I think everyone is drastically underestimating Consuming Contract, especially if it has an aggressive mana cost (like B, BB, or 1B).  This card could be good against both workshops and blue decks as a maindeck card, especially if the last ability is a vampiric tutor.    It could even potentially lead to new deck types, such as something with perilous research.  A deck could be constructed to maximize it's power and put the opponent on a 3 turn clock.  The versatility would be insane, like a 2 mana planeswalker.   Who cares if you lose in 4 turns if it provides the power to win on the third?  
       I also don't like the idea of printing another hate card (as I don't know how maindeckable Double Down would be).   I think it's efficacy against oath and some other archetypes besides dredge seem dubious.  In many situations, who cares if you draw a few cards off the oathing (which isn't even guaranteed) when they get a Griselbrand?  The possibilities for Consuming Contract are so much more exciting and it will get my vote.

I'm planning on coming as of now...leaning towards playing zombies.  Also loaning out my bloodghast/skullclamp combo deck, worldgorger dragon deck, and nether shadow control.   

Another quick report.

I woke up that morning and put together my pseudo turbo tezz list before the tournament.  I wanted to play a deck that beat shops and dredge consistently, and turbo tezz seemed like a good fit especially for the shops.  I was very split between including gifts/thirst/blightsteel, but in my limited testing I consistently found that I wanted something to put into play sooner from an opening hand, thus the bobs.  G1 there isn't much artifact hate around so I figured playing fast time vault combo would be fine.  
R1: Played against a snapcaster control?  I won in two games, I believe fielding more fast threats than he could handle.  
R2: Dredge.  Won game 1 off a turn 1 tezzeret.  Won game 2 off a yixlid (which he didn't sideboard in much hate for as it's surprisingly rare) and blightsteel.
R3:  W/U/B snapcaster control.  Won in 2.  Games played oddly like mirror matches, with both us going library and bob.  Lots of cards were drawn and land drops were missed as drawing 3 cards a turn isn't enough apparently.  I remember him casting a jace and me ignoring it when I think I could have countered it.  The benefits of playing a faster deck.
R4: Hexmage My opponent had drawn R3 and wasn't quite in if he drew the match, so we played a game.  I won by keeping a mana heavy hand and depending on my potential insane topdecks.  Yawg will after many liliana discards got me there.  Then I stupidly accepted the draw.
-A split was offered for the top 4, but because of tiebreakers I was not on top after having not lost a game.  That was unacceptable and we played.  I lost in 3, could not compete with his hot draws.  I lost to that other Tezzeret in G1.      
Random Notes
-I really dislike hurkyl's for the blue matchup, it's generally absolutely worthless.  However, having unfortunately dodged all the workshop decks I don't have any real insight on whether one could be replaced maindeck with perhaps an agent of bolas.  Guess I have some more testing to do.  
-The speed of this deck is amazing, yet it has the potential to take a slower, more sure route to victory with the bobs, jace, and library.  I really enjoyed the flexibility, yet I think arguments could be made for a more aggressive build with perhaps welders and immediate benefit spells instead of bobs.  Just some thoughts.  

I had a blast and am really looking forward to the next one if my schedule permits.  Thanks to everyone who came out to play.

Yep, I have a work meeting until 1245 and am coming from Davis...starting a little after 1 would be awesome.

Here are the other top 4 decklists!  I’m sorry for the delay.  Thanks everyone for showing up, and I’ll pass on any feedback to the management so we can continue to hold successful vintage events in the future!
Frankie Mach
4x Snapcaster Mage
4x Dark Confidant
4x Force of Will
2x Mana Drain
2x Spell Pierce
2x Flusterstorm
2x Mental Misstep
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Time Vault
1x Voltaic Key
1x Sensei’s Divining Top
1x Ponder
1x Brainstorm
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Time Walk
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Tinker
1x Blightsteel Colossus
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Lightning Bolt
1x Mana Crypt
1x Sol Ring
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Pearl
1x Black Lotus
1x Duress
1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4x Polluted Delta
3x Underground Sea
2x Volcanic Island
2x Island
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Tolarian Academy
1x Swamp
1x Library of Alexandria
SB
3x Steel Sabotage
3x Ravenous Trap
2x Echoing Truth
1x Yixlid Jailer
1x Duress
1x Fire//Ice
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Pyroblast?
2x Red Elemental Blast

Rafael Boucher

1x Flame Kin Zealot
2x Golgari Thug
2x Ichorid
4x Bloodghast
4x Golgari Grave Troll
4x Stinkweed Imp
4x Narcomoeba
1x Darkblast
2x Dread Return
3x Unmask
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Bridge From Below
4x Leyline of the Void
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Serum Powder
1x Dakmor Salvage
4x Bazaar of Baghdad
4x Petrified Field
4x Undiscovered Paradise

SB

1x Ichorod
1x Darkblast
2x Ancient Grudge
3x Chain of Vapor
4x Natures Claim
4x City of Brass

Danny Friedman

3x Snapcaster Mage
1x Sensei’s Diving Top
1x Tinker
1x Blightsteel Colossus
1x Mana Crypt
1x Sol Ring
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Pearl
1x Black Lotus
1x Mana Vault
4x Force of Will
4x Mana Drain
2x Flusterstorm
2x Mental Misstep
1x Red Elemental Blast
1x Brainstorm
3x Fact or Fiction
1x Thirst for Knowledge
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Merchant Scroll
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Gifts Ungiven
1x Yawgmoth’s Will
1x Rebuild
1x Fire//Ice
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Time Walk
1x Tolarian Academy
4x Scalding Tarn
1x Misty Rainforest
3x Underground Sea
2x Volcanic Island
4x Island
SB
1x Mountain
3x Ingot Chewer
2x Viashino Heretic
2x Relic of Progenitus
2x Tormod’s Crypt
4x Lightning Bolt
1x Pyroblast

And my deck…I went 2-2 in matches, 5-4 in games...

Big Bob Tendrils

1x Sensei’s Diving Top
1x Tinker
1x Blightsteel Colossus
1x Mana Crypt
1x Sol Ring
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Pearl
1x Black Lotus
1x Mana Vault
4x Force of Will
4x Dark Confidant
1x Lotus Petal
1x Merchant Scroll
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Timetwister
4x Dark Ritual
2x Mental Misstep
1x Mind’s Desire
1x Flusterstorm
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Hurkyl’s Recall
1x Yawgmoth’s Will
1x Brainstorm
2x Jace the Mind Sculptor
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Memory Jar
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Necropotence
4x Duress
1x Time Walk
1x Tolarian Academy
1x Misty Rainforest
2x Underground Sea
2x Island
2x Swamp
4x Polluted Delta
SB
2x Steel Sabotage
2x Hurkyl’s Recall
4x Leyline of the Void
3x Yixlid Jailer
2x Flusterstorm

So I didn’t keep great notes, but I’ll give a few of my thoughts on the deck.  I wanted to play storm because it looked like the other decks in Vintage are incredibly slow at this point.  In principal, I wanted to not care about Snapcaster Mage in other decks because I would be faster and they wouldn’t have the mana available early to fully utilize the card.  Although my two losses came to Snapcaster Control, in the game I won against 1 this plan went perfectly.  Duresses were amazing throughout the day, even with mental missteps floating around.  It was interesting that many of the counters that decks are running now are very conditional (such as mm and flusterstorm), which allowed me to play around them without having counters of my own in hand sometimes.  In moving forward with this deck I would like to more advantage of that.  Necro was great in the sense it dodges both of these, and I would like to add Yawg Bargain in the future, regardless of the mana cost (if the worlds decks can run gush and Bob I can probably get away with this) .  Also, flusterstorm was underwhelming both offensively and defensively in my opinion against the control decks it was meant to fight.  In early game I often didn’t have the mana to be aggressive and use it to protect my spells, and in the late game which snapcaster decks usually ran me to it became obsolete as we would both have a lot of free mana.  In the future I may try testing an even faster storm deck, or really try and find a way to punish the Snapcaster decks for being so slow!
-Also regarding the fee I felt the main problem was peopl's lack of confidence in playing vintage and unwilliness to put out any money.  We should advertise more extensively locally and perhaps run a chep preliminary tournament the weeek before to get some testing in for the locals who don't play vintage much.

Yeah, I've been pushing for a vintage tournament for awhile and it finally came through.  Not enough of it goes on in Davis, and the unlimited proxy makes it super accessible.

More Vintage in California.  Be excited!  This is hopefully the first of many and larger vintage and legacy tournaments at the shop and the start of a more active eternal scene in the area.

Droms Comics Eternal Series
Drom's Comics & Cards
231 G Street, Suite 4
Davis, Ca 95616
(530) 758-2280

Saturday, November 5
Vintage Format
Store opens and registration starts at 1pm, play begins at 2.
Decklists are required.

Entry: $20

Prizes:  1st Revised Underground Sea
          2nd Revised Badlands


Prizes will be scaled up based on attendance.

The tournament will be Unlimited Proxy.  Proxies can be made by writing on basic plains or world championship proxy cards, by erasing and modifying a card similar to the card being proxied, or by making paper prints of all the cards in the deck and inputting them in front of sleeved cards.

Hope to see you there.  Special prizes will be given to the first east coast players to show up!  

I too have tried out a counterbalance deck but took a more fishy approach using black and white for meddling mage and dark confidant/duress etc.  It was extremely strong against storm combo because if counterbalance dropped even by itself it acted as a mystery chalice of the void at 0 t0 3 for the other player.  I have a couple of questions about your counterbalance deck. 

1) Have you found the counterbalance in your list to help shore up the weak mana drain matchup against storm combo? 
2) My deck was only 0 to 3 converted mana costs (excluding Forces); does having more expensive cards in Sower, Fact, and Sphinx noticeably weaken the counterbalance? 
3) How effective is the counterbalance against fish/aggro? 

Congrats on your finish and the cool deck idea.