Really fun event! Though I could have done without all the Winter Orbs and Relic Barriers, which were kind of oppressive this time around.

Thanks for the write up and pics!

@FF: Somebody might have extra revised versions that you can borrow. I played a couple 4/5th Edition Verduran Enchantresses in one of the Old School events and no one said anything (though one was a color error misprint, the other was BB Japanese, and I did have an Alpha one also).

Sadly, it turns out that Real Life does not seem to approve of me traveling to Magic tournaments anymore, so I'm not going to be able to make this one after all.

Somebody please take some pictures this time!

Maybe. But I might also miss future events because I was unaware and didn't happen to notice the post in a subforum that I don't visit regularly.

I still hate that this is not in the regional tournament announcement forum.

I'm planning to be there barring any unforeseen catastrophes in the meantime.

The more advance notice, the better. Also, please post the details in such a way that clicking a failbook link is not required to get the information to attend. Some of us are not on facebook and refuse to even click facebook links.

Unfortunately, BC and I both can't make it to this one.

Looks like there's a good chance I won't be able to make it either. 
Almost missed the announcement altogether since it wasn't in the usual place.

A great time, as always. Thanks for posting up lists and pics!

You're missing my sideboard:
4 Lodestone Golem
3 Kuldotha Forgemaster
3 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Steel Hellkite
1 Sundering Titan
1 Trinisphere
2 Chains of Mephistopheles

Also, Sam wasn't there. You must be referring to Eliot.

Not my pics. Presumably they are the work of Eliot (thanks for posting them!).

I decided to play Enchantress despite not having it "completed" according to my proper Old School sensibilities (I played with a few Revised and Collector's Edition cards, though I stand by the color error Fourth Edition Enchantress). The deck is mostly copied from the work of others (see original Old School page from last May, I think). Never got a chance to test much other than a game or two against BC waiting for the tournament to start. Built the sideboard on site, so it's terrible yet awesome.

Round 1 vs Heiner. As he noted during the match, Enchantress isn't his deck's best matchup, though I had some excellent draws to help me along. The plays and board states generated were quite absurd and I can't possibly reconstruct them from memory (I feel like there are probably some pics out there though). I do recall chatting with Heiner during one game and telling him I had been thinking about building a Land Equilibrium deck, probably spurred on after he played Mana Vortex, to which he responded by playing Land Equilibrium. Crazy match!

Round 2 vs John. We chat about pimp cards throughout the match like we usually do. My notes and memory fail me, but I know that Moat entered (and left) the board multiple times, occasionally in the company of Gravity Sphere (Thunder Spirits fly over Moat). Spirited Linked Savannah Lions. Factory beatdown. Digging with Sylvan. Death by Lightning Bolt. Waiting behind Moat. I went off once, but lost the match 1-2.

Round 3 vs Stephen. We have a nice conservation throughout and after the match. Hymn to Tourach does some work. Disruption plus beatdown kill me dead, though I managed to Sylvan-suicide in defiance once. He showed me his gorgeous Summer Energy Flux.

Round 4 vs BC. I'm too slow, he's too fast, and Counterspells. At least games 1 and 3. Channel-Fireball after drawing lots of cards (and then some, then some more, ...) in game 2.

Round 5 vs Dustin. I don't know what he's one (though I saw a Word of Command and Diamond Valley earlier from across the table). Turns out it's Lich. With City of Brass. And Pestilence. And Walls. Pestilence gets me in game 1 (after a long slog through the Dark Heart of the Wood). Game 2, Enchantresses get their card draw on. We have 3:30 left in the round, but everyone there decides to suspend time temporarily so we can finish the match (because Enchantress vs Lich. there is no valid rebuttal). Game 3, I play poorly (which is what I do best!) and my deck decides to help by not giving me what I need. Death by Pestilence again.

Sylvan Library is insane. Probably needed a second Dark Heart of the Wood. Candelabra was not as impressive as I hoped.

Here is Enchantress in her full glory, pimp-fail blemishes and all:

Super fun event! Had a blast losing with Enchantress. I'll post up the deck tomorrow.

@Heiner: You've still got my Meekstone.

Despite being on the wrong end of that (not to mention my terrible deck), this was a really fun event. I had almost forgotten how awesome grinding a bunch of Vintage is.

My losing horribly was all worth it though since I twice managed to pull off Burning Wish --> Slaughter Games to conveniently rid my Oath opponents' decks/hands/etc. of that pesky Captain Hooks. 

I should be able to make this one now that it's back on the 7th. Looking forward to playing some Vintage again since I've missed so many Eudo events!

Most likely can't make this one.  The previous weekend was much better for me.

OSE, no Factories. WTF!?!

It is becoming increasingly clear that I am not welcome in this future of Vintage online, nor, in my estimation, am I the only one.

For me to even consider playing on MTGO, there would have to be a non-shitty interface that runs natively on Linux systems. Wine is for me to drink, not to poorly run garbage software that costs over a grand to just play what I already own in paper.

Quite frankly, the cost to buy into the virtual cards to play Vintage on MTGO is obscene (compare to ANY video game), though I can understand those who want to play Vintage and have no other alternative. But there is this sinking feeling that you're all being played by WotC. It's exactly your desperation to play more Vintage that is being monetized here and it seems really sad.

If the software didn't suck and I could reliably run it on my computer without hassle, I'd happily pay a reasonable monthly subscription fee to play Vintage online. But I'm not paying >$1000 up front (no, I will not waste my time drafting and/or playing crappy formats to work up to Vintage cards) and still have to deal with all the glitches and examples of how not to design software, which doesn't even support my operating system anyway so there is also all the overhead of running MTGO on a virtual machine and/or emulator just to add insult to injury.

No thanks. WotC has made it explicitly clear that they don't want me to buy into their online product. My kind are not welcome, only those who gleefully sacrifice their spoils of war to get that blood funnel pumping directly to the cabal coffers, but that seems like such a cruel bargain in which only Hasbro has the last laugh).

From my perspective, doing basically ANYTHING ELSE besides buying into MTGO has infinitely more EV.

I like to animate in my upkeep and sac to Hell's Caretaker reanimating an even bigger robot.

Just asking questions, not saying that Strip Mine should necessarily be restricted. There are some persuasive arguments there. However, Stripping back and forth constantly can get a bit dull, so the anti-Strip side still isn't completely dead in the water. I think the comparison to Mishra's Factory is quite apt (and I've actually been wondering about a potential restriction of that, too, given it's ubiquity of play). Glad to see that Workshop seems to be decent, but not overpowered (as I've been on the side of it's unrestriction as well). Overall, I like the EC version of 93/4, though there folks in our meta who don't seem to agree re:Vault/Shop/Strip. Maybe we should try the EC restricted list at our next Norcal event.

With access to unrestricted Strip Mine, does pretty much every deck just run 3-4 of them by default? That's the potential problem I have with Strip Mine being unrestricted. Even your Land Tax deck runs three copies.

Glad to hear that some new faces showed up. I did know about this one (didn't I mention to you and Dustin last weekend that I couldn't make it?). I kept the previous Sunday open for Old School, so my wife planned a backpacking trip for the following weekend. This one felt like especially short notice, too. BC is spot on with his assessment. The last handful of Eudo events have just had unfortunate timing for me, with the rest of my life getting in the way of Vintage. The same problems with people from the Bay Area coming out to Vacaville also apply to me coming out to Berkeley.

The good news: Old School was played.
The bad news: there are more people interested in the outcome of the event than could be bothered to show up for it.

We had a whopping THREE people actually show up. After two round-robin rounds, the dust settled in a 3-way tie (the top 3 from the last event, incidentally; I guess we scared everyone else away).

I played the same list as last time since I've been busy with work and the deck I was building for the event didn't quite come together in time.

There were a few interesting stack interactions and rules questions that arose, including a clear need to codify the nuances of Chaos Orb in even finer detail:


It's pretty clear that (unfortunately for those of us not quite in the Bay Area) these need to be hosted in a more central location. Perhaps a different format from a typical Mtg tournament might be more effective. Something like a day/evening of Old School over food/drinks at a non-gamestore venue? Just talking out loud.

The few pics that I snapped:
I missed the "good" shot of this, but pre-Mind Twist for smmenen's whole hand:

Post-Twist:

At least smmenen has finally acknowledged that he needs to do something about those horrible white-bordered Cities:


Serendib Djinn is an excellent blocker against Juzam:

I'll be there.

Can't make this one unfortunately. 

Will definitely come out for Old School though.

Mana Vault? Just to clarify.

Agree with The Atog Lord. I think smmenen is referring to the idealistic upsides like getting POV recordings of tournament matches, which would be quite intriguing if it weren't for the downsides. Glass in tournaments would potentially enable cheating to horrific levels in various ways. Then there is the whole privacy thing...

...you show this post to your wife and she laughs.

I thought we had 13, at least that's what Russ told me.

That G1 hand in the semifinals was INSANE! Not sure anything on my side could have beaten it. I'm still a little disappointed about mulling to oblivion game 2, but I know that few have any sympathy for us dredgers. I somehow knew intuitively that you had a Wasteland (TRUE!), so mulling to just Bazaar seemed sketchy, so I kept a double artifact removal 3 and just never drew anything.

I'm pretty ambivalent about most of the possible (un)restictions, but I want Mana Burn back sooooooo much.

I suspect most desired alterations to the restricted list are a window into what each individual wants (or doesn't want) out of the format. Maybe we should be talking about more abstract ideas regarding the desired landscape first before getting mired in the details of individual cards? This frames it in a different way and allows for discussing categories of cards in groups based on how they impact the game. As an example, I get the feeling that many players aren't fond of getting mana screwed and locked out of the game early (hence the mixed feelings about cards like Strip Mine and Black Vise, and also why some don't want Hymn to Tourach as a 4-of even if it would appear perfectly balanced when viewed from other vantage points). Similarly, an aversion to a metagame consisting largely of The Deck-style wall-of-counters piles is why Mana Drain is restricted and in general people aren't especially upset about it (a view which I am starting to take more seriously, despite my longtime love affair with Drain). Understanding the community's end goals (if there even is any kind of consensus) would then provide a framework for evaluating the potential consequences of possible (un)restrictions, as well as for determining after the fact if B&R changes had the intended effects.

This leads to the question: Can you sum up your views about what you want from Old School in a few sentences, describing what is desirable and what isn't, in terms of gameplay, interactions, types of viable decks, diversity of the field, etc. (preferrably without latching on to any specific cards)?

Anyway, Not sure this is necessarily the best approach, but I like attacking issues from alternative angles that usually go unconsidered, so just some food for thought.


I'm, like, totally, in your mind, man. 

Do you really want to make a deal with a Russian Hellcarver Demon? Seems kinda sketchy to me (but I'm not too attached to this guy and you seem to have better use for him at the moment, so maybe we could work something out).

I should be able to make this one. Maybe I'll play some Transmute Artifacts so it feels more like Old School. 

I suspect it will be unrestricted next time, possibly with some other shake ups. BC handed out surveys to gauge opinions about the format including things like allowed sets, restricted list, and how much beer would improve the experience. I, for one, am eagerly awaiting the summary. Can't wait to start building a deck for the next one.

I realized that my technique is a little different than Blaine's, though it was heavily influenced by it.

How to Flip a Chaos Orb:
From a standing position, hold Chaos Orb with both hands about 45 cm directly above the target card (which isn't technically targeted in the rules sense):


Move one hand upward in a circular motion and the other hand downward in a circular motion to give the card some spin.


Release the Orb when it is approximately vertical and perpendicular to the playing field (not Battlefield, as this is Old School). It should flip once or twice then land on the offensive permanent that needed destroying (or perhaps bounce off it).



Now that pesky permanent is out of the way and you can return your attention to your adult beverage (or winning the game, if that's more your style, possibly both).