I am curious about what others think about this. My friend and I thought for sure that when a pre-Gen Con FAQ was released the Sorcerer would be added to the restricted list, and we were surprised when it was not.

The card is easily one of the best unit removal cards in the game. I have been at a couple of tournaments where people playing Chaos would take an automatic muligan if they did not have the card in their starting hand, because a first turn drop of the Sorcerer is a strong opening move. The low loyalty cost means that the Sorcerer is also not a bad choice for other destruction decks, especially Dark Elves.

Looking at the other cards on the restricted list it, to me anyway, seems that the Sorcerer of Tzeentch belongs on the list.

So what do you think?

I think it's not about a comparison to other cards on the restricted list. They clearly aren't of comparable strength to each other in the first place, and there are unrestricted cards a good deal more powerful than several on the list. The decision to restrict a card has to consider the full context.

The first question would have to be if Chaos with an unrestricted Sorcerer is leagues ahead of the other factions. If it is, a restriction might lead to balance. If it's not, if it's on equal footing with the others while it has the Sorcerer, why make it fall behind by taking away one of its strongest cards?

Assuming Chaos has an advantage over all other factions with the Sorcerer, a restriction might be in order. But a restriction would mean Chaos would have to choose between it and Warpstone Excavation. In the case of almost all cards on the restricted list, Excavation wins these contests. It would require testing, but I can imagine Chaos loosing too much if it goes with the Sorcerer over Excavation. Which means you would have effectively banned the Sorcerer, because Chaos has to choose Excavation. And with Excavation but without the Sorcerer, it might not lose as much, but it would still become less powerful, maybe to too high a degree. So instead of the restriction leading to a balanced field, it would only lead to a new form of inbalance, one where Chaos is behind instead of ahead.

It's not as simple as saying this card is very strong and shows up in almost every deck (of its faction). If that were enough, a lot of cards would be restricted, only for new best cards to emerge that take their place.

I agree. In my eyes, warpstone excavation could be more of a problem here. Normally going Sorcerer of Tzeentch start means you will only have +1 in economy and it also can be kind of risky as it can be countered with Sacrifice to Khaine or Lobber crew etc. However, Chaos can still compensate with Warpstones, which is nasty and does win him the game instantly now and then. A solution could be to restrict some more essential Chaos cards and create a condition nearly every Empire or Dwarf player is in: Choosing cards on restricted list over warpstones, because you'll get more synergy in the deck. But i neither see Chaos being at a point of being unbelievebly imbalanced atm (except for starting with 2 warpstones and a Sorcerer ^^) and neither do i see Chaos as a race with much synergy in their top meta decks atm as they more rely on a pool of strong single cards. So basically restricting any of these single cards like the Sorcerer, it will do nothing but maybe push Chaos too far down. In the end i still dont want Chaos to have Warpstones (maybe they are not good for other races either, but still very necessary for balancing atm), but as Mallumo said they would choose it over everything atm. If they would have something like Mining Tunnels, which is restricted and which is giving them a long term economic or synergetic effect and goes hand in hand with their playstyle, it would change the situation completely. Sorry to say this: Chaos has to be buffed before we can start to talk about restriction. Maybe they should create this Empire or Dwarf condition with every race and that way slow the game down a bit.

Chaos Sorcerer is strong, but I don't think it belongs on the restricted list at the time.

I really wouldn't mind seeing Warpstone Excavation banned. Though to do that, I think the Destruction factions first need to be tweaked up a bit.

Papa