As sad as I am to see it happen, I know you're right :/ I had really high hopes that local players would play the more exciting vintage format, especially when acquiring the cards wouldn't be an issue --- oh well *sigh*

I really hope Legacy can pick back up to where it was a while back -- pulling a 20-30 person crowd weekly was great, good diversity.

sounds good D-Lizzle. I suppose we could really hold a tournament with any amount of entrants (since it isn't sanctioned) -- I'll give Gillis notes on what to do for less than 8 people. The owners were wanting to alternate between legacy and vintage (week on week off). I'm still not sure if that's a good idea, for consistency's sake. I can just foresee problems with people coming in expecting one format and it being the other... I know they have a calendar but not everyone comes in throughout the week. But at the same time, I'd really like to see legacy tournaments do well, given that it is still a "new" format.

@12

Re: last saturday.... yeah and what's kind of funny is that the three people were Travis Hopkins & Michael Simister (the inventors of 2-land belcher) and their friend Jason.  They had 12 people show up for FNM, which is about normal as of late...   I'm not sure what's going on with the scene there either.

Re: the poor success of the seminars
There is DEFINITELY a problem with insecurities and egos, I've noticed. Some of the people there (and these are generally the players that either learn quicker or are good players anyways) are very comfortable with acknowledging that they DON'T know everything and taking advice from other people. But it seems many of the people are very reluctant to admit that.  I would almost venture to say it's even an age group thing. Trey (by far the youngest player) and Richard (one of the older players...he's married and has kid(s)) seem to both be most comfortable in asking questions.  

In any case -- I've been hoping that the unlimited proxy tourneys will eliminate the "i don't have cards as good as theirs" syndrome. Now all we need is attendees....

Willard was a fun deck so was that other one....with the husks. I was a pretty crappy player back then and definitely a major johnny.



During the interim between stores, Jamie, the Gill, and myself did a lot of practicing and competitive teching. I learned a *lot*. I went from "losing constantly" to "winning occasionally". I'm really happy with the progress I've made, and I -hardly- think that I'm done learning.  I may act cocky down at the store, wielding my Judge card and all, but I assure you it's all in fun. I do take judging seriously, though. Not because I feel that I am a superior player, but because I've spent a lot of time studying the CRules, reading up, and really trying to intimately understand the game.

The seminars weren't about me showing off my alleged Magic know-how, and I gladly defer the authority to Jamie on Vintage knowledge and playskill. He's played Vintage FAR longer than I have. The seminars were about giving locals a forum where they can seriously tech out and improve their playskill. I've learned a lot from practicing with him, and I wanted to share what I've learned. I may have come across a little arrogant... I can be like that sometimes.

I apologize that I made it seem that I was selling you guys out to the Oxford players. I was excited about having people from out of area coming up to play, so maybe that's what made it seem like that? No matter what I said or wrote though, believe me that there's nothing I've wanted more than to see local players win.

Found this thread totally by accident while searching for something totally unrelated. Crazy.

Thought it would be fair to comment though, seeing as how I was specifically named

@Bomholmm:

I have to say I totally agree with you 100% about the "split factor" and thsi is something that I have brought up with the owners a number of times. Before we started FNM, I warned them of that potential problem (given that 90% of attendance were locals): with a finite amount of weekly cash, people will not be able to drop cash for two tournaments (or cash to purchase cards for both formats) EVERY week. The opinion of the owners was that Type II could potentially be more healthy for the store since Wizards will directly support that format (and it's better business).  With the death of Affinity, we're hoping we see a healthier turnout for Type 2.
I have talked ad nauseum with the owners about returning to Type 1.5 on Fridays and doing Draft or Standard Constructed on Saturdays (getting Arena Foil Promos for prizes instead of FNM cards....I keep hoping I'll see an FNM Foil Ancestral . The store wants to give FNM a little more time to see if it improves at all.

@12Chocobos (Ed? Tim?) said:

I am not sure specifically what you're talking about. I re-read my initial post here on TMD, and I re-read the stuff on the website regarding the 1.5 tournaments, and I feel that locals got an equal amount of mention to the Oxford crew. In my initial post I mention that "A few TMD'rs have come down and played." which is true (I would consider it implied that local players would be playing).    On the website I list the winners of every week up until December 10th, and had decklists where they were submitted. Not everyone submitted their decklists when asked.  
Like I said, I apologize for apparently alienating locals, but I don't see where I did that. Could you point me to where I do it?

@Hi-Val:
We tried Vintage unlimited proxy this past saturday and only had three people show up (from Indianapolis nonetheless...Hopkins, Simister, and Jason). I'm going to try to convince the owners to give it another shot. I really want to see this do well.

As a general comment:
Strictly speaking, there are several exceptionally good local players, and several of them have won tournaments around here (Tim, Ed, Brandon, etc.) Non-locals (such as the oxford crew) do have access to better cards, but they also, I am pretty sure, have been playing (competitively) longer as well. Grendal and myself both knew about this imbalance and sought to correct it in our mediocrely-received Vintage seminars. (we felt that learning vintage will improve legacy play, and is more fun because the card pool is more broken and exciting) I don't know if the poor attendance is because of a matter of time-availability an issue of ego or something else. I don't claim to be a deity of magic or whatever, but I read a lot of articles, forums, and do a lot of play-testing with the circle of geeks I hang with. I consider myself pretty well-informed about the older formats. So if you aren't showing up because you are bitter towards me/us or have an issue with feeling threatened, get over yourself. Come in and teach other people what you know!

These seminars were simply meant to improve the local meta and player knowledge so that when we *do* have a for-real Vintage tourney, the lesser experienced locals don't get their asses handed to them. I *WANT* to see the locals do well, I *WANT* to see them win. That was the whole reason we did these seminars -- It's like boot camp for Vintage.  Of the people who have attended EVERY (or nearly every) week, there have been HUGE improvements in play skill. Considering we charge nothing, and have been occasionally giving out revised DUALS as a prize for a free mock-tourney, I'm at a loss for why more people don't show up.

Bottom line: there *ARE* good local players. the oxford crew *does* consistently do well, regardless of whether they win or not. Cards can be acquired, and stuff in Legacy isn't all that ridiculously priced (most cards that are actually played top out at around 20 bucks apc, and have good reusability). Blaming it on "they had better cards" is a cop out, because you can always borrow or buy the cards you need, especially for legacy format. If I was constantly getting beat by the same person, local or not, I would ask them to help me improve my game/deck. There's nothing wrong with asking for help. The better local players should help the lesser experienced local players improve their game. Trey is the perfect example. I wish more players were like him. He's 9 or 10 years old but he knows how to ask and ask and ask until he understands it.

@Sucidedrain:
L, there used to be a card shop in the mall a few years ago that held tourneys... I don't know if they are now defunct or not. It was on the ground floor near one of the exits. Check the yellow pages for collectibles stores..there's gotta be one nearby.

I think the issue Bram brought up (nice graph btw!) is saying, specifically, that although you may keep the *ratio* the same between your land and non-land-bomb-diggity cards, your opening hand size does not increase, which effectively decreases your odds. (HS Math: Take a given fraction and slowly increase the denominator while keeping the numerator constant...the number gets smaller and smaller as the denominator [decksize] increases).

Traditionally, the only reason a deck played 61 cards was if it had a hard-lock and relied on decking the opponent as a win condition. (Feldon's Canes were nice for that too).

I agree with the other people on here that if something is that good that you want to include it, you should find a card that's worse than it and cut it, or just change your sideboard.

Situation (A): A card should be added in because the environment requires it as an answer (eg. Trikes in a heavy Welder environment, or Plats in a heavy combo environment).

Situation (B): A card should be added in because certain matchups will benefit greatly from its inclusions (eg. Trinispheres to stop Belcher, etc.)

In Situation A, the percentage of times that inclusion will come in useful will heavily outweigh, in theory, the times when it is not useful. Since your deck was not already geared to handle it (if it were, you wouldn't need to change it), then it was geared to handle SOMETHING ELSE, which can be removed in lieu of the added card. Continuing the Trike/Welder example, let's say you were expecting a heavy combo environment, so you maindecked 4 Trinispheres. We all know that Workshop decks (Welder decks) wipe their ass with Trinisphere cards, so removing some of the Trinispheres in lieu of Trikes should be preferable, right? It is better card quality in more matchups in that particular example.

In Situation B, merely sideboarding the card should be sufficient, for obvious reasons.

Getting away from playing decks that were larger than 60 cards was a tough habit to break, but I haven't looked back to my scrub-days since.

I'd just like to chime in my support for this deck.
At this point I have only viewed the decklist and seen that it is more or less Belcher/Tendrils-but-without-Belcher. That deck [Belcher/Tendrils...and Meandeath as well, for that matter] happens to not only be a particular favorite of mine, but a deck with which I'm pretty damn good.

I just finished reading through this thread and there's one thing I have seen a lot of: Naysayers.   And I'm willing to bet a good number of the naysayers are *not* veteran combo players, because if they were they wouldn't be bitching like little girls, but rather be asking questions on how to play certain cards correctly.

Land Grant is an incredible BROKEN and awesome card. I used to play it a long time ago in a 1.5 Sliver deck I had built as (A) a free shuffle to break Scroll Rack, and (B) as a means to get WHATEVER COLOR MANA I needed.  I run it now in my 1.5 Belcher build, and in Legacy Belcher it is fucking awesome. Grabbing the land out of your deck...well that's certainly a nice boon-- but when you're going for a lethal storm count, every spell counts. Imagine this:
Opening Hand of: Land Grant x3, Dark Ritual, Yawg Will, Lotus, Spoils.  That's a winner right there! Grant, Grant, Grant, Rit, Lotus, Will, Lotus, Rit, Grant, Grant, Grant, Spoils for Tendrils for 28, win. Even with only 2 Land Grants that hand would be outrageously explosive.

Another thing people have been critical of is cantrip-mana preservation cards such as Chromatic Sphere and Darkwater Egg. I run Chrome Sphere's (and Pentad Prisms...another AWESOME card. If it cantripped I'd recommend it for inclusion in this deck) in my Legacy Belcher build and whenever I teach someone how to play it the first thing I always underscore is to NEVER NEVER NEVER underestimate the power of getting that one card. Vintage players should know better than anyone the power of an extra card draw in a turn-- even if you don't know your extra draw, you can get a-mise-ingly good top-decks, especially with this deck's inherent consistency with it's prevalence of 4-ofs.

It kind of seems like this deck could perhaps be the pinnacle of Tendrils decks. I say this not to kiss Meandeck's ass, but as a general statement about the evolution of the Tendrils deck at large, which I have more or less been casually following since Scourge (pardon me if I garble the order of these decks). Initially the deck (pre-Scourge legality) ran 4 Mind's Desires and other brokenness... then after Oscar Tan ruined our fun, it was a more control oriented build with Duress and whatnot (TPS) and its simultaneous counterpart Draw-7. Then came Long.dec, which lead to the restriction of Burning Wish, and then DeathLong, and it's stronger successor Meandeath. Each build has become more streamlined, increases in speed dramatically, as well as consistency. Honestly I'm not sure if there's much room left for evolution beyond this for a Tendrils deck (barring new syngeristic spells), minor preferential changes aside.

Nice work guys.

As much as I like Pentad Prism (I run 4 in my oh-so-successful Type 1.5 build), I don't think the card-draw effect of ChromSphere can be overlooked... true, this deck runs several draw engines, but sometimes that 1 card you need is just 1 more card down. Plus they have good synergy with the tutors, and while the net cost of a pentad is 0 (more or less making it a free spell), the net cost of a chromatic sphere is only 1 (if you use it that turn) and it cantrips...digging is always good.
That said, I agree with you about the brainstorms being the weak link...and only because of the drawback (I would rather run impulses if they didn't cost 1U) of putting two cards back on top.
The synergy Prism has with Tinker/your artifact count (for tolarian) *is* good... how bad would -2 Brainstorm +2 Pentad hurt? I hate trading card-digging for upping the acceleration...free spells are certainly nice though!

Also... a single Tendrils of Agony maindeck is a MUST. This deck can get bogus turn 1 wins with Tendrils without needing Belcher at all. I've had some games where I forget I'm playing Belcher and think I'm playing Meandeath instead! It can always get turn 1 wins with Belcher too, of course...but why take a potential route to victory out? Unlike 1.5 Belcher, I *rarely* actually get a chance to USE my Goblin Welder. Most times I forget they're even in the deck at all.

re: Seal of Removal
guess I should have RTFCP, eh? oops...

re: DI
hmm.... good point -- would it be viable as a 1-of? It just seems to have good synergy with rector.

I've been working on a Legacy build with Mike Bomholt ("bomholmm") from the Oxford Ohio crew (friend of Doug "Hi-Val" and Roland "Changster"). There's some tech in it that I think has the potential to be pretty vicious in the Type 1 build.

(paraphrased card text)

Diabolic Intent  
1B Sorcery
As an additional cost to Diabolic Intent, sacrifice a creature. Search your library for a card and put it into your hand.

Seal of Removal
U Enchantment
Sacrifice ~this~: Return target permanent to its owners hand.

I think the ramifications of these cards should be obvious. Firstly, Diabolic Intent gives you an additional outlet for sacrificing the Rector early. certainly Cabal Therapy is far superior in terms of safety, but for blitzing out a win against a combo deck, for example, imagine this play:

Play Rector, Play Diabolic Intent, sacing rector to find Illusions, use Intent's ability to find Donate, cast Donate. Win.

Mike and I had previously tried Plunge into Darkness also, but after a couple nasty run-ins with removing my win conditions from the game and losing in an agonizing concession, Diabolic Intent (the original selection) is far superior.

Much like Cabal Therapy, the sacrificing is a COST meaning even if they counter the spell itself, you still get the enchantment. The downside is that due to stack triggers, you have to tutor your enchantment first before the Intent resolves (so you won't know if they are going to counter the Intent when you go to fetch your enchantment: "Do I get the Bargain or the Illusions?") It nets you two cards with one spell, and I believe it would help to speed up the combo.

For Seal of Removal: I like it better than Chain of Vapor for one reason: it's an enchantment. It costs the same as chain of vapor, but if they drop a chalice for 1 (or 2) you can always tutor it out with a Rector if you HAVE to (assuming you don't want to just wait until they can't pay the upkeep) and it BOUNCES the illusions, meaning that if that loss of 20 life doesn't kill them, you can always cast it again and try to win. And it's a blue spell, so it's pitchable.

Also, as an alternate win condition:
Nefarious Lich
BBBB
If you would be dealt damage, remove that many cards in your graveyard from the game instead. If you can't, you lose the game.
If you would gain life, draw that many cards instead.
When Nefarious Lich leaves play, you lose the game.

Donating the Lich: it REQUIRES you have a way to remove the lich in order to win (it doesn't have a self-removing ability like cumulative upkeep) however it ignores life-gain if that ever became an issue. This is kind of an afterthought, it was selected as an alternate win for the Legacy format, where some people do indeed play life-gain. I felt it was worth mentioning.

I'm not sure how many Diabolic Intent's would be desirable in the deck, and I certainly don't think they are a *replacement* for Cabal Therapy-- But I do think they warrant consideration for inclusion.

1 Chrome Mox
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
18 Mountains
4 Bazaar of Baghdad (draw engine)
1 Library of Alexandria (draw engine)
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Winding Canyons  (to play the hasted nether shadows on their turn)

1 Ancestral Recall
2 Nether Shadows
4 Fountain of Youth  (life gain)
4 Jayamdae Tome  (card draw)
4 Serum Powder (in case you draw a dead hand :^)
4 Tormod's Crypt (anti dragon tech)
4 REB (anti tog)

might as well make it under 60 cards so you can get the pimp DQ for having an illegal deck

With a decklist like this, have you considered Cephalid Constable, possibly with an Unstable Mutation kicker?

For those of you who don't remember that OdBC card, if my memory serves me correctly, Constable says:
1UU
Creature - Cephalid   1/1
Whenever ~this~ deals combat damage to a player, that player returns X permanents to their hand, where X is the combat damage.

The wording might be a little off, but you can see where this is going.
Constable + Unstable (+ Power conduit :-O) = fun stuff. During upkeep, use the power conduit to turn -1/-1 counters into +1/+1 counters. Power Conduit also took "flood counters" off my own lands and moved them onto the Constable and phantom creatures. The deck had pretty nice synergy, I would recommend some permission added to help protect the conduits, or perhaps some kind of static-effect artifact protection (a Sterling Grove-type effect...there's some in the new sets but I can't think of what they are).

I ran a bounce deck for a while that essentially ran:
4 Cephalid Constables
4 Unstable Mutations
4 Power Conduit
3 Quicksilver Fountain
5-8 Boomerangs/Hoodwinks etc.
3 Phantom Centaur

with new tech I would agree with whomever suggested Isochrons. Granted, the focus of my deck is a little bit different than the original post, but it's something to consider.