A) What cards do you collect and save? I collect anything I need.  I save everything.  Additionally, I sometimes collect cards while they are dirt cheap if I imagine they will increase in value (currently accumulating most Affinity commons while they are 5/10 cents).

B) How is your collection sorted and stored? Most complete sets are in binders or those little hard plastic boxes.  The rest is in 2-4 row commons boxes or one of many singleton boxes.  Oh and, there are piles of cards that are commonly used.  I'm thinking of having a 'library card catalog'-style peice of furniture made so I can tidy up the pile of boxes.

C) How do you keep track of your cards? I used to keep an excel spreadheet a long time ago, but updating it became bothersome.

D) Do you trade and if you do, how? This is why I wanted to post in this thread, really.  I loathe trading.  Or should I say, traders?  Most of the traders I run into are total asshats.  It's like they're out to rape people on trades just so they can brag about it.  Lately, I've been running into people who say they are "getting out of magic" or "liquidating for rent" or something of the sort, and then I go through their binder and they quote me barely under what the store charges (or would charge).  I usually stop after the first few quotes, roll my eyes and give them the most evil look I can muster.  Most traders I run into rank in just above theives on the scale of scum and villany in magic.  I guess it just pisses really me off that they treat me like their doing me a favor by trying to take my good cards away from me.  I want to stab them in the face!

F) What environments do you play in? Almost none.  I avoid Type 2/block and limited like the plague, which means I rarely play at all these days since, locally, there isn't a player base beyond those formats.

G) How do you acquire cards?  I buy singles.  I don't even open packs I win at tournaments, because I'm thoroughly convinced that they generally devalue instantly upon opening.  I get said singles from eBay (rare playsets), Cardshark (uncommons, off-rares) and commons bins at local stores.  On rare occasions, I'll use Google/Froogle.  A recent example: I wanted P2 Sleight of Hands.  There were none on Ebay and Cardshark sellers had them at about $2.  I looked on Google and most online stores want $2+, but lo and behold, ABU is selling them for 50 cents.

Is not including Pentavus some sort of new tech?  I can imagine that with large amounts of card drawing, you drop enough moxen to provide plenty of Welder-food, but I wonder if you ever missed having it?

So... you get to weld one of Lotus Petal, Sol Ring or Mana Crypt?

I think you're trying too hard to use that Workshop of yours.  Personally, I can't think of a worse direction for someone trying to build a proxy deck than to go towards Workshop based decks.  But if you are totally bent on the idea,   I would recommend ditching Workshops for Ancient Tombs and Moxen.

And is english your native language?

In vintage terms, I'd say it helps to illustrate the strength of the player base in Minnesota, and to some degree the strength of vintage at large.   Judging from my travels all over the U.S., as well as the world, this is not as atypical as you might think.  You may live in an area with good vintage action, but don't think this is the norm.  In fact, I often end up in places where magic play of any kind is scarce, and I'm not just talking about third world countries, either.

It's not even worth playing in extended.  The only thing it's good for is a few goldfishes to see Serum Powders potential... that, and some laughs, since it is capable of quickly raping a few extended decks.

If you take a cue from extended and test Manuel Bevand's crazy Sneak Attack deck, you will find that Serum Powder can actually be a strong card.  Would it work in Type 1?  Probably not, thanks to Force of Will and plenty of very strong control decks  in general, which is something extended is currently lacking (in numbers of people playing good control decks, that is)... but if you want to investigate Serum Powder, Bevand's deck is probably the best place to start, so you can see what sort of deck can be helped by this card:

4 City of Traitors
4 Crystal Vein
2 Dwarven Ruins
6 Mountain
4 Sandstone Needle
4 Chrome Mox
4 Symbiotic Wurm
4 Serum Powder
4 Arc-Slogger
1 Crater Hellion
2 Final Fortune
4 Gamble
1 Rorix Bladewing
4 Seething Song
4 Sneak Attack
4 Through the Breach
4 Serra Avatar

And, sorry to veer into extended, but I believe it's quite applicable to the discussion of Serum Powder.

The only local store here in Spokane used to have sanctioned vintage tournaments.  When they went to proxy, the tournaments were no more.  I was a contributer, as I did not attend any of these.

Why did I not go to the proxy tourneys?  I actually like jockeying for rating. I know the rating is worthless, but trying to get my vintage up to #1 in Washington gives me something to do, since the local (would-be) meta is fairly weak beyond a small pool of players and I don't really get much of the challenge of playing like I used to down in Newark, CA (C&Js).  So the answer is basically, I like racking up useless rating points for the hell of it.

I agree.  I think that's one of the more important factors to take into account.  Instead of analyzing how appropriate the name is for the format, I think it's best to go with how it would sound in normal conversation.  Everyone ought to try saying the "better" names with the words deck or tournament tacked on the end before submitting.  Legacy seems to sound the least awkward.

http://www.cardshark.com and http://www.ebay.com work well for me.

I wrote an article for londes (bleh!) which covered some of the basics of eBaying: http://www.londes.com/articles/July/rep16.php

And by posting a link to Londes, I think it fair to warn you: I don't recommend buying from Londes.  They are very difficult to deal with (very non-responsive to e-mails) and aside from that, I never got the cards I ordered from them.

At least with eBay and Cardshark, you can read what previous buyers thought about the seller.

I haven't tested CA yet, since it looked a bit clunky, but yours looked interesting, so I gave it a go against Slaver and 4cc and, my, was I mildly surprised by some of the interactions.  First, Crucible with Bazaar is simply amazing.  I used to run  a lot of Bazaar a few years back and I went so far as to add Sacred Ground (lame) to the sideboard at one point since I was having so much trouble keeping Bazaar on the board.  Crucible, however, not only protects the Bazaar, but gives you a mana feed through your graveyard.  I love it.

In my whopping 2 tests, I had problems getting the bombs through.  By countering Survival and using Fire/Ice & StP on Welders (before they become active), both decks were able to scrape up a win.

And Mindslaver was quite deadly against this deck.  It has a number of tools which can be used against itself.

Getting around to my point, if anything, I would recommend upping the Crucibles.  With limited testing, I quickly figured out that Bazaar + Crucible = Win!  I never drew a Crucible vs Slaver, and against 4cc, it would have won handily if not for a timely Cunning Wish dealing with the Crucible that slipped through.

Let me make this a little more clear for you:

Let's assume you have a Titan in play and I copy it.  End result is, you have a Titan and I have a Titan, and I suffer Titan's CIP effect twice.  Board position: Likely worse than when I started!

Now, same thing, only instead of copying your Titan, I mutate it.  End result is, you do not have Titan, I get 8 saps.  Board position: Considerably better.



So you advocate using it as a win more card? You do realize this is unnecessary use, right?

---Edited out cheap shot---

Why would I want to copy Sundering Titan? To nuke more of my lands??

If you want to get out of a Crucible lock or block and get rid of Juggy, Razormane or Trike, why settle for just getting rid of them?  Cards like Rack and Ruin, Artifact Mutation and Shattering Pulse do the same thing, only far more efficiently, by giving you card advantage or better board position.



I've won plenty of tourneys and I rarely fail to top 8, but that doesn't mean I'm that good.  I know this is a bit off-topic and I don't mean to feed the flame war, but I couldn't resist pointing out the logical fallacy.

One advantage I can think of with Copy Artifact is its flexibility, in that, it is an enchantment, giving you the ability to manipulate it as such with something like Skull of Orm.  Unfortunately, Skull of Orm is the best example I can think of so, as it stands... not a spectacular card.  But, who knows?  Maybe someday WotC will print something that makes Copy Artifact the shit.

I played a BUG Oath deck recently to stave the aggro masses (my silly meta is all aggro that is often prepared for combo... so I usually stick to hyper-aggro and aggro-control).  I don't imagine this would do very well at all in a normal meta.

It wanders pretty far from what you're testing, but perhaps this can give you some ideas (it being more of a pre-sideboarded BUG Landstill than simply Oath):

4 Faerie Conclave
1 Library of Alexandria
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Polluted Delta
3 Treetop Village
4 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
1 Black Lotus  ---0
2 Darksteel Colossus ---11
1 Mana Crypt  ---0
1 Mox Diamond  ---0
1 Mox Emerald  ---0
1 Mox Jet  ---0
1 Mox Sapphire  ---0
3 Nevinyrral's Disk  ---4
1 Sol Ring  ---1
3 Pernicious Deed  ---1{G}
1 Demonic Tutor  ---1
1 Yawgmoth's Will  ---2
1 Ancestral Recall  ---{U}
4 Force of Will  ---3{U}
4 Mana Drain  ---{U}{U}
4 Standstill  ---1
1 Time Walk  ---1
1 Tinker  ---2
4 Oath of Druids  ---1

Despite the countermagic, it doesn't handle combo decks too well.  And it's been a while since I tested it, but I have doubts on it's performance against control as well.  But hey, it won me the one tourney I tried it in my craptastic meta.  If you give the list a look, I'm sure there's something you could use in there (coughDeed!cough).

And Nether Void...

I think Oliver Daems' Dülmen winning AoS deck from 2002 is worth studying:

// Mana
4 Forest
6 Island
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine
4 Tropical Island
2 Wasteland
4 Yavimaya Coast
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
// Business
1 Ancestral Recall
2 Cunning Wish
1 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will
4 Impulse
4 Intuition
4 Mana Drain
1 Merchant Scroll
2 Misdirection
1 Time Walk
4 Earthcraft
1 Regrowth
4 Squirrel Nest
1 Sylvan Library

SB: 1 Counterspell
SB: 1 Hoodwink
SB: 1 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 1 Mana Short
SB: 1 Misdirection
SB: 1 Stroke of Genius
SB: 1 Sylvan Library
SB: 1 Tangle
SB: 1 Teferi's Response
SB: 1 Timetwister
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 Wall of Roots

I rather like the Drains with Wishes...

I think this is a fantastic idea.  Let them know they've done a good thing:

http://www.wizards.com/company/emailtoauthor.asp?author=Aaron%20Forsythe&headline=Un-Believable

And change the body, ya know.

I'm not sure how well Ironworks would work in a colorless Affinity deck, lacking Yawg Will and Timetwister, but you might want to try slipping one in for testing purposes.  It fuels Skullclamp quite well (works great with Genesis Chamber, too), giving you the ability to totally combo out and zip through your entire deck.

My mistake.  I meant to use only non -/* cards... otherwise I would've listed a heap of cards.

And the point is that you listed unplayable cards in the non -/* sections, citing them as the best of Type 1.

I fail to see how many of these cards constitute the "best" of type 1:
"lake of the dead, humility, cataclysm, solitary confinement, karma, viashino heretic, stormbind, fires of yavimaya, razorfin hunter & ancient den".
These aren't even good in the lesser formats.

I understand that your list may have utility value, but your intro doesn't seem entirely appropriate.

Besides, why not just take a gander at Doc Sylvan's breakdowns?

You have comments on Memnarch, Clockwork Dragon, Mindslaver and Jester's Cap, but they aren't in your decklist.  Need to edit?

And if your only problems are "Shatter,Shatterstorm,Rack and Ruin, and Pillage", why not just run 4 BEBs in the side?  In fact, if you are running into nothing but red hate, perhaps Chill might help a little.

I doubt there are that many with power who just stop playing.  More likely they moved like me... and speaking of which, for anyone looking for cheap living with a good mtg scene on the west coast, I doubt it gets much better than Spokane.  I bought my house up here for 1/10th the cost (compared to Mountain View homes) and the best local store (out of like, 4 or 5 here) has some pretty good turnouts.  They used to get 30+ for Type 1 on a regular basis, until they decided to run Type 2 at the same time (2 tourneys at once has hurt our player pool for now).  We've only got about 4 players with full power, but this is quite an increase compared to when I got here last year (zero power players... me being the first).  I sometimes miss the competition at C&Js, but winning sure is nice.

My sentiments are with rozetta on proxies.  And I don't think this is so much a U.S. thing as much as it is an east coast phenomenon.

I've been testing Root Maze... it hoses Dragon (until they get a Deed) and really slows down Belcher (haven't tested vs Draw7 since it doesn't have a presence here).  I also run Naturalize, since again, it's good against Dragon (if they don't have a swarm in play), as well as artifact heavy decks...

Oh and... I think *4* Wastes is the way to go.  They're just so great for turning an opponent's questionable hand into a losing hand...

To perhaps help you out... here's the Bazaar Control deck I used to play at C&Js (stopped playing it around summer 2003):

//NAME: Bazaar Control
// Land
        4 Bazaar of Baghdad
        1 Riftstone Portal
        2 Flooded Strand
        3 Polluted Delta
        1 Strip Mine
        3 Tropical Island
        3 Tundra
        4 Underground Sea
// Artifact
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Mox Emerald
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Mox Sapphire
// Multi
        2 Psychatog
// Black
        1 Demonic Tutor
        1 Vampiric Tutor
        3 Zombie Infestation
// Blue
        1 Ancestral Recall
        4 Circular Logic
        2 Deep Analysis
        4 Force of Will
        4 Intuition
        1 Mystical Tutor
        1 Wonder
        1 Time Walk
// Green
        3 Roar of the Wurm
// Red
        4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
// White
        1 Balance
SB:  3 Meddling Mage
SB:  2 Ground Seal
SB:  4 Serenity
SB:  2 Peace of Mind
SB:  2 Sacred Ground
SB:  2 Swords to Plowshares

Basically, Zombie Infestation (and Balance) helped keep aggro at bay until the deck ramped up.  Meddling Mage + counters helped against combo.  And the card advantage engine seemed to work very, very well against control....

I was doing pretty well with it (usually placing 3rd or so, which isn't so bad at C&Js). The problem was that at the time, Hulk was running 3 Coffin Purges in the side and without Squees, the deck was crap.  Perhaps now that Rector is basically dead and Purge is weak in the Hulk board, the deck would be worth playing again.

What's with the Magical Hack in the side?  Is it primarily for Blood Moon?  How much use do you folks get out of it?

A lot of my better delas have been made with cold, hard cash.  Because some people are up for t2, while others are up for paying some bills.

I once bought duals for $1 a piece, primarily because the guy just didn't know any better... but the important part is that he wasn't looking for more cards.

Feel free to post your best trade story here.

I ran into a guy with 20 Force of Wills (he'd been collecting them) and I traded a similar number of various blue uncommons currently worth less than $5... for all of said FoWs... (this is probably circa 1999).

I notice it has been looked at alot, but not very many people have responded to the lengthy article, it is good or bad?

I stopped reading in the first couple sentences after seeing "gives them poison counter"... it set off my cruft alert (warranted or not)...

I'm just a scrub and all, but from the few times I've played post-restriction GAT, the following comes to mind:

1. No Duress in the main?
2. Sleight of Hand?  Couldn't you run something more useful?  How about AK (sorely missing, methinks)?
3. Only 1 Wish?  I  think Berserk belongs in the board.  And besides, re-using AKs with some help from Tog is one of the more powerful things you can do with GAT.  I wasn't incredibly impressed with Gush, so I'm tempted to run another Wish in its place.
4. Fastbond...?  Um... how is that working without 4 Gushes?  I'm not going to badmouth it, since I've not tested it... I'm genuinely curious.


Here's my build, for reference:

2 Flooded Strand
1 Island
1 Library of Alexandria
3 Polluted Delta
1 Strip Mine
4 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
3 Psychatog
1 Demonic Tutor
3 Duress
1 Mind Twist
1 Yawgmoth's Will
4 Accumulated Knowledge
1 Ancestral Recall  
3 Brainstorm  
2 Cunning Wish
4 Force of Will
1 Gush
2 Intuition
3 Mana Drain  
2 Misdirection
1 Mystical Tutor  
1 Time Walk
4 Quirion Dryad
1 Regrowth

I'm not a great player... but the lack of AKs bothered me enough to post... I draw soooo many cards off AKs with my build...

Be sure to post again when you do get to your first duty station... I'd like to hear how things turn out for you.

Are you looking for sanctioned play or just random casual?

Good sanctioned tournaments can be hard to find in some places, but you can usually find a handful of scrubs playing casual on any given base.

Chances are I will be shipped out to Europe or Asia, seeing as I will be working on heavy aircraft or cargo planes(I will be an Air Crew Chief to be precise), and they need to be located near major bases. Hopefully I can get stationed in Germany as the major bases are, like, an hour from Dulmen and Eindhoven.

As a first term airman, how do you figure "chances are" that you'll be shipped overseas?  There are plenty of AMC bases in the states and you could end up at one of them. I'm not saying you won't get an overseas assignment, I'm just letting you know you shouldn't get your hopes up.

If you end up at Sheppard for tech school, there's a store called Pegasus Loft right outside the gate which is within walking distance from where I was billeted.  I went to one tourney while I was there for 7-level school... it was small, unsanctioned, type 2 & mostly scrubs.  I placed 2nd with an absolute pile.  Unfortunately, this sort of magic scene is typical in some places...

If you have enough of a following, becoming a tournament organizer and holding regular tournaments is a good way of getting sanctioned play close to the base, while generating interest (your upcoming tournaments could be found on wizard's tourney locator).  Of course, as a crew chief, it can be difficult to hold your scheduled tourneys if you are in a deployment heavy unit.

Try posting again when you actually find out where you're going.

As to investing in power, my experience there has proven quite fruitful... when I got to my first duty station, I bought an unlimited set for $1800 and people thought I was throwing my money away.  Nearly 8 years later, it has proven to be a solid investment.