Like records and the kitchen window when you’ve forgot your house keys as a child, Magic is a game that is made to be broken. Every time you sit down to design a deck (actually, I like doing it on walks), your goal is to break Magic, in some format or another. When the first guy figured out he could play Channel and Fireball, he broke Magic. Mike Long broke Magic twice – with ProsBloom and Long.dec. Necropotence broke Magic. Tog broke Magic. Affinity broke Magic. The list goes on. Magic is simply repleat with breaking points, and Classic isn’t any different than any of the other formats that have been broken and will be again.

Well, that’s not quite true. You see, with every other format, the breaking points aren’t seen until they’ve already been broken. Somebody takes a new card and uses it to break the format. Classic isn’t made from that mold. With Classic, for the most part, we know what’s going to be new, because it’s actually old. What’s great about such a setup is you can plan around those breaking points. You can make ready your collection to work with what will be released. And you can predict when the best time to make format-altering decisions will be. Let’s take a look back at some of the previous breaking points for Classic, so that we can better understand how to look ahead.

Breaking Point #1: Resilient Combos - Lion’s Eye Diamond

Flash was the first deck to start invalidating other decks.

This might have been Phyrexian Dreadnaught if, at the time of it’s release, the errata on it didn’t still exist (there was no CITP trigger, it was an “as it comes into play” a la Clone). 12/12 beaters would have ruled back then. However, as it was, Lion’s Eye Diamond made possible the infinite mana combo with Auriok Salvagers, and Bomberman decks were prevalent even from day 1. As a combo and Control deck, this combo was the only combo for some time that could reliably Top 8. Other combos that came along later like Worldgorger Dragon (with Necromancy) and Sensei, Sensei (with Helm of Awakening) were either too slow or too vulnerable.

Breaking Point #2: Fast, Resilient Combos and the Cards That Protect Them - The errata of Flash, Phyrexian Dreadnaught and Force of Will

I’m going to lump these all into one category, because they all happened so close together is was a complete whirlwind of changes for the format. First of all, Flash got errata removed which made it a crazy powerhouse of a card that effectively turned the meta game into “play Leyline of the Void or at least 16 counterspells – or play Flash”. Dreadnought was also returned to it’s original functionality sometime soon after, which then gave Flash decks a second win – beat with 12/12 trampling creatures. The deck was so resilient it was nuts. Many people were thrilled at the prospect of having Force of Will to combat such a quick combo deck – until they realized that not only could Flash go ahead and run it’s OWN Force of Wills, but that it could also run the newly created Pact of Negation on the kill turn, and it was pretty obvious what had to be done – Flash was neutered.

That opened the way for Force of Will based decks, which have effectively become the defacto deck even to this day. Some people equate the presence of Force of Will decks as the card that make sure you can stop a turn 1 kill, but realistically, that’s just not all what they are used for. Force of Will lets you tap out and put a threat on the board without fear that threat can be immediately neutralized. It’s also nearly as good as making sure your turn 1 combo can’t be stopped. All those abilities rolled up into one essentially define the format, and quite possibly will for all time.

Still Dominating

I think this particular point is self explanatory for anyone who has played against a Necropotence-based deck. Since both the cards remain unrestricted, effectively, the format has becomes a true turn-two format. Note I say turn two, not two turns. If the Necro player hasn’t got an active Necro or you haven’t got something to stop necro by turn 2, the game will be over, eventually. Most games now are decided on what you have available and active by turn two. Whether that be a Pithing Needle, a Chalice for 1, A Grinstone and Painter’s Servant, a resolved Ad Nauseam, or Counterbalance + top, you essentially have to be on your way to winning by turn two all because of Necropotence and the tutoring power of Demonic Consultation.

That being said, I want you to keep this in mind when it comes to the rest of the breaking points we’ll list, and you’ll see that Necropotence making classic a turn-two format was going to happen sooner or later anyway.

Breaking Point #4: The Punisher - Wasteland

How powerful of an effect is Wasteland? What Wasteland does is punish bad mana bases. Most of the winning decks you see these days are either decks that can take advantage of Wastleland (Merfolk, Goblins, Zoo, Loam) or decks that Wasteland has very little effect against (NecroSpike, Ad Nauseam Tendrils, Elves, etc….). Using a 3-color or especially 4 color control deck becomes increasingly difficult when Wasteland is available. Pushing a format that has access to 5 normal duals, 10 rav duals, as well as Fetchlands into using mostly basic lands is a mammoth task that Wasteland managed to do almost all by itself, with only a little help from Moon effects. Without access to an array of acceptable artifact mana to draw upon, Wasteland’s effect on the meta was almost immediately felt.

So as you can see, there are only really a couple of cards that have truly pushed the classic format into making concessions. The concessions are simply this: some things won’t work in classic anymore. For example, back in the early days of classic, it was fairly easy to take the old Boros Deck Wins deck, add Lightning Bolt and Swords to Plowshares and ride it’s mediocrity to a win. If you only had to worry about a couple of combo decks, and other, more controlling builds would take care of them for you, you were golden. But those kind of decks are obsolete. What happened was that when Flash came along, there wasn’t a single card that kind of deck could play that would help make the matchup more than an exercise in futility. When Force of Will was introduced, it became impossible to make assumptions of what can and can’t be done while the opponent was tapped out. For example, if the opponent can get a 12/12 Dreadnought into play, you are going to have trouble removing it by playing almost exclusively off the top deck, because you can’t hope to force through some of your removal when they opponent can counter even while tapped out. This brings the required critical density of threats way down in a classic deck, as the control elements allow for tighter deck design. And if we were Extended, you’d go ahead and run your non-basic lands with impunity – there is almost nothing to touch them.

And of course, there are the almighty combo elements of classic not to be found anywhere else. If you can draw into one of any number of two card combos or storm your way to a turn 2 win, what’s the good of a deck that doesn’t have turn 1 answers? What happens here, as it does with paper eternal formats, is that even though the number of cards available to the players are greater than anywhere else, the number of cards that can be used homogenizes into a fairly select bunch.

Let’s take a look at some of the upcoming breaking points:

The best way to cheat fatties into play.

I’m putting these two cards together even though they’ll be released months apart because they essentially accomplish the same thing – to stick it to decks that only want to turn creatures sideways.

Balance accomplishes this easily because it is a two mana Wrath of God (and Armaggedon and Pseudo Mind Twist/Amnesia). People forget about the effect that Balance has on a meta game, because a) it has been a long time since non-disruptive creature hoards were prevalent in Vintage and b) it’s is banned in Legacy. It also doesn’t help that white, as a whole colour, has been so long maligned on the Vintage scene, but it doesn’t stop the fact that classic still sees it’s fair share of creature hoards. Decks like Zoo, for example, normally rely on cards like Gaddog Teeg and Ethersworn Cannonist to deal with combo decks. These will begin to fail when those combo decks no longer have to rely on targeted bounce to open a one turn window with which to win. They’ll just tutor up Balance and wipe your board clean. And, because of the tendency for those decks to run a number of artifact acceleration components and a low land count, they’ll probably end up on par or better in the cards in hand and lands department. Sure it’ll slow them down to get Balance, which will very, very likely be restricted, but it’s an option they don’t have right now. Sure they could go get Pyroclasm, but that won’t help them get off the clock that Wild Nactyl and Tarmogoyf present.

And as if that wasn’t enough, Oath of Druids will make it’s way with Exodus. I don’t know if there is a better way to put this for an aggro deck, so I’ll describe a typical aggro Zoo vs Oath game

Aggro Zoo Turn 1: Taiga, Wild Nacatyl
Oath: Turn 1: Land (any), Lotus Petal, Oath of Druids.

Nothing like doing the Oath player a favour by letting them skip getting half their combo (in this case, Forbidden Orchard). And it’s not as if you can race them – the creature coming next turn is Hellkite Overlord or Progenitus or some other monstrosity. Not to mention, that since they need only one card and a couple of creatures, the other 40 or so cards in their deck can dedicate themselves to making sure you can’t touch their Oath or the activations or their creatures. Other decks, like RDW, have previously relied on cards like Pyrostatic Pillar to battle combo. Pillar does a whole lot of nothing against a deck that only really needs to play one spell to win. Essentially, aggro decks that don’t have the necessary control elements to deal with such cards will be a thing of the past.

The pinnacle of Bah-roken.

These two cards are so off-the wall stupid powerful, even being instantly and irrevocably restricted won’t stop them from having a huge impact on the Classic meta.

Yawgmoth’s Will of course, simply reads “draw your graveyard”. So you know those decks that love to play Duress, Thoughtseize, Hymn to Tourach, Smallpox, Pox, etc… no worries. Just draw them all when Yawgmoth’s Will comes off the top deck (just tutor it there). But that’s not the worst of it. You see, with Yawmoth’s Will, drawing cards you’ve lost to control elements is only part of the package. In a deck like Ad Nasueam Tendrils, Yawgmoth’s Will represents the ultimate in one- turn recovery periods. Most of the games you’ll lose with Ad Nauseam involve trying to resolve Ad Nauseam in a forced environment (read: you’ll lose if you don’t try to go off soon) and failing due to a well-timed counterspell. Well, now you have two more options – you could always tutor up Yawgmoth’s Will and replay all the same spells again. But the second option is to simply not even try resolving Ad Nasueam in the first place. It’s pretty easy to build up a storm count of 9 with a resolved Yawgmoth’s Will. To make the point, consider this play.

Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Lotus Petal, Demonic Tutor, Yawgmoth’s Will, repeat the first four spells (probably Cabal Ritual for extra mana first) and play Tendrils of Agony. This is the kind of bah-roken play Yawgmoth’s Will enables.

Tolarian Academy is a bit of a different beast. No bones about it, tapping a single land for multiple Blue mana is awesome – I don’t think I need to explain why on any level beyond lots of mana being very useful. What remains to be seen is how much acceptable mana acceleration is available upon it’s release. Right now we have Lotus Petal, Lion’s Eye Diamond and Mana Crypt. We also have Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond, which depending on the deck could be used.. To make a small point, you could play Academy, Mana Crypt, Lotus Petal and Chrome Mox (you don’t even have to imprint anything on it) and play 4 copies of Mind’s Desire. But that pales in comparison to what you could do if other artifact acceleration was available – like Moxes, Lotus, Sol Ring and Mana Vault. As far as I can see, the only thing to be seen will be how broken Academy will be when it’s released. Where we’ll end up going as a result is to see more decks using Null Rod as a weapon to shut down entire decks. It makes sense that a deck based entirely on resolving artifacts will breed an new generation of decks that simply eshew them and play off any one-sided global effect like Null Rod.

Breaking Point #7: Paying Mana Costs is for Chumps - Tinker and Goblin Welder

Quick, switch to Plan B!

Tinker is it’s own special kind of broken. Tinker is basically a one card combo. Sure you need an artifact to sacrifice, but that’s hardly a cost. Tinker has a special place in Combo decks as “plan B”. The ability to run a 58 card combo deck that also happens to include a Tinker and a Darksteel Colossus/Inkwell Leviathan means that Combo has a backup plan at all times. In fact, practically every deck running blue can have this backup plan. What ends up happening with Tinker will likely be the final straw in homogenizing Classic deck design. It will be more difficult to label a deck “Aggro” or “combo” or “control”. Practically every element will be present – but linearity will be absent. For example, it has always been hard to classify Dredge as an aggro or combo deck. It really occupies both spaces, since it can really work itself in either direction. Most decks with access to these powerful cards can lean back on another way of playing – something that a great many decks currently occupying classic meta game simply can not. There is no other way to play a Red Deck Wins deck. Or current Ad Nauseam decks really have no other outs. These decks that have just the one path to victory are often easy to hate out, but when the real power cards of the past come to bear, expecting a deck to have just one path to victory would be a poor assumption indeed.

Pretty much after Urza’s Legacy, we’ll have received all the breaking points classic is currently scheduled to get (Sorry Yawgmoth’s Bargain, you are awesome, but you aren’t really a breaking point for the meta – nothing new to see). However, you’ll note that I’ve skipped over what I think most people would consider even larger breaking points for classic – if only we’d get them

Alternate Braking Point #1: The Untouchables: Mana Drain, Mishra’s Workshop and Bazaar of Baghdad.

They are called the untouchables because while they are all ridiculously powerful, even more so than most of the cards that are restricted in Vintage, they remain sacrosanct in that they are most of the reason people even play they format, and remain (most of the time) in competitive balance with one another. Each one of these cards represents a method to breaking through most of the barriers that present themselves when designing a deck with respect to speed. Drain and Workshop let you ramp up acceleration in a very manner unhealthy to the opponent facing them, and Bazaar (in the right deck) supplies card advantage in much the same manner. Of the three, Mana Drain, while wildly undercosted, is actually the safest of the three, as it’s acceleration is more based on the opponent’s play rather than the player wielding them. You can’t accelerate much if your opponent isn’t playing spells and/or the spells they play are of very small coverted mana cost. But if you’ve ever wondered why Tombstalker hasn’t made a big splash in Vintage like it has as an alternate win in classic, look no further than the 8 mana it would net your opponent next turn as a fat drain target. Without Drain, seeing two untapped blue mana meant you’ll probably have to trade 1 for 1. With Drain, as Lando Calrissian so eloquently put it: “This deal is getting worse all the time.”

Workshop has limitations, but then, limiting yourself to mainly artifacts isn’t all that much of a problem since all the artifacts ever released let you do pretty much anything you want. So getting a Black Lotus worth of mana every turn is pretty handy. Bazaar is simply crazy, and while it’s the narrowest of the three, it is far and away the most abusive. Any deck can go get mana acceleration (in Vintage, that is), but decks based on Bazaar are essentially drawing 2/3 cards off a single activation – Library of Alexandria has nothing on Bazaar in the right deck. Those decks want those cards in their graveyard. Each one of these cards would drastically alter the methods by which decks are built, much less how they are played.

Alternate Breaking Point #2: The Superfriends: Power 9, Sol Ring, Mana Vault, and Time Vault.

A Plan B that doesn't even need blue mana

I think it goes without saying that having Moxen and Black Lotus would very much make a new meta, but in fact, even just Sol Ring and Mana Vault as singletons would have a drastic effect on the meta. If you’ve played against some of the more salient combo decks, especially based on Ad Nauseam or the Painter’s Servant/ Grindstone combo, you know how that player hitting their Mana Crypt can essentially take their win and move it two turns up. Well Sol Ring and Mana Vault accomplish pretty much the same thing, so multiply the chances of that happening by three.

The Blue power are still blue power. Ancestral Recall is still awesome, though to be honest it’s release wouldn’t really enable a lot of meta game changes – just an additional card in every blue deck. Time Walk and Time Vault have much more effect. Taking one more turn with Time Walk (and another with even something as simple with Reclaim or even Yawgmoth’s Will) is more than enough to ruin your opponent’s day. Having access to Time Walk means an extra beating from whatever monstrosity you can summon up, without even the fear that the opponent could miraculously top deck an answer. Time Vault shenanigans (usually by Voltaic Key or Tezzeret) accomplish pretty much the same thing as Tinker – a Plan B for just two cards.

And of course, a format with Moxen and Black Lotus isn’t nearly the same as one with it. Suddenly, mana denial strategies couldn’t just be Wasteland and Life from the Loam. That’s not nearly good enough. With Moxen, you need Wasteland (and Strip Mine), Loam/Crucible of Worlds (the latter being the better), and Null Rod and possibly Chalice of the Void (set to 0). You have to really dedicate yourself to the task. That’s to say nothing of the combo potential of permanent mana acceleration and the one shot power of Lotus.

So what can we learn from the breaking points? The first thing is that with classic, what might have been too powerful at one point might be just what we need further down the road. Not all the releases are going to simply improve existing archetypes (though that will happen). For example, When Oath is released, it will be very powerful, sure. But if Necropotence is still unrestricted, will it be any more powerful than the deck currently on top of the format? When Tolarian Academy is available, if people are tapping for 4 blue mana on turn two, that might be the only way to compete with a Storm Deck that will be laying down Yawgmoth’s Will off of black rituals? And if you think playing Island, Mana Crypt and Tinker for Darksteel Colossus isn’t something you ever want to face, what more can be done when restrictions are in place? These things are coming – the power level of Classic will invariably go up – not stay the same. It’s an important point that I think some people haven’t quite got a hold of – that even though you might like how classic is now; it can’t possibly remain the same. And it’s going to be a bumpy ride on the way up. Not only that, but they are coming fast. I expect we’ll see Urza’s Legacy online sometime in 2010, so we are looking at a maximum of just over 18 months to get to all the breaking points listed. And in that time there will probably be two more Master’s Editions, which may or may not bring us any of the other alternate points.

In some ways, the breaking points listed here are actually more like bending points; at least from the point of view of eternal formats online. Even if a single one of them doesn’t do the trick, eventually, enough of them will force what I think everyone can safely assume will eventually come - the splitting of Classic into a Legacy and a Vintage version online. The real benefits of releasing Legacy online are not quite the same as the benefits of Legacy offline, mostly because having Legacy in offline allows players to have an eternal format free of a at least a dozen $100 + cards, and a $3000 entry fee. That sort of problem is largely absent online, and in fact, wouldn’t be negated by a Classic split at all since all the most expensive cards online (Force of Will, Dual Lands) would all be legal in both formats anyway.

That being said, what Legacy allows for online is a place to play different decks that matter. It’s important to note that each an every single one of the cards listed above as an upcoming breaking point is a card banned in Legacy, with the sole exception of Goblin Welder, whose effectiveness is often negated by the much higher presence of creature removal in Legacy. Classic already has a different base of viable decks from Extended, and truly has it’s own identity. If the release of the above cards will affect the meta in such a way to make many decks obsolete, it’s only a matter of time before the number of decks that aren’t quite good enough for Classic/Vintage but aren’t simply upgrades of Extended decks is great enough to house a truly unique Legacy format. A place where Tinker can’t ruin your day, and turning Wild Nacatyls and Kird Apes sideways off of Taigas and Savannahs could still earn you a victory. It is at that time WoTC and the community should be looking for a split in the online eternal landscape.

Remember, Magic was made to be broken. I wish you good luck in breaking it now and in the future!