And she would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for those meddling mages!

I've been running black green dark times for years now as my main deck. It's current incarnation looks like this. It just top 4'd a small event (20 or so people) and is pretty solid against most other decks. Sadly it has been years since this could be considered a budget deck

High times
4 verdant catacombs
3 bayou
3 Swamp
1 forest
2 urborg tomb of yawgmoth
2 thespian stage
3 dark depths
3 wasteland
1 strip mine
1 black lotus
1 mox jet
1 mox emerald
1 lotus petal
2 dark ritual

4 vampire hex mage
4 dark confidant
4 deathrite shaman
2 tasigur, the golden fang

4 thoughtseize
2 duress
1 demonic tutor
1 vampire tutor
1 demonic consultation
1 yawgmoth ' s will
2 Abrupt decay
1 pernicious deed
1 toxic deluge
2 liliana of the veil
2 Sylvan library

Sideboard
2 Abrupt decay
2 pernicious deed
2 sadistic sacrament
2 nature's claim
1 toxic deluge
4 extirpate
2 dismember

Crowds at Columbia mall? That'd be a first. Most likely the only crowd you will have to fight through is the crowd of skilled players vying for top 8.

Chaos warp is about weighing the potential downside against the immediate impact of the card you want to shuffle away. There is always a chance you are going to give your opponant something that will win him the game. But in most list the odds are so low and most of the time any other card I. The opponants deck is preferrable to the one shuffled in. Colossus, jace, time vault, steel helkite, oath of druids ect... all these cards traditionally were difficult or impossible to answer and in some cases forces you to play cards that were narrow. This makes mono red viable even if not an ideal choice for the format

None of the cards are really "central" except the moons. They all work as intended even if I never draw painter. He just makes them better. Mindsparker still has first strike which might be as important a keyword as flying in vintage with all the creatures in the format. And he still hurts blue players who want to dig for their answer/win. The MAIN reason I even considered him is he can block and kill loadstone golem and live to tell the tale. He actually replaced pyrostatic pillar and has been far far better than I even expected the $0.50 rare to be

I have not found the deck to have many bad draws. It will occasionally have risky draws. Where a force of will might ruin your day. But any deck can have these. It can perform well mulliganing to 5 because of how easily It  can get to 3 mana. You can keep weaker hands than you might with other budget decks and there are several avenues to look at when you draw your hand even though the deck looks very linear.  Again painter/ grindstone is there for accidental wins. My the deck is still a A mana denial deck at heart

Chaos warp also shuffles away basic land if you were looking for a stone rain ability

Edit: you can always use distorting lens if you think painter isn't enough. It works just like liquimental coating except it changes colors. Wouldn't help you win with grindstone but does what you were looking for it to do

The only change id make to the main at the moment is adding another red blast. I would like to try null rods in the board for decks like affinity and storm combo decks. Maybe some extra dredge hate.....there is only so much room.

I debated trying cages in the main got better game against dredge since they also make chaos warp better, but again room became an issue

And xouman. The report wasn't I play by play. Moons were played I was really only mentioning them if they were directly responsible for the win. Chaos warp also shuffles more things in than I mentioned I think I shuffled a total of 5 collosus and a time vault plus other things including hellkites, kataki, loadstone golem, jace. At various times during the event but I left my notes In philly so I had to do a.highlight reel of what I remembered. So basically the plays that won or lost it.

I plan to keep the combo in the deck. Even the threat of the combo makes the deck better and.painter makes.almost every card in the.list better

I also find oath to be a good matchup for me. Chaos warps are huge and I regularly playtest with one of the best oath players in the northeast so I am also comfortable with the match

I made some changes to my above list and took it to champs with me.

Changes:
Main
-2 ingot chewer
-3 koth
-4 null rod
-1 trinisphere
- power

+1 lightning bolt
+4 painter servant
+3 grindstone
+2 jaya ballard
+2 chrome mox

Board
-3 surgical extraction

+2 ingot chewer
+1 ricochet trap

I ended up finishing 6-3 in 49th place and 3rd among unpowered decks.

Chaos warp continues to be a huge card. And mindsparker is proving very strong especially with painter in the mix. The ricochet trap in the board was cute but should have been another red blast I only got use effectively use it once and it was countered. I only missed null rods in one round


Round 1: stax 1-2
3 nail-biting games winner had 7 or less life at the end in all three. At the end I have 3 turns to draw any red spell in my deck to pitch to pyrokinesis so I can swing for the win before smokestacks eats my field. Three whiffs.and.I congratulate my opponant on a well fought victory

Round 2 : oath 2-0
Game 1 - after my opening moon is countered I stick a jaya ballard and a painter and ride them to victory
Game 2 - my opponant goes all In on a turn 1 collosus which I chaos warp away. 2 turns later mkndsparker hits the board and seals the deal

Round 3 : affinity 1-2
Game 1 - bolts and a blood moon keep his dudes at bay long enough for me to grind for the win
Game 2 - after stealing momentum with a chalice on 1and some blockers I punt the game by missing a chalice trigger allowing signal pest to wreck my day
Game 3 - blown out by double cranial plating

Round 4 : something with tinker! 0-2
Senseis top, key allows him to dig for counters and tinker both games. The only round I didn't feel like I was in the match

Round 5 : jace/bob control 2-1
Pretty sure Ryan fisher let this one go so I would have a chance at budget prize since he was powered. Games were really loose like we were Playtesting as we both thought our day was done

Round 6 : tps 2-1
I win game 1 with painter, he wins game 2 with turn 1 colossus. I win game three by playing chalice for 1 after he plays necro.

Round 7: gush/pyromancer 2-1
Game 1 he plays fastbond and casts gush 5 times turn one with the help of regrowths. I never recover I win game 2 on the back of mindsparker and pyrokinesis game three a turn one moon catches him without a counter

Round 8 : humans (with power) 2-0
This match is
Game 1 he has me on the ropes but chaos warp and mindsparker dig me out. Mindsparker buys me turns and chaos warp shuffles kataki away and problast eats stony silence so I can win with grindstone. Game 2 bolt to heirarch and blood moon shut off his mana and the game ends pretty quickly

Round 9 : broken blue cards 2-1
I lose game one to tezz/vault game 2 and three I win with mindsparker. Chaos warp shuffled something in game 2 can't remember what

I finished 49th overall at 6-3 with mono-red painter #3 among budget decks....I made $150 in nick coss credit

Every deck I faced was powered

I'm sure nick will also post a to report at some point. I am curious to see what other unpowered decks did well

What an absolutely amazing experience. Vintage champs was everything I hoped it would be and more

Due to a situation beyond my control I was forced to go the budget route but finish a respectable 6-3 with an unpowered deck and walk away with some prize support.

Nick coss is awesome. Great event. Great idea to add the unpowered prize bracket it probably added 30-50 people to the tournament and gave some others who were attending anyway more to shoot for.

Security props to those guys pitching a shut-out at would be thieves while giving up their chance to play. Boo to anyone who gave them the least bit of trouble while they were protecting your cardboard

Grats to Joel and everyone else in the top 8. Great to see lots of faces I haven't seen in a while. Trading war stories after each round.

When we doing this again?

Ill be there

I just ran my mountains list in jersey at a 39 man event. And while I finished poorly it was a combination of bad luck and bad play on my part. The deck itself was playing perfectly. 2 of my losses were direct results of play errors on my part. And 2 were game three my opponant leads with lotus and best hand they could have against my deck. But the deck was very consistant in getting turn 1 moons 80% of my games had turn one moon hit. Overall I was happy with the way the deck played and dissapointed in my own play.

Here is what I ran
10 mountain
4 ancient tomb
2 city of traitors
Lotus
Ruby
Lotus petal
Mana crypt
4 simian spirit guide
4 Magus of the moon
2 ingot chewer
4 mindsparker
3 lightning bolt
3 chaos warp
4 blood moon
4 chalice of the void
4 null rod
2 red elemental blast
2 pyroblast
trinisphere
3 koth

Sideboard
ingot chewer
2 shattering spree
3 pyrokinesis
Red elemental blast
Pyroblast
4 graffdiggers cage
3 surgical extraction

Some notes
In a field where half the decks were shop decks which my match-up is pretty good I didn't hit one. Also missed out in dredge which is a poorer match-up but there were only 2 there

Chaos warp was amazing all day shuffling in threats and basic lands and turning a dangerous mana crypt into a koth when I was at low life. My only complaint was I wanted it more than I saw it

Round the game three my opponant started with...city of traitors, lotus, sneak attack....sneak in grislebrand draw 7....play ruby sneak in tentacle monster swing for 22...that basically sums up my day. Spirit guide reb does nothing against red spells

After tons of playtesting and learning always play the enchantment before the dude I ignore that and lose a game that my opponant cannot win if I do the reverse

Surgical extraction is a wasted board spot and needs to be changed. At least graffdiggers cage does double duty against oath.

Koth was either amazing or irrelevent no in between. But that's pretty much how hes been in playtesting so I expected it

I think changing this list to include painter grindstone might be the way to go cutting null rods and koth. Painter makes mindsparker and blast better and gives me a quick win option

Just going to say the way this deck was designed was redundance. Optimizing your chances of getting a card to lock your opponant out of mana on turn one. The 8 moon effects are important. Simian spirit guides are important and missing from a lot of lists here. All these deck lists full of one of with no tutors or draw spells are just wasting spots on a card they have little chance of drawing when it matters. That is why chaos warp works also it is the answer to every permanant you have trouble dealing with all in one card.....as far as storm decks  go most of the current ones don't run force and their answer to chalice know 0 or null rod is hurkyls recall.....I'm not discounting storm I am just saying your answer to storm lies in cutting of their mana acceleration. Which is in your core cards.....this deck doesn't need amazing cards its based off good cards that prevent your opponant from utilizing their amazing cards

I've been running mindsparker in my build. He is a dollar bin rare from m14. He has been pretty amazing. Rr1 for a 3/2 first strike. Opponent takes 2 if they cast a white or blue instant or sorcery. Aside from that the only other things I have to add are chaos warp is an excellent answer to things red can't normally answer (oath).....and while not as flashy as you'd like koth has proven to be the best "finisher" in testing. There is enough available in red not to need a splash. All the splashes I have seen either weaken the deck or change it enough where its not really the same archetype

Blood moon is as important if nit more important than Magus. More decks currently run dismember and lightning bolt than run cards that can remove enchantments

I used to run pillar and spellshocks. They are great against storm decks but any deck running creatures is going to have a chance to make them irrelevant or turn them against you. Although it is really a blast.to watch people who have never played against them try to manage their life total

I am now definitely going to be there ....aliens be damned.

Meaning unless aliens invade, that ends up being the weekend we go to Virginian beach or swamps are banned in vintage

Should be there. Not definite yet but like 90%

What a good day for vintage good times good people and good games. Was good.to see nick stroll in the only down note was with 27 people there I got paired up against the person I came down with in the first round
After only playing 2 other events in the past year I decided to shake up my deck construction for my return to vintage. I am very appy with how the changes worked out. All the additions were all-stars all day. Deatrite shaman, abrupt decay and extirpate all won me games, and even when they didn't win it they still performed better than what they replaced. Most fun I had was sitting at 56 life with a sylvan library and bob in play. Made one huge play error, but a top 8 finish is a top 8 finish. I felt l was in every game, even my losses (except my match in the top 8 against rob, that was just a slaughter)

4 deathrite shaman are missing from my decklist sean

I'll be there.

I also forgot to add shawn to the list which seems poor since he is our gracious host.......

I think that is a record 6 council members posting in the same thread....or posting in the same month. Are we all attending?

As far as I know
Keith Seals (Mr Grimm)
Chris Ferry
Sean Duffy
Ryan Fisher
Rob edwards
Mark Hornung (butchered last name I am sure, sorry)
And someone else who I have forgotten

Got the day off will be there.

I should be there. I am supposed to work that Saturday but I should have enough notice to switch with someone

Well I would think the simple solution would be to go, support fow and if you end up in the finals with someone who doesn't already have an invite....you  have options that allow you to make sure they do.

Due to a strange turn of events the help of much of the local vintage community I will be attending and playing.

thats because once you play Dredge Dark times Hates you for life, it's a curse. Black Mages never forget

My car count will be 3 this time including myself.

we will all win more if you end up aquiring 2 foil wastelands and sell them to me....

100% chance i will be there now. i get out of work at 11.