An ideal jumping-off point for those who didn't buy in from the beginning
A low-end graded Pikachu can be less useful than a clean raw copy if the slab premium is too high
Runners-Up: Underappreciated M:TG Cards for Any Format One With Nothing is a notorious card from the Champions of Kamigawa block, a cheap black instant that discards the player's entire hand
Vintage kept its restricted list, because some people wanted to play with powerful cards (and also because Type 1.5, aka legacy had started to take root, which, at the time, was just vintage with the restricted list renamed "banned list"), but in standard, you already couldn't play with all your cards, so there really wasn't any good reason to keep a restricted list
For now, however, theyre a great way to try out the new set on a budget
Making opponents choose between wasting resources, limiting their offensive, or attacking elsewhere.