This is Bob, except it blanks every time you flip mana or a good card.  That's not good.

cross posting due to high relevance, article on future of tmd:

http://mtgvintageadventures.blogspot.hk/2016/03/thoughts-on-change-of-ownership-of.html

Sorry, I should've clarified a little.  I'm not talking about a subscription fee or anything.  I'm saying a one-time nominal of $1 or $5 or something.  Just enough to keep out the LCD of poster.

These comments both define TMD in negative terms.

People here have suggested functionality and content they like, but a lot of this is already being done in lots of other places.  I haven't heard any consensus on why someone should come to TMD for X, where X is anything besides this used to be TMD.  Each reboot of this site has seen TMD's prestige as the place for vintage lessen.  Part of this is positive developments from other content producers.  The technical implementation will be important and relevant to the larger "what" that TMD becomes.  I'd just like to see more thoughts on the "what".


My 2c:

(1) I don't know if TMD can be a one-stop-shop anymore.  There are enough other quality pockets of Vintage online that maybe TMD could serve as an aggregator.  Its effectiveness there would be based on how well it integrates content (general magic news, decklists, tourney results, streams, articles, even key comments) from other places (and how well these are made searchable/tagable/linkable).

(2) At its apex, TMD was the place to have robust arguments about the format.  This seems to stem from equal parts community/site technics/moderation.  I think high-level discussion could be one of the "what" pieces for the next iteration, but changes are needed.  The only thing I've seen work online is paid membership.  Probably not a popular idea, but people behave better and invest their own quality when they're putting their money where their mouth is.

It's hard arguing against the Vintage champ, but I think you guys are really over-selling artifact removal vs. Belcher.  If you're on the draw against them, Dack is almost always irrelevant.  Given that the current versions are so counter heavy or have Defense Grid, the presumption that the removal becomes valuable after "stopping their major play" means you likely require 2 other key spells on your end before getting to Dack/Grudge.  Something like EE can potentially disrupt their manabase and can be played effectively for 2 mana; that's realistic.  However, grudge will cost 3 mana across two colors to significantly disrupt their mana.

I'm not saying these cards are completely dead.  And I do think Dack's filtering is huge vs combo, so the versatility is valuable.  But the idea that these cards are 'all stars' in this matchup is perplexing.  These lines of play seem wishful thinking compared to my experience.


I'd say as a general point this is true.  And I'm aware that the tempo loss is more important than ever before.  But, this build is mostly a control deck and much more than most other versions of Mentor.  The way the metagame is shaping up, this will intensify as Dredge, TPS and Tezzerator become more common than Merfolk, Delver and the mirror.  It just feels like the 75 is stretched pretty thin without the multiplicative power of black tutors.  And as per your point, Brian, nothing says you can't fetch Mentor with these when you're pressing advantage.

I'm not hard on this 2nd point, but at least right now I can see the value when going into a big event with a still settling metgame.

Sorry, you're right about Grudge in the Tez matchup.  But it's cold comfort to an activated Belcher and Dack is much too slow to interact in either matchup.  It's not a dead card, but it's win-more after your real answers have done the work.

Far from it.  In fact I even put the 'Bant' firmly in the nomenclature above the family photo.  I think the core here is fine.  And I like a lot of what red has to offer, but I'm sceptical if it may have outlived its value vs workshops.  Not really because of what this deck does, but more because of how many shops lists have evolved.  Obviously this is a ying-yang in terms of how you migh reposition this deck's win condition.

Maybe red is worth it just for what Dack offers across matchups.  But if Green & others can cover better for the shop matchup and Storm and Big Blue are larger metagame players, perhaps there are better options and maybe those are facilitated with silver bullets found with black tutors (especially now that DTT is a 1x).  But just spitballing here.

I think the tempo issue is real and that tutoring is a fringe effort that resigns only to the most important plays.  I look to it ony as a way to better manage the 75 in a deck that already has a low curve.

Still, I think your characterization of red's impact is foolish.  Grudge and Dack are poor versus these two decks (Tez and Belcher).  Further, traditional MUD fears spot removal much less than it would months ago.  Grudge is a fine generalist card right now, but if you're going to play control, you need to really pick and choose.  Maybe red is the best support, but it doesn't seem to bolster the growing legions of storm and big blue.  If it does, it's REB and not the other cards mentioned.  Maybe MBR really is too reactive for the current meta.  If Mentor needs red, maybe it is too slow for now.

I'm imagining something that turns faster on a given mid-game turn and can use hurkyls/rebuild to win artifact matchups.

I vote for removing the negatives for something like MBR vs MBB (MentorBantX...).  I think this is a central design question and I'd like to hear more from Rich and Brian among others (Steve?)

There are very serious benefits to controlling the board with access to red.  BUT, in a metagame moving away from 4x Chewer, it may add value to consider how well green covers these sins while allowing 'slot savers' by running the black tutors.  Since there are a hefty number of flex slots and since the black tutors cut both ways by allowing you to fetch either a game ending bomb or Priest/Thalia/RestinPeace, can we revisit the control/combo divide?  Doesn't black enable rather hard-control silver bullet strategies while also letting you close down a snap>time walk finish?  It seems like a natural evolution of the archetype.

It's clear you have a preference for a specific style of in-game magic.  However, you should know that your ideas about 'skill' and 'balance' are quite different from others and I would say even quite different from the social norm of the format.


Yeah, some of us are into that.

I heard primary evidence from someone who played him and Paul's G1 deck contained SB cards that were highly advantageous to the matchup.  It was a couple rounds in, so Paul could have known what he was playing.  And he didn't find out until multiple rounds later when Paul's list was posted for T8.

There's more, but TBH, given the preponderance of cheating in MTG your (anti) 'lynch mob' rhetoric is wearing pretty thin.

Does anyone know why Paul (Vintage Champ, Meandeck, Mr. Type4, etc) is on here for a 6 month ban?  There's a ton of names on this thing and I didn't even know this is how they disseminated this information.


http://magic.wizards.com/en/content/suspended-dci-memberships

I know this seems janky, but what about Vedalken Shackles?  It seems like it would be easy to drop, has synergy with the rest of the control elements and would be harder to remove than Sower and re-usable unlike Repeal/EE/Bomb.  It would probably fight with Batterskull for SB space, but it would give a lot of options.

Bingo.  None of these cards are likely to take because medium-brokeness draw/search is not what's missing for most decks.  Hell, we have unrestricted Gush, what are people looking for?  If you take the slots needed both for this card and for the fetches and cheaper cantrips needed to support it you don't have much room left to beat Dredge and Shops and stop other blue decks.

Ie, the competition for this isn't FoF or Impulse, it's stuff like Gush and Timetwister.

That was almost like an Adam Bowers story except with less elegant writing and more violence.

Right.  'Cause playing a deck with 35-40 1-drops is a great way to avoid that "piercing" CotV?

I can appreciate what desolutionist is trying to do here, and I have some respect for Elves.  But it really is a fool's errand.

Vintage has never had more strongly positioned silver bullets.  Recent printings have dictated that decks like BUG, Merfolk, UW and MUD have become viable (even favored?) metagame bulwarks.  Sure Oath, TVK.dec and storm are viable, but there is a ton of hate and you need to be a pretty slick pilot.

This search for replicating that last strategy with creatures has already been optimized in MUD (w/Greaves) and Delver, both of which can either goldfish or stop their opponent and often both.

Caverns is good, sure.  But it's a fig leaf when faced with spheres and wastelands on top of CotV.

I really don't understand this view.  Kowal basically said the positive version of this.  My take is that people really need to stretch out their spectrum of game-states.  If I have four mana, I ALWAYS want to resolve Gifts Ungiven.  You can do so much with the card, including a pile that will build an even game state or small advantage into a victory.  It will do this even rather late in the game when you don't have much gas left in the deck.

There are metagame considerations (eg, if your store is full of flusterstorm), but there is no lacking capacity in the card itself (at least not in this list).



You ever meet the guy who optimized to 3x Ancestral Recall?

From either anecdotal or following dailys, does anyone have a sense of how the pros who play vintage have been doing?

@Steve, any prediction on metagame?

Welcome!

A couple thoughts...

(1) pillars might be better than RPS breakdown for understanding metgame composition.  Eg, if you lump Forgemaster MUD with blue 'control', you're doing it wrong.

(2) Lots of good info, but I was hoping for not just reporting, but synthesis.  What did you conclude about the data you collected?

Sorry to jump at this Z, but this whole part is pretty confusing.


Actually you get two cards, but it only nets one card.  Also, the rest of the draw in the deck (accept for Ancestral and bad FoF piles) only nets that same amount.  It is absolutely card advantage.  Obviously it's broken because it's also tutoring.


I can't see defending this claim.  Granted we're a long way from 4x combo gifts lists where they were set up to resolve Gifts early and often.  But Gifts is basically infinitely customizable to the game state.

This is also why I don't really agree with the Hold 'Em analogy.  In that scenario in Hold 'Em the key is whether your opponent has enough info or whether your hand is good enough.  With Gifts resolving your hand just gets ridiculously better, no matter how early it is.


I'm hoping you can unpack that.  What it sounds like is that Gifts is a high risk/reward card, which IMO is besides the point.  Granted it's hard to resolve vs. fluster/pierce/etc, but it's certainly worth it.  And I can't imagine running FoF instead of it.

BUG can play different roles, but in terms of its ability to adaptably move between them, I think it's far inferior to Delver.  The evasion of RUG creatures and the diversity of applications of lightning bolt really give the deck an edge.  I'd also take Preordain/Gush's ability to filter for the right cards compared with Bob/black tutors.

I'm not saying BUG isn't both powerful and flexible, but it's not as nimble as other options (I'd say Grixis is more nimble too).

My favorite: have them cast memory jar, put chain of vapor on stack and respond with jar, have them bounce everything and sac all lands, discard hand, leaving them with empty board/hand.


The beauty/harrow of Gifts is that it has so many combinations and it's truly difficult to use it optimally.  Generally they can be grouped as:

Mana (either lands or acceleration)
Value (slow build stuff like Time Walk, Planeswalker, Merchant Scroll, Brainstorm, etc)
Broken (game winning combos like TVKey or Yawgwill setups or just something that wins the game with your current hand)
Feed Welder (you can search for only 2 cards and send them directly to grave to enable welder)

Ben, aren't you forgetting that AK pitches to FoW?  Your dislike comes more from past trauma than any rational grounding, I suspect.

Isn't this like a bad memory jar?

During periods of waning for vintage there have always been folks who 'keep the lights on'.  Just a quick note of thanks to Nick and others since they should enjoy the full revel as things come around again.

That Ari's article can make a claim that Vintage is the best format is one of those signs that things are in full swing.  Success has many fathers, but the work to keep tournaments going on the east coast is surely one of the big ones.

Yeah, like this guy:
http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=11076&iddeck=80927

I thought the entire point of ritual being useful is it allows threats before counter-measures are up?  Ie, turn 1 Doomsday or Necro, not turn 2.

It's a fine design choice to go with DRS in combo decks.  Soly says he's been loving more grindy versions like this.  But it's definitely a trade-off and it seems like one that may be worthwhile in a metagame full of mental missteps (ie, your advantage from Ritual isn't very big anyway).

I like to do this just to mess with legacy players.