At star city san jose I was in the finals of a dark times mirror match for an 8 man win a drain.  I beat gush and tps with the same board plan.  I made a mistake of thinking the 2nd opponent couldnt storm me out through a trinisphere and took his repeal vs a tendrils to lose 1 game but otherwise the games weren't all that memorable.

as for the mirror, his version had sensei's divining top and hypnotic spectre, and engineered plague in the board (which he played calling "vampire", knowing he could win off spectre where I could only beat down with bob)

I am still playing the mono black list +/- 2 cards from Max's original.

I found the most important card in the mirror was Bitterblossom from the board.  My boarding was close to if not exactly

-4 leyline of the void
-1 helm of obedience
-1 lotus petal
-1 ?

+2 bitterblossom
+2 diabolic edict
+1 darkblast
+1 sadistic sacrament
+1 pithing needle

As much as I love superstars and vintage, I am hitting up the Legacy Open this weekend.  I had assumed this weekend's vintage tournament would be moved.  I'll be back next month when every one else is in paris.

i "top 4'ed" an 11 man this weekend with dark times, and I must ask 2nd Lawl, what do you do in the face of chalice at 2?  My answer was "good game" and a handshake.

My crowing achievement was paying 30 mana to activate dark depths, and resolving marit lage 4 times in 2 games and ending both with over 30 life.

I definitely plan on attending (from SF).

1. When the new child boards were added, I stopped checking the site regularly if at all.  This feeling seems to be echoed in a few other posts in the thread.

2. The user system is intimidating to new members, who can't even post in some forums.  Trying to have some elite status in a small community forum seems counter productive to having fresh content.

despite the low turnout this was still a very fun event. 

I played this yesterday at Superstars.  Went 3-2 (lost to fish, beat the bye, lost to control slaver, beat fish, beat storm)


was nice as an opening 7 vs storm.

I made a huge blunder of a play mistake vs Fish, he had a wasteland on board, i had hexmage\depths on board (played depths after the wasteland), I imperial sealed for an answer and came up with.... another dark depths instead of a wasteland\strip\pithing needle.  Whoops.  Basic interaction of the deck I didn't grasp having never played it before.

I also lost vs control slaver, not knowing if he had a strip effect in his deck I comboed during his upkeep only to walk into a sower of temptation.  Which oddly enough I drew into a second combo the next turn to legend rule it away.  He ended up drawing a second sower to take my dark confidant and beat me down with 2 sowers and confidant.  rough.

I boarded out leyline helm 100% of game 2 and 3s.

I was playing 3 null rod main, 1 extirpate, 1 chains, 1 diabolic edict, no crucible. other than that i think it was the same maindeck as 2nd lawl's last one.  Seeing as our meta has about 0% dredge I don't know that the leylines main deck are necessary.  Ad nasuem tendrils or painter grindstone might be better?  Not sure.  I had a lot of fun playing the deck regardless.  Needing 5 mana to bring out the helm and activate it, 6-7 total to tutor it into your hand and cast it the same turn, 7-8 total to disrupt first makes it seem like an unlikely combo to come up, but maybe i'm missing something crucial about how to deal with it.

The trinisphere in the sideboard came in against storm, and ended up costing me the game as I couldn't get anything done either and he eventually vault keyed.  I dont think it was a mistake to play it (turn 1), just bad luck on my resulting draws.

oh those cards were removed from my library by demonic consultation \ yagmoth's will.  I played the 3rd bob in case he double replealed or something to force a draw, thinking I couldn't possibly take 8+ damage from 3 bobs (it was possible but needed to draw 2 out of 3 CMC cards). 

This was the only hand of 7 i snap kept (game 1 vs mike on the play)


the plan was petal -> ritual-> thoughtseize, see if I can combo, if so combo, if not, null rod.  I comboed.

theres 4 of us coming from sf\berkeley in one car as well.  I will shockingly not be playing goblins.

Im still working on my "official" letter to WotC, I voiced my concerns vocally to my rep when I first heard about it.

The pre-releases at convention centers, etc are normally run by the professional organizer for an area.  Matchplay in northern california, Gray Matter in NYC\PA\NJ, Cascade in Seattle, etc.  They are of course, excluded from this change, maintaining exclusive contracts over vast geographical distances and populations.  Thats a whole other can of worms.

As one of the storeless TO's (I co-own Brooklyn Gamers), this change affected me personally and business wise.

The benefits of being part of the WPN were having events that had some kind of association with magic, FNM was as far as I could tell supposed to be a community based way of getting players interested in magic.  It would be great if this happened in your favorite local gaming store, as they have enough issues staying in business.  I can see why Wizards would want to do something to support the stores, however this move I believe is lip service in a wide variety of cases.

NYC and SF (the two cities i've lived with major player bases) are examples of a huge player bases with very thin store support. This apparently holds true for a lot of Europe as well.

Manhattan has 2 stores with play space, one of which does not hold magic events regularly if at all.  The other can, at best hold 50 people, and turns people away for FNMs\Pre-releases as they literally can't support the demand.  San Francisco has 1 store with space for at best 20 people.  In both cities, neither provides any avenue for players with jobs for FNMs, with events starting anywhere from 4:30pm-6pm. Which helped lend credence to the "jankyness" of FNMs as it was mostly younger kids or students as the player base, it never being an outlet for older experienced players to exist, provide guidance and support the game.  This led to some pretty unfriendly environments for new players unfortunately.

Who benefits from the change really if its not the stores in these areas?  The professional level organizers have not been restricted in any way with the WPN change, so their pre-releases will be somewhat larger without competition from independent operators.  Perhaps there are players in some areas that only had shady shack type TOs that were running effectively fraudulent events, that no longer have to deal with that? 

It seems to me that punishing fraudulent operators rather than eliminating legitimate community organizers would make more sense for the game.  The net result is going to be less new players, less competition and innovation in the way tournaments are run, and less sanctioned magic being played.

At this past weekend's superstars tourney (with 11 participants) I ran Corey's list +- 5 cards or so, (less basic mountains, one less ancient tomb, 4 earwig squads, one goblin matron switched for a demonic tutor).

Not having any interaction with your opponents turn was definitely intimidating.  (I dont think there was a single instant?)

I beat a jace control list 2-0, then lost every other match in spectacular fashion.  Perhaps more aggressive mulligan procedures were in order as I kept some fairly weak hands with null rod or lackey.

I did get to live the dream of hitting with lackey, resolving earwig squad for prowl cost and dropping a siege gang commander and tokens in one turn with a lethal piledriver to go next turn, but otherwise I dont know if I like the 0instants.dec

In the fifth pic down, Eric (campee) played I believe: mox, sol ring, lotus, jace (he knew i was playing no force of will and kept his hand knowing nothing could be countered).  I proceeded to play a fetch land and pass (a slightly weaker opening hand), knowing next turn was likely inkwell or infinite turns.  It was infinite turns.  Whoosh!

This is excellent against aggro decks.  Ryan (potato) resolved one against me with an all aggro goblins build and it was effectively game at that point.  I think he chose it as the tinker target just to show it off, and would have won regardless, but it is very resilient.  Sure I can ancient grudge it, but he still has 4 blockers after that.

Nature's claim is a pretty sweet deal against an aggro deck as it gives you back 12 life

Isn't trygon more dangerous as it takes out all the golems now?

I like the shusher as it replaces the force of will \ spell pierce as your "x backup" when you need your next spell to stick.  It isn't a sexy solution but it works.  The same with the blasts, they aren't great but I'd rather have them than nothing. 

I have maindecked seal of primordium in the past, its generally never dead, but i always prefer to have something swinging in.  When its a crackable vindicate however....

The lightning bolts are pure gold, i'd be hard pressed to not include them.  bob, trygon, baby goyfs, goblins, mind censor, meddling mage, lodestone\ juggs, all gone.  Or just burn for 3 to win.

Post Scars build (as yet untested, notes on inclusions below)
=-=-=-=
Maindeck:

18 Lands
-=-=-=
1 mountain
1 barbarian ring [added at the expense of 1 fetch for uncounterable removal]
3 taiga
3 badlands
2 wooded foothills
3 bloodstained mire
4 wasteland
1 strip mine

8 Artifacts
=-=-=-=-=
1 mox ruby
1 mox jet
1 black lotus
1 mana crypt
1 skullclamp [no more nullrod = more card draw]
3 liquimetal coating [synergy with tinkerer, vandal, hooligan, seal of primordium, ancient grudge]

24 Creatures
=-=-=-=
4 goblin lackey
4 earwig squad
3 goblin matron
3 goblin ringleader
2 goblin vandal [primo against shops, boosted by liquimetal]
2 goblin tinkerer [primo against shops, boosted by liquimetal]
1 Tin Street Hooligan [primo against shops, boosted by liquimetal]
1 goblin piledriver
1 vexing shusher
1 wort, boggart auntie [excellent synergy with skullclamp]
1 goblin warchief

11 other spells
=-=-=-=-=
2 warren weirding
1 demonic tutor
1 demonic consultation
1 vampiric tutor
1 pyroblast
1 red elemental blast
2 lightning bolt
2 ancient grudge

sideboard:
(4 for TPS)
3 Mindbreak trap
1 pyrostatic pillar

(1 for other aggro)
1 Gempalm incinerator [uncounterable removal, rather than jitte, on the fence about which this should be]

(3 for shops \ oath)
1 pulverize
1 ancient grudge
1 seal of primordium

(7 for dredge)
2 leyline of the void
1 Nihil Spellbomb [1 sided relic of progenitus]
2 Yixlid jailer
2 Ravenous trap

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Sideboard choices are pertinent to west coast meta and could be a totally different board for more shop heavy metas.

I think this still loses on the coinflip to shops game 1.

Any criticism is greatly appreciated.
The idea being that none of the 7 maindeck artifact hate is bad on its own, and adding the liquimetal in place of nullrod allows all the cards to go from artifact hate to vindicate.

Im pretty excited about liquimetal coating in place of null rod.  Allows for a larger fast mana package, increase the goblin vandals and tin street hooligans, possibly gorilla shamans, and go to town on permanents, all while bashing away. 

I piloted Goblins to a 3-2 record, beating a bye, TPS, and a rogue black aggro build.

I lost to Potato with a sick decision to wasteland an underground sea instead of his library of alexandria.
I lost to TSG piloting fish due to multiple meddling mages and my decision to remove gempalm polluter from the deck a few weeks ago.
Two mistakes to remember for next time.

I 'top 8'ed at superstars yesterday in a field of 15, with the list & changes I posted above, save adding a lightning bolt and removing a pyroblast.

Premium Deck: Slivers

Acetone has been the best method for me.

Extremely fine grit sandpaper also works.

Yeah I can't think of a hand where this is good in an opening situation, and if it ever gets online, you were probably better off just playing the imprinted card in the first place?

You guys like playing multiple restricted artifacts?  
You guys like having an extra lock piece every turn?
You about an extra artifact land drop while you crucible lock?

Prototype Portal

Imprint When Prototype Portal enters the battlefield, you may exile an artifact card from your hand.
,   Put a token that's a copy of the exiled card onto the battlefield. X is the converted mana cost of that card.

Nice shock\bolt+1 you got there...

Is there a large negative to including Warren instigator as lackey #5-8? 
Are you ever hurting for a lackey enough to warrant CMC  version? 
Is being able to attack into bob and keeping the lackey effect on the board worth it?  T

hey would assist with chalice @ 
unblocked you could put more threats on the board quickly, and the possibility of double ringleader, or a nice army of siege gang + tokens seems very enticing.

However I haven't seen it in any builds, Is the extra so devastating?

haha yes it does seem a lot more impressive with the full list.  I think i'll give it a whirl in testing and see how it goes.  Not too concerned with it in this deck vs dredge being worse than a dead card.

regarding chains

having just read this article http://wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=judge/article/20040910b

I think I understand how the card works now finally :p

In terms of its usefulness:  Aside from convincing your opponent not to play ancestral / brainstorm / jace's +0, and having a slight bonus in making cold eye selkie fairly awful,  am I missing something major about how it can be utilized?

Thanks!

I'm fairly concerned \ intrigued about the keyword.  If there is a cheaper way to get that keyword to function, smokestack \ tanglewire get all the more ridiculous.

Mindbreak trap is fine, my misplays with it were another matter :p  I dont think it needed to be a 3x of but thats debatable.

I didn't have a mana crypt with me and ran out of proxies is the only reason that was omitted.

Demonic consultation and I don't get along most of the time, can you elaborate on how you use it in this deck?  I am all for more tutors if I can get around my mental block of understanding the value of DC