For the record, I am thrilled at seeing more multi-day tournaments. As grad school eats my life, it is fantastic to see larger tournaments. With a good 8 hours of driving or so, or at least as long on a train, with multiple days it makes it more worthwhile.

As I'm on the East Coast, I will not be making this event.
 
  However, it's exciting to see non-proxy events out there. What has your attendance been like?

Nick thanks for hosting TWO fantastic events in a row. I really like the New York Vintage community and I hope to make it up to more of your events this fall, so I hope to see everyone around. Also, uh, my apologies to the gentlemen from whom I borrowed 3x Spell Pierce, as they are still in my deck and I noticed it when I got home. Whoops.
  
   Also, it was grand to finally meet the infamous Nick Coss.

    Open wager: if anyone can top 8 with a deck running Eager Cadet x4 at the next NYSE event, I will eat my hat.

    I'd also love to see if anyone else will down to Burning Wish ---> Lava Spike

   Thanks everyone for letting me see such a great community! Hope to see more of everyone.

Nick your earlier events were so fantastic I'll try to come up to DC for this thing. I'll try to bring some of the DC crew with me, but if not I'll just make the train and pull an over-nighter on Amtrak. Upside for that: Ronkonkomo train station would work just fine.

I for the record, and a blast, and it was great to see the New York Vintage community.

  Also, Bomberman rocked to a solid 9th place -- WITHOUT WINNING A SINGLE GAME. Yeah. It's just that epic.

  As much as I jest, I had a blast, and the games I had were very solid (I lost to Greg and his Oath, and Evan G who won the thing, so no complaints). In short, it was a fantastic Vintage tournament. Also, props to Big Rob for some awesome casual games afterward.

   Thanks for running it Nick. Hope to see everyone next weekend.

I'm going to be on the Island for this (by fortunate coincidence), and am bringing all kinds of vintage shenanigans straight from MO.

...however, I'm also not a native and so have no idea how to get out to Seldon from Speonk. I can't even find what the closest LIRR station is. Help / suggestions?

I'm attempting to try and make arrangements to get up from DC to this event, now that I am back on this coast. Any tips? Would flying be best? I could also take a train to meet a carpool, if possible.

 If I can make it, I'm down. I've love to see a 100+ person vintage event.

Out of sheer fortunate coincidence I will be on the Island, AND I have some vintage stuff with me, AND that day I am left to occupy myself. So I am definitely attending.

  Tips for getting out there via LIRR from Remsenburg?

   I like the fact that there is a discussion going on about Bomberman, because I really like the deck-type and have been testing it for awhile. It's true, Trinket Mage IS a viable drain target... but there's a lot of things out there that are drain targets. People don't always have the drain. They don't always have the force. Or you have the answer.
   
    Bomberman's strength is that it is a very middle of the road deck, and that there are a lot of options. Where I just ran UW Bomberman, it also became very dangerous because it managed to avoid and side-step a huge chunk of the wasteland.decs running around. Manage to get into a top-deck war with an opponent? Your 2/2 ability bears can go the distance, and I've seen it happen a LOT. Admittedly, the deck has problems (Tinker sometimes, vault/key sometimes, but vault/key is a thorn for everyone. Sometimes they just draw into it. But needles helps. Some Bomberman builds I've seen running pathmage as well, as an extra beating bear with his sights set on killing vault or key). Tezz himself isn't usually much of a problem, because the creatures will just attack him and he dies.
     Lastly, another strength in the deck is the number of different directions you can go with it. We've seen the aggro style (like the start of this thread), the combo-ish style, the 14-creature-blitz style from back in the day, the grind-man build, etc. Tezz tends to have the deck list down to a few set cards, and boy howdy I agree Tezz is certainly a house and wins a lot of tournaments. It's refreshing to have a deck with so many different options on how you build it.
 
     Does the deck win more than Tezz? It can, with enough experience. It's a very subtle deck and it takes a good deal of practice. I don't know how many games my Trinket Mage has gone the distance; usually I had 2 creature threats in hand and very likely one of them got bombed. Then the second got through. And in most bomberman builds that meant you had some kind of control element on the board, being MM or Mindcensor, or a Trinket Mage to find pithing needles. Divining Top becomes a veritable house with the shuffle effects floating around. At any rate, I do find the deck less swingy just because there's not the 1/12 chance of flipping a 5 or 8 cc card with Bob, like you see in Tezz. That's why I like Bomberman anyway.

      Question: What does Bomberman usually find to be it's HARDEST matchups? I normally have a ton of difficulty of NobleFish, but I was just wondering other people's experience.

P.S. I've reread this, but if anything is nonsensical, I blame Theraflu.

  Definitely working on organizing the AU players around here (PS, that's me, one of the other AU players around here). Also hoping to get new players into the game, but grad school eats my time...

   Alex, if you're in DC itself I'll happily meet up sometime to play because 1) testing is awesome, 2) getting play time with vintage in general is awesome.

    Perhaps the DC / Maryland folks ought to organize a get-together some day? Perhaps not necessarily a tournament (though that'd be fun), but just a day to get together and play a bunch of friendly face to face games / experiment a little? I'd happily organize it, if I could get contact information.

   

  I'll be there if I can find a way to get to Blue Bell from the train-station in Philly. Any suggestions?

...yeah... I'm not him, but I'll do that for free. It's always fun to get some vintage in, and I love teaching folks about the format.

    I would honestly suggest cutting one of the Confidants, because in my experience (admittedly with his use in Tezz) is that I find him often enough when there's 3 copies in the deck, and I'm drawing more useful stuff when he's in play. Most Tezz lists reflect this similar observation, and it tends to work really well.

    You could probably get away with cutting the misdirection too. It's fun, sometimes it steals ancestrals, and I've had a lot of success with it just being the random 5th FoW, buuuuuuut admittedly spell pierce is probably a better direction to take that.

     Here's my two cents: I don't think angel oath is dead. Actually, the rise of Ioona might be in favor of Angel Oath as a curve-ball because people are WORRIED about the ability of you to flip Iona, so they are playing around it while you chuckle at the McHasties you have ready to come smash face.

     Then again, I love the more aggressive Oath builds (even though they have higher fizzle rates, less successful match-ups across the board, and roll over and die to force of will, there's just something fun about the beserk-psychoticfrenzy-final-fortune Hellkite Oath deck). Oath is oath, and in general the creatures you flip should be "I win", and Akroma is still "I win" in her hasted 6/6 way.

    Actually, I suppose the biggest argument to be made for the "death" of Angel oath, if that is so, would be the hellkite, because why not just run another hellkite instead of Akroma?

  Figuring out what to pick off with Duress / Thought seize is a very non-trivial thing, especially with a cagey deck like TPS. Some of it also depends on the bombs they draw into: Take a force to prevent their ability to protect Bargin, but if they get to Mind's Desires well dang.
   
    Against something like TPS I find turn 1 extract to be brutal, just because they must counter or lose the (usually only) Tendrils they have. But again, I was splashing U and I think I took the deck a slightly different route than you and the Hexmage route, though both are certainly interesting. The list I'm playing is essentially aggro with the extract effects as a backup and a nice way to attack the slieu of Tezz decks rampant.

    I'll post my list shortly or PM it to you.

   I like the idea, it reminds me of a similar proposition I've tried a few times, first with the counter-spell spellshapers back in nemesis, and then again later with tinker + nullstone gargoyle. Erayo came in that dark ages I wasn't playing...

    A few thoughts. I like the deck list, but consider running the moxen et al. That makes rebuild potentially awesome for you because all moxen become free storm / mana. Frantic Search might also be appropriate because it lets you dig deeper for free (or nets you a nice chunk of mana, if you have Academy out), though I'm not sure the card disadvantage is worth it.
 
     I would consider upping the bounce element. You've got your hard lock, but if opponents get ahead on the board even if you get your lock down aside from volt / key it's tricky to recover from that. Also, Qasali would be a beast you need to handle (though fortunately, drawing out the ability on volt/ key would be a nice surprise game 1) because it can take out your lab if it's in play. Lot's of Tezz decks run the pyroclasm or fire // ice, either main or in the board, and you have to be prepared to protect Erayo until you can get the flip.

     I'm not sure Drift of phantasms is insanely weak, but why not just run cards of 3 cc you want to play? 

 OH! To slow the game you could be that guy and run Stasis.
   
    And agreed, Commandeer is always tons of fun.

   I've experimented with Bitter Ordeal and I've honestly found it's not that helpful. Mind you, I'm not saying it's not good -- no no no, it is at times very good. But sacrament nets you the same effect without all the twists you're throwing in for the combo.

   Most games I've played, one of two things occurs. One -- I drop an extract-esque spell for three, remove all win conditions, and they scoop. Two -- their deck is much more redundant (like Noble Fish, for example), and while I get three cards from their deck (snagging a random balance, tinkery monster, vault, or some of their waste effects) they still have plenty of power to keep coming at me. A huge bitter ordeal seems like "win more" against the decks you are already strong against, while toning down your power for everything else. Another concern is that with all the Ichorid hate out there (usually 4+ slots in any sideboard), you find yourself running into all that hate game 2 and 3, and your build has a veritable nightmare with turn 0 leyline.

    That's why I play sacrament over bitter ordeal. I couldn't figure out how to get around turn 0 leyline, though it might warrant splashing blue to get chain of vapor.

    With regards to mono B, if you ran the sacraments you also open up a whole lot more deckspace, which I fill with

  --Duress, Thought seize (I always found with Bob the 2 life I lost to Thoughtless started hurting a lot more. I like your use of phyrexian arena, an excellent substitute for Bob in monoB). I know these are already in your list but an additional 2 to 3 discard effects are usually helpful.
  -- Doom Blade (I know, I know, I know, it seems wanky but it kills goyfs, merfolk that are big, welders, grunts, and any of the other non-black things out there. I run it over terror because it's also been surprisingly handy to see random big artifact beast like Juggernaut suddenly dropping. Downside: Tinkery Monsters are untouched by it).
  -- Perish in the sideboard. In an environment filled with noble fish, it's an amazing sweeper. If you don't expect noble fish... uhm... well yeah then obviously not so hot.
  --Darkblast (anti welder, Bob, Selkie, etc... easily runnable over the other black removal above but I've found sometimes I need at least one destroy target creature effect).

    The downside of going mono black is that the shops match becomes insane. Shops decks are just very redundant, powerful engines that make me wish I had FoW. And black in particular has just about no answer to any of the slieu of deadly permanents they drop, some of which must be handled (cough cough: Trinisphere). I missed my energy flux's too much to go mono B. It's true, Ghast does prove to be very handy but he's not strong enough on his own. Trikes eat him for lunch. Though to be fair, the shops I've played against sport a LOT of big monsters in the tradition of some more aggro workshop decks so it's possible that's not a representative matchup.

    Either way, I'm really happy folks are toying around with essentially variants of Extract.deck. It takes a lot of time and practice to know what exactly to go for when, but it is such an unexpected way to attack decks that it is a blast to play. You also net a lot of card advantage against control decks because some spells, like Extract (from an old build awhile ago) become very devastating and must counter, while you can keep dropping them and play threats to win the game while they waste their counters defending their library.

     I also admit perhaps I'm just biased against the Ordeal. I'll give the list you posted a test-run and give you more specific feedback after I've run a couple match-ups with it.     

   I've experimented before with Scroll-Tax in aggro, because as a fan of parfait the engine is always a lot of fun to play. I'll tinker around with the idea more that you brought it up, but a few preliminary thoughts.

   First, it's not going to play the aggressive mana denial plan of most other aggro decks. That hinges on the rod, strip / waste, and we don't really have the space nor consistency to run either (except for perhaps stifle, which is a thought). Though basics are "inferior", in all actuality that opens the door for all kinds of asymmetrical shenanigans. There's Blood Moon, Magus of the Moon, all as you suggested. Back to Basics in a similar vein. Aura of Silence acts as a nice anti vault / key, plus it hurts their artifact mana and can kill a sphinx in a heart-beat, though getting the three mana could be a bit tricky.
 
    I'm not sure I find the fetches all that useful in a deck like this, though I'll test it, it's not something I considered. It seems to me if you're going to go scroll-tax route, go for it all the way with the basics. The fetches give you a shuffle effect, but there are other ways to achieve that (Trinket Mage, tutors galore).

    The second thing I'd mention, is something in line with Tracer. In my experience Tax worked AMAZINGLY in parfait, but parfait is a very different animal from aggro. As minimalist as parfait was, it managed to control the game inches at a time. But Tax IS a slow engine. The aggro-mirror match would be brutal because you lack their huge goyf, get beaten over the head by rod, and the pathmages can kill our key engine right out from under you. Even against Tezz variants, if you meet turn 1 force you could be in trouble. Or if they combo out while you are just starting to get online.

     I'm not trying to bash the idea at all, mind you. Those are all just weaknesses any deck built around tax is going to have to face. Some of these are problems ANY deck faces (turn 1 force is kind of expected; Vault + Key is a pain for everyone). Some of these are perhaps a bit exaggerated (bounce and Qasali aside, there's not many answers to enchantments. Then again, bounce and Qasali may be all you need). For answering the tempo problem, can you think of any other effective tempo hosers aside from the Canonist? The normal ones like Remora don't seem to fit this deck at all, and the weird / abnormal / old school ones like stasis are... well weird, old school, and generally not played for a reason. In the testing I did awhile ago, it was this asymmetrical tempo problem that proved to be the biggest problem I never managed to solve satisfactorily.

      I'll go back to the drawing board and pull out my attempt at putting scroll-tax in a bomberman build and get back to you. I'll also test the list you posted and give you some more specific feedback.

     For artifact creatures in general, there's always the slieu of general artifact disruption (Tin Street Hooligan, Ancient Grudge, Seal of Primordium, Rack and Ruin, Naturalize, Ignot Chewer... I mean, all the way down to Crumble or old-school Uktabi Orangutan if you feel so inclined). Lately I've been having a lot of success with a splash of black and Doomblade, mainly because people don't expect their Phyrexian Collossus to die to a 1B instant. It's not exactly optimal, given how Inky laughs at it, DSC just does it's face smashing thing anyway, and Sphinx can't be targeted.  Edict is overall the better splash card for black, but Doom Blade can be fun and unexpected.
 
    Potato mentioned the white splash for STP, Seal of Cleansing, all a solid option.

    A blue splash has access to all kinds of goodies, from seal of removal to unsummon to echoing truth (the anti token as well). My blue splashes have also occasionally benefited from dropping extract into the mix, because extract can give you a decent idea of your opponents hand, nail one of vault / key, or a monster like sphinx if you see they have tinker in their hand. Still, not the common solution and it doesn't help if it hits play.

    The only on-color card that actually still acts like a solution to the sphinx for the RG beats player is drop of honey... (last time I used it, it never targeted because it was a sacrifice effect, unless WOTC has pulled out their errata marker sense ages ago) and... well I suppose technically it does kill the sphinx, eventually, having an enchantment that reads G: all your stuff dies, and hopefully the sphinx dies before it kills you...
   
     Also, Duplicant! (Or the cheaper version: sculpting steel).

    I'm going to say first, I second Stormanimagus, and wish everyone much peace and quiet.
 
   This is a useful tool for getting new folks into the environment, and thanks SoulStealer for the link too. I'm trying to drum up so new players in DC and any bit of information like this helps. Much appreciated to you both, and to the effort Steve put into this.

   I understand that there may be a bit of problems with the methodology discussed by others, but really Meadbert, hats off to the amount of effort you've put into this. That is non-trivial and commendable.

    I'm fascinated by the data. It must be viewed with the proper amount of skepticism, but it can still yield useful information.

  Just from my experience Mana Leak works very effectively game 1, because it has that "hi, surprise counter!" factor that people do not necessarily expect (especially if you're sitting only on one U source). Games 2 and 3 it doesn't work quite as well because people play around it some.
   However, that is actually part of the strategic benefit of Mana Leak. I've had many opponents, after seeing 1 mana leak, start slowing down their strategy some to play around the possibility of a second Mana Leak (I'm not sure why either, given an environment filled to the brim with pitch counters. I think it's the psychological benefit of saying "ha, your counter is useless"... or they're just not that fantastic). This buys Oath some time -- not necessarily tons, but some. Against the more experienced players this kind of benefit won't be quite so pronounced.
 
     Personally, I would run it over negate because there's been plenty of games where I've been staring at a creature counter going "I wish I could counter tinker right now."

    It depends a lot on the meta-game. I used to play in a Stax heavy meta-game and I found a lot of the time Misdirection was a dead card, mainly useful as pitch fodder for FoW. Ironically, some of it's best uses came in match-ups against Fish. The fish decks would try to burn / blade / StP my few support creatures (like Confidant) and I could use misdirect to turn their own removal against them (admittedly, another 5 cc spell in decks with Bob had it's own drawbacks... ). This tempo swing actually helped win several rounds. Now that fish decks are mainly fishing-rod decks, it's not quite as useful... but personally I still have good experience with it.
    In control match-ups, it mainly acts as another pitch counter / ancestral steal. Its use as a pitch counter cannot be under-rated. For the more aggressive decks, the inherent card disadvantage of 6 pitch counters may not make it useful. Also, some decks simply don't have the density of blue spells required for the pitch counters. Also, you have to look to your deck and your deck's vulnerabilities. Tezz decks aren't threatened by Fire/Ice unless they run Bob; they instead have much bigger fears from Null Rods / RaR / Ancient Grudge. Against those spells that really threaten the deck, Misdirection is relatively weak to utterly worthless. It makes sense for Tezz decks to drop it down to 1 of for its use as a pitch counter, but running 2 of would be a bit illogical because it needs those slots in the deck for answers to cards that kill it.   
    Decks like Bomberman, on the other hand, can get much more mileage out of Misdirection and I've seen it played 2-of in that deck because it tries to pressure with it's creatures; if those creatures are hobbled it has a much more difficult game. Misdirection goes from being just a pitch counter to a way to turn targeted removal against opponents. Of course, I don't see Bomberman much anymore... but that is a situation where 2 Misdirects are useful.