There has to be something wrong with what you say. If there are FAR more than enough power cards to satisfy global demand, then why is power SO expensive.
I think the number of vintage players is limited by the number and/or price of power. I think there is not enough power to allow a continuous growth of the number of vintage players without adding proxies to the formula.

If you can't use proxies I'd recommend Oath or Fish. They work pretty ok without power.
If you can't afford bazaar or can't proxy it, don't play Ichorid. It's just too inconsistent without bazaars.

I tried the painter-grindstone combo in a black-control shell some time ago.
To my surprise it works pretty well and its so much fun to play.
I didnt try the red splash, but it looks solid. I used to play a Lion's Eye Diamond for extra speed.

I've also seen Thoughtcast being played in Tezz shells.
It seems very good to me.

Back on topic, this article makes me happy because it shows some serious interest in vintage and the vintage players. While I'm not 100% sure that restricting TFK was the way to go, I think it will make an impact in drain decks.

I usually play dark ritual decks here. But for some reason, after the B/R list showed up, I really wanted to play some Tezz deck. I guess I fell for it because it seems to be a damn powerful archetype no matter how they try to put it down (unless they ban time vault  ).

LOL.. That looks like a posibility now..
I hope it doesn't happen though.

I agree with Zeus-online. Fish is a tight deck. It doesnt have many strong cards so it's got to stick to its plan.
And tinker-Ink dilutes the main plan (disrupt/draw).

I'd also sugest starting your tests with "easier" decks like fish, oath and ANT. They play similar to their legacy counterparts (except for Oath, but it's still a control/combo deck).

Then you could give the rest a try.

I'm pretty new to vintage too and started this way. It was good for me.

Now I'm learning how to play TPS. It's been a slow process, but totaly worth it!

This land is more like a rishadan port on yourself. You get the mana only if the opponent lets you.
Its like he or she had the rishadan port. 

I agree with your view there. The long term health of vintage has to be analyzed and planned the way a business or service has to be planned.
We all have the right to speak our minds, and store owners, tournament organizers and most definitely Wizards should pay attention.
But in the end they have to measure in a professional manner wich things will work for the good of the format in the long run . I really want vintage to last many more years from now.

Hi. First poster here.

I haven´t read Smmenen article yet, because I don't have a premium account. That should change in the short term because I'm getting more and more into the vintage format.
I'm a relatively old magic player. I started with the exodus pre-release, and I have always loved eternal formats. It seems fair to have a sanctioned format where you are alowed to play just about every card ever printed.

I'm writing this on the fly, without a serious deep analisys. But I don't really want to make any big points but speak my mind on the topic.

I've always played vintage and I've always suffered because of two things:

1) Here (Chile), vintage is a "casual" format. No stores really support the vintage format. The "vintage community" has to make their own tournaments, playing at someone's house with our own proxies rules. This is not a bad thing but puts limits to what we would like the format to be.
2) Power cards are so expensive to get. As a student (when I started playing magic) getting P9 cards was imposible. Period. Now that I work It's REALLY hard. I'm about to have my first child in a couple of weeks, and I will have to pay the hospital roughly the same an unlimited Ancestral Recall costs.


This two points illustrate the things I think would benefit vintage the most.
- More support to the format, meaning a more "mainstream" feel to it. Seeing that wizards and stores care for it.
- Access to the format staples. I've always played underpowered decks in vintage (I don't like proxies much). But the minute I can afford to buy power cards, I will.

Even if I don´t like proxies much, I think a moderate use of them can help make the format take of in places where few people play vintage tournaments. (short term boost, not sure about long term effect). So I think it would help addressing point (1).
Motivating stores to support the format would help solve point (1) also.

Making CE cards tournament legal opens a very interesting opportunity to be able to play "real" vintage decks. It will help the people who love the format, play a wider variety of decks, playing with real cards, and reach that great "I completed my deck" feeling. I don´t know if making CE cards legal will make more people play vintage, but it will, most definitely, strengthen the moral and loyalty of the present vintage players. This helps address point (2) without long term drawbacks as far as I see.

So, to sumarize:

- More support and tournaments (big and smaller ones)
- Careful use of proxies (but definitely use them)
- Make CE legal (thus making more people have complete decks and making them love the format even more, me included).

Cheers!!