I believe the real story of the Vintage Championships was not the end result, but the quest to keep 5 color stacks on the map without one of the most powerful/most played cards in all of magic. (Black lotus) I observed a new vintage player by the name of Brandon Jones from MA team GFY. This was his second major vintage tourney (the first being a mox tourney in mass 12th place, and last nights vintage worlds prelim 10th place) he has ever played in. To make it to the top eight is one thing, but to be literally one card away from the finals and probably the championship is mind blowing. I feel that he is the up-in-coming vintage player. I had some time to talk to him to get some match results throughout the tourney along with his deck list after his very close semi-finals lost to the "2009 vintage champion." In this match there was everything. His match in the semis with the newly crowned champion was the match of the entire tourney. Brandon was literally a workshops away from being in the finals. A finals he would have won.

Here is his list:

NO LOTUS SHOPS

MAIN BOARD:

4 WORKSHOPS
4 GEMSTONE MINE
3 WASTELAND
2 CITY OF BRASS
1 STRIPMINE
1 BAZAAR
1 BARBARIAN RING
1 TOLARIAN ACADEMY

5 MOXEN
4 TANGLE WIRE
4 SPHERE OF RESISTANCE
3 CHALICE OF THE VOID
2 CRUCIBLE OF WORLDS
2 UBA MASK
1 TRINISPHERE
1 POWDER KEG
1 SMOKESTACK
1 LOTUS PETAL
1 SOL RING
1 MANA VAULT
1 MANA CRYPT
1 MEMORY JAR

2 ANCIENT GRUDGE
1 ANCESTRAL RECALL
1 DEMONIC TUTOR
1 VAMPIRIC TUTOR
1 CROP ROTATION
1 TINKER

4 GOBLIN WELDER
1 KARN SILVER GOLEM
1 SUNDERING TITAN
1 RAZORMANE MASTICORE
1 TRISKELION

SIDEBOARD:

4 LEYLINE OF THE VOID
2 PYROBLAST
2 ANCIENT GRUDGE
2 ENSNARING BRIDGE
1 RED ELEMENTAL BLAST
1 TORMODS CRYPT
1 TIME VAULT
1 VOLTAIC KEY
1 POWDER KEG


Ok, so lets think about this. He runs no lotus, 2 grudge main, 2 grudge board and vault/key in board. I have never seen that. Ever. I asked him how often he sided  in the vault/key and what matches he did because besides the lotus not being there, that jumped out at me. Brandon said, " Well, to be honest it's just not something you are expecting to see from shops. Against any sort of G/B aggro it is ridiculous. They have two outs. Null rod and oxidize. That's it. With the two ancient grudges in the main, the null rods mean nothing and if they waste the vault then who cares. You just lock them out with another piece they won't be able to deal with. For example, round three in game two I played against G/B and sided the combo in game 2. I went (second obviously) he played a land and said go for his first turn. I went mox + shops + vault + key = infinite turns? Then he oxidized it. So, after he played an irrelevent turn 2 I wasted his 1 land and dropped trinisphere. Good game. Two scoops. It is very good in the mirror of any form because they just can't deal with it. Except welder. Who you just kill. Razormane for the win? Exactly." So, the big question was why he wasn't running black lotus. His reply, "Well, I obviously don't have the money to go buying a lotus. I work a lot and have a lot of bills. I play a lot of type two now. Lucky for me one of my best friends has a huge collection and i pretty much borrow whatever whenever. However, after the outcome of today I'm not sure if I will ever put lotus in. I know it sounds crazy and/or "awful" but think of it like this. Turn one if you are playing countrol and i play shops lotus, what happens? Lotus gets countered. If i go shops, petal what happens? They let the petal go and then it's over. I bait with welder (they counter) and I drop lock piece. From there on in I just ride the wave controlling their lands and tapping them down with tangle wire. I have had possibly one time where I wished it was a lotus and it was in the prelims. I won that match anyway. So, at no point did i need it. Could it have helped? Possibly. Could it have ruined my day if i had it? Probably. If you are playing tezz and thinking, I would let the lotus resolve then you are a liar. Every time I've done it or seen it done it's happened. I've been testing this list back home with my team and I feel like I've worked very hard on it and I'm extremely happy with my results."   Between his arrogance, ego, listening to his Ipod (switching songs mid match thinking "I don't care what you play, I'm locking you out.") and just overall attitude he was definitly one of the most entertaining players I've seen in a long time. If you ever meet him, ask him about some of his matches. They are completely hilarious.

So, I believe Brandon has picked up where the N.Y.S.E left off after turning away all the disbelievers and putting STAX back on the map. The best two stax/shops lists to date in my opinion are NYSE & NO LOTUS 5C SHOPS. NYSE has been proven (if you read back to the article one of them posted) but if you give it time and see other players play Brandon's list then that could change very quickly)

Lastly, I asked him what he thought of the field at the 2009 vintage tourney here at Gencon and this is what he said: (This made my day.) "Fish sucks, bug fish sucks, brown stax sucks, dredge sucks, 7 card draw tezz sucks and W/G aggro sucks. Go back to the drawing board and stop saturating important events with that trash because you want to nuke tezz even more. Just because you think you can beat tezz, doesn't mean you're going to. Tezz won worlds and his list was questionable. Now imagine if an established player with a real tezz list played? You might as well just hand him your money. I don't like playing against Tezz every round but that's just how it is or was anyway. I hate hearing how W/G players say how they smash stacks/shops and then loose to them in the top 8. It's one thing to beat random scrubs round 1- 6 playing stax, but when you barely make it to the top 8 and proceed to loose miserably doesn't that tell you something? I've never lost to that deck. Just my opinion. What do i know right? This is my second vintage tourney. If ratings mattered in vintage, I'd be a 2000 after today. I know there are a lot of players that are going to read what you post and think very negative of me and that's fine. What do I know right? I top was in the top 4 at vintage championships. #1 SHOPS list at the vintage championship. Where were they? That would be at the bottom of the pairings list. Just play my list and win. No scrubs allowed."That's all i have for you all. I look forward to see his performance in Legacy and some side vintage events tomorrow. I'm telling you, look out for this guy. He means buisness. Try his list out. Best stax player I've ever seen and obviously he should be. He was the top stax player in the world championship. (If you weren't there to stay the best, you aren't the best for all of you who are thinking about who wasn't there.) Remember for all you blue players, if you let lotus petal resolve then you are probably going to get smashed and humilated. Does stax need lotus? I don't think so.

- Max Bennet.