Oh man I was not comfortable or really up for either of my matches this week. Feel great to have escaped with two wins. 

Hi!

I'm glad people are enjoying VSL. I just wanted to chime in and say that in the best way to ask me questions about it etc... is twitter. I will sometimes check out TMD, but then I'll forget about it and not read anything here for 6 months at a time...

Wanted to add that I appreciate the thought and effort that went into this piece, I'm just not sure I agree with most of the assumptions and conclusions. 

But what if you don't think Oath is better than Balance?

I am interested in this topic but need to re-read your article and respond when I'm not working. My initial reaction to your suggested restricted list is one of shock and confusion.

I have to re-read this when I'm not at work, but many of your ideas seem pretty crazy to me.

Unrestricting Balance is not okay and I don't really understand how anyone could possibly think otherwise. 

I think it was unfair that two completely different Landstill decks got listed as "Landstill", but all the Martello and Espresso Shops players got listed as a specific archetype.  You can't drill down to different levels of details in a totally inconsistent way. 

Maddox was happy to sign it, even if he acted a little grumpy. He doesn't like being the center of attention!

If I actually owned the cards for the deck I want to play in Modern I would be really close to ditching for the ptq. 

Yeah that Shop build is such a huge departure that I am not sure I know how to prep for it.

Gotta be honest with you guys- I have no clue what to play at the Invitational. 

I liked today's article.  I think it would be interesting to actually write one of these from the point of view of the linear deck sometimes.  There has been very little written by good players about actual in-game decisions with decks like MUD and Dredge (or even Fish).  The better writers and players just want to cast Ancestral Recall all the time, so we never see real analysis of the other side. 

You,of all people, play a deck that doesn't like to face Mindbreak Trap or Engineered Explosives!?

Man I love seeing Deadguy Ale still going after all these years!  Of course it gets to play with better cards these days. 

Yeah man, I don't have time to play in that many events, gotta make the ones I play in count. 

14/30 decks i the field were Shops, so it should not be a surprise that half the top 8 was Shops. Half the tourney was Shops!

I only skimmed this thread, but there is basically 0% chance that the play/draw rule should actually influence what cards or deck you play at a tournament.  There are no such things as decks that "get hot" and run the table more often than other decks- you can't play what people call a "high variance" deck like Belcher (I use quotes because there is no such thing as a high variance deck) because it is more likely to get the #1 seed. 

I really think this is hyperbole.  The fact that Confidant is so achievable as a turn 1 play I think almost completely makes up for the efficiency and speed of Gush. Having a dude is also pretty strong when Jaces are potentially hitting the table. I also happen to think that ECW was just a tighter build than most Bob decks at the time, and ECW also was being piloted by strong players on average. 

I really thought the East Coast Wins deck was a fantastic build and never got the credit it deserved (it was popular during the extended break from Vintage I took in 2011 so I never played it) but I still have a hard time believing that it's matchup vs Shops was all that great. I think that unless your deck specifically has cards that circumvent sphere effects (lands that produce multiple mana, Spirit Guides, Engineered Explosives, to a lesser extent Lotus Cobra) there really is a limit to how great your deck can be against Shops.  the reason Shops are good is because they don't give a shit what is in your deck.

I'm just not sure why the article acts like Dark Confidant is a new thing. The real breakout technology of this top 8 was Buried Ruin. The deck that won was a fairly straightforward Confidant/Jace/Tinker deck. The Snapcaster/Bolt aspect of it surely made a difference but people recognized that Lightning Bolt was actually pretty awesome in the current vintage format months ago.

So many judge calls! 

This part:

"I am beating him down, but stupidly let a Vampiric Tutor resolve. He resolves the most skill intensive enchantment in the game, and I lose to Griselbrand."

Stuff like this annoys me. He apparently makes a mistake and loses because of it, but somehow still manages to imply his opponent lacks skill and got lucky. 

Yeah it is weird that Landstill is somewhat also doing the same thing (playing Legacy cards in Vintage), but that isn't how it feels to me. To me it feels like what I'm doing it not letting my opponent play his cards at all.  The reason I think Landstill and Stax (and dredge to a lesser extent) are the best decks in the format is because they are primarily about not letting your opponent resolve any meaningful spells at all.  

Brian seems to be the victim of a strong desire to play Legacy cards in a Vintage tournament.

What did Meandeck play?

Lots and lots of dredge is not a good environment for Landstill.  I'd imagine that was part of the problem. Also there were 187 players in the tourney, and it sounds like about 5 of them were on Landstill. 

I'm sure there are plenty of people who have reasons to prefer one day to the other. Saturdays are actually worse for me, because my son has baseball games and such on Saturdays but never has anything on Sunday.  I would have gone to more of the NEV Series tourneys if they were on Sundays.

Just wanted to point out that I've won 100% of all Top Deck Games Summer Open Vintage Tourneys. 

I defended my title successfully with UR Landstill, which I'm sure is very original and nobody every won a tourney with it before (props to Josh Potucek of course). I lost to Martello Shops in round 1, but then avenged that loss in the finals.  Here is the list:


1 Library of Alexandria
3 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
2 Island
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Strip Mine
3 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Black Lotus

4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
2 Mindbreak Trap
2 Misdirection
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Mental Misstep

4 Jace the Mind Sculptor
4 Standstill

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk

2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Fire/Ice
3 Engineered Explosives
1 Echoing Truth
1 Hurkyl's Recall

Sideboard:

3 Lightning Bolt
3 Ingot Chewer
2 Ancient Grudge
3 Tormod's Crypt
1 Relic of Progenitus
3 Grafdigger's Cage

Yeah as I expected the deck was pretty sweet.  Made very small changes.  Cavern of Souls might be an issue for this deck going forward.

I don't really get the Aven Mindcensors in Bomberman. 

Very cool top 8.

I cannot imagine playing anything besides Landstill or Espresso Stax at this point.