On Monday, March 3rd the DCI released their latest edition of changes to the Type 1 restricted list. Many of these changes were prompted by responses to Aaron Forsythe's article on MTG.com asking Type 1 players their thoughts on the restricted list. One of the letters featured in the article referred to a poll at The Mana Drain where 62.88% of those polled thought that Berserk should be unrestricted.

Apparently, Type 1 players, who pride themselves on being more mature than people that play Limited and Standard, are lacking in math skills, especially regarding simple multiplication, such as "10 x 2" (my attempt to get them to evaluate "X" was answered with "REPRINT DUALS!" which is incorrect.) With that kind of public support in hand, the DCI decided that Berserk (along with Hurkyl's Recall and Recall, which no one will ever play with ever) should be unrestricted.

The Type 1 community, which is louder than the Standard and Limited communities combined despite Type 1 tournaments only making up 3% of the total number of sanctioned tournaments a year, panicked. Then after regaining their composure, they returned to their usual form and bitched at the DCI some more.

"WHY WOULD THEY EVER UNRESTRICT BERSERK!?" one anonymous scrub asked. When I offered the possibility that it was because "you asked for it" his response was "DON'T THEY TEST ANYTHING?!!1" I am not sure how he managed to pronounce that "1." Another suggestion that I posed was that perhaps it isn't a good idea for the average player to make important policy decisions like this. This was obviously incorrect, and of course is because I am an "elitist asshole" who "killed Beyond Dominia." Or something. Many Type 1 players, who usually insist that their entire decks be composed of the rarest possible versions of each card, were also worried about the price of Berserk rising. My favorite response was the following: "Beatdown is dead now because control decks will run creature removal!"

Handsome young man and The Mana Drain administrator Darren "Azhrei" Di Battista, offered me his take: "Well, the DCI has heard the voice of the people, and that voice is the semi-coherent sound of hundreds of fools forming strong opinions about issues of which they are fully ignorant. Hey, I'm sick of paying taxes. Let's go have a vote to abolish them, so then we can all bitch the day after when we realize we don't have roads, schools, or police. Jackasses."

Also, Jewish lion and aspiring Pro Tour bad boy, Yan 'Negator' Margolin, who dabbles in Type 1 in much the same way that he and his fellow aristocrats dabble in fox hunting at his palatial, Bengal tiger-guarded mountain citadel and whose opinion on anything is far too important to disregard, issued this statement to me: "They live in a dream realm where there is no competition, yet there are egos; where there is constant agitation for B/R changes, but they are always greeted with "chicken little" syndrome when the changes actually occur. They don't exist on earth. Oh, and you can doctor these words however you like just as long as you don't make me endorse a certain Filipino Magic player by the name of 'Oscar Tan.'"

The restrictions of Entomb and Earthcraft caused a barely audible amount of whining, although by Standard status would be deafening to all but the most iron-willed. The complaint here was that these restrictions killed two "budget" decks, SquirrelCraft and Worldgorger Dragon Combo, two decks which each contained around a dozen rares. When I informed them that they could build a Standard U/G Madness deck which would also be legal in Extended for years and would cost as much as a couple of the dual lands in one of those decks, their heads exploded at the thought of playing a different format. I then had to cut my interviews short after I had been given death threats after asking them "I like 8th Edition's layout. What about you?"

The overwhelming success of the poll has also convinced the DCI to hold a similar poll at FNM's. According to popular opinion, flying will be emergency-banned in Standard on April 1st.

PS-They have also asked me to inform you that Type 2 sucks and that Limited is for deformed troglodytes.

Discuss this article in the ">Magic: the Gathering Forums!