Won't be able to make it this time around.  I'm off to play Standard/Legacy in Charolette.  Brings me within spittin' distance of the invitational in December, so it's worth it.

Have fun guys!

Hey there, DSale again, this time reporting from the 3rd place slot in the 2nd Richmond Comix 15 proxy tournament.  I have again decide to run the GW Bears deck, but have splashed black for Diabolic Edict and Thoughtseize.  The obligatory list:

3 Gaddoc Teeg
4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Kataki, War's Wage
4 Dark Confidant

1 Rancor
1 Seal of Cleansing
2 Null Rod
2 Enlightened Tutor

4 Thoughtseize
1 Vampiric Tutor
3 Diabolic Edict

3 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
3 Savannah
1 Bayou
1 Scrubland
4 Marsh Flats
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Plains

Sideboard:
3 Aven Mindcensor
2 Silence
2 Swords to Plowshares
3 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Planar Void
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Choke
1 Elephant Grass
1 Diabolic Edict

I splashed black this time because I expected a much more beatdown-oriented field this time around.  Diabolic Edict should be amazing against them, and swords should be decent from the board. 
Of course, I was wrong, and only faced a single beatdown deck all day long.  I handled it easily, and should of probably been straight GW the whole time.

Round 1:  Charbelcher

Game 1: He storms for 14 goblin tokens on turn 1 and I have no action.  I lose in short order.
Game 2: I play a lotus for Canonist / Null Rod and he is locked out of the game from there.  He makes multiple mistakes with tinderwall blocks and I still end up stealing the game.  Confidant almost kills me here.
Game 3: I keep 2 land, mox, pridemage, enlightened tutor, Thoughtseize on the mull.  He makes a turn 1 belcher and has no cards in hand.  I draw and don't hit another mana accelerant, so I play a pridemage and tutor for Seal of Cleansing.  He activates belcher the next turn and reveals Emerald Mox and Plateu.  I take 4 and clean the game up from there easily. 

*phew* I've escaped a pretty bad matchup when losing the roll.  Let's hope that luck can continue.

Round 2:  Key-Vault

Game 1: I commence the beatdown with some slow guys that don't matter much.  He uses Brainstorm and Ancestral + Yawgmoth's Will to setup his combo and I die shortly after.
Game 2: He FoW's my Gaddoc Teeg on Turn 1 and I land a Kataki on turn 2.  He reads it several times and is essentially locked out of the game despite having a Sol Ring to pay for 2 of his moxen.  Beatdown kills him in 3 turns.
Game 3: I start the beatdown, but am unable to beat his Timetwister for a bunch of cards and lose to a key-vault that I make him play out.  Yes, I make him play it out because I have Kataki in play, and I was hoping he would make a mistake with the multiple upkeep triggers and key-vault activations.  To his credit, he doesn't miss a single one and eventually resolves a Tezzeret to kill me with.

*sigh*  Key-Vault is not a matchup that I was looking forward to and losing the die roll is that much worse.  I'm not surprised I lost here.

Round 3: R.B Beatdown

Game 1: I win the roll and lay a first turn Enlightened Tutor for Ethersworn Canonist, as I know what he's playing.  We trade beats for a few turns, Goblin Guide actually draws me 2 lands.  He dies to my random bears.
Game 2: I am actually in danger of dying to my own Dark Confidant this game, but I manage to out-race his guys with the card advantage, he is only playing R B guys and no burn spells except Hatred.  He dies while I am at 4 life.

Round 4: Oath with Key-Vault combo

Game 1: I have a turn 1 Lotus, he FoW's my Goyf and I resolve a Qasali Pridemage.  I enlightened tutor on my upkeep for Null Rod and he's all but dead to the 3/3 beater and Null Rod combination.
Game 2: He runs out a turn 1 Oath with an Exotic Orchard, I don't have alot of action against that, I kept a hand with Pridemage and Thoughtseize.  He oaths out an Iona and only has 3 cards in his deck.  I could of flashed out a few Aven Mindcensors to fog him and deck him out, but he made the right call and named WHITE instead of Black. I've boarded out my Yawgmoth's Wills, because I didn't know exactly what he was playing, and lose this one.  /frown.
Game 3: He doesn't take the mulligan and pays for it when I T1 Thoughtseize.  I take his Voltaic Key and he is forced to pay for all his artifact mana for the rest of the game courtesy of Kataki.  The beatdown in this game is quick, I assume on the back on some Qasali Pridemage.

I make the Top 4 with a record of 4-1

Quarterfinals against Krause:
Game 1: I open a hand with double Confidant and little else.  I decided to keep this awful hand despite having no turn 1 plays, and I proceed to get demolished by an Oath of Druids.
Game 2: I keep Gaddoc Teeg, Enlightened Tutor, Pridemage, Lotus, Sac land, Sac land, Wasteland.  Turn 1 I play Teeg and Enlightened Tutor for seal of cleansing.  He lands the turn 1 Oath, forcing my hand to action.  I've got Teeg in play, so he can't force my Seal, and I bash for 2.  He lands a second Oath turn 2, and I simply shrug, play pridemage and attack for 3, then disenchant his Oath.  He gets bashed for a few turns, but assembles Key-Vault on the back of an Ancestrall + Yawg's Will and I'm locked out of the game.

ALl in all, I'm a little disappointed with the way this deck performed this time around.  I splashed black thinking that we would see more beatdown decks than last time, but the field consisted of mostly Oath decks.  I'm heading back to a more straightforward GW beatdown strategy for the next event, which will hopefully be scheduled soon for a weekend in January.  I'm also going to drop the Enlightened Tutors, their impact just wasn't great enough to ever matter, and as I'm learning, Vintage really is a format where 1 turn makes the difference.

Thanks to Richmond Comix and Tommy for their continued support of the Vintage scene.  See you all in a few months!

Greetings!

My name is Daniel Sale and I just took down the Vintage event at Richmond Comix last week.  The only experience I've had with the format thus far is from articles I've read online.  After doing my research, I found the meta game to break down into Time Vault decks vs. Null Rod decks.  Armed with that knowledge, I set about looking for lists that I could realistically build and test enough so that I wouldn't embarrass myself.  This proved to be much harder than I had originally anticipated! 
Da Bears G/W

4 Gaddock Teeg
4 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Vexing Shusher
2 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Aven Mindcensor
4 Elvish Spirit Guide

2 Seal of Primordium
2 Choke
4 Null Rod

1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
4 Savannah
2 Plains
3 Forest

Sideboard
3 Warmth
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Tormod's Crypt
2 Whirling Dervish
2 Thornweald Archer

Let me take a sec to talk about some of the card choices here.  I chose not to run Mox Pearl or Mox Emerald in my deck.  This wasn't because I didn't have space from proxies (I only ran 13), but because I felt like because I wanted to run 4x Kataki, they were just going to become more of a liability than they were worth.  I understand now that this kind of thinking is waayy off, and that the Mox truly are insane acceleration.  I will definitely have some Moxen for my next tournament! 
I wasn't very impressed with the Choke maindeck, and feel like there must be something better out there.  This may be because I only ran 2, and they weren't relevant in many of the matchups I played during the day.
Also, my all-stars on the day were definitely Whirling Dervish.  I played him in the board on theory, and it payed off.  As Vault/Key decks continue to find ways to fight Null Rod decks, one card I've seen coming up more and more is Darkblast.  Dervish is actually better than Kataki/Shusher/Canonist in many different matchups.  He sucessfully dodged Smother and Darkblast, and also swung past some Zombie tokens and a Tombstalker to win me 2 rounds.  Your mileage may vary, but he was great for me, and I am considering playing the full 4 in the future.

As for the tournament... well, I don't know what to say.  I had incredibly consistent draws that features disruption and aggressive bears.  There were a few embarrassing moments on the day, including:

5) Picking up Abe's Brainstorm to make sure I knew what it did.
4) Playing Warmth in my sideboard, which was complete garbage.
3) Letting Abe search with a Polluted Delta while I had Mindcensor in hand. (Timing is everything!)
2) Playing an Ethersworn Canonist on Turn 3 in game 1 of the finals instead of the Kataki or Seal of Primordium.
1) Going to the crappy bar next door instead of Capital Ale House with people much smarter than I am.

Great tournament, nice to see some real decks show up.  I'm looking forward to getting some more players interested and regular events in the VA area.