This venue is about 2 hours away from where I am in NJ. Although, I would travel for guaranteed prize support, say $2K and up, but I couldn't make this a monthly excursion. Having a regular monthly event 45 minutes away (TDG) definitely spoils me and allows me to be pickier on which events I attend. Wish I could support them all!

Good luck with this, Greg!

What about putting the logo on the "3" side face of the dice? 

Congrats on the finish, Vasu! This decklist is sweet and looks crazy fun! It screams "VINTAGE!!!!".

Chas, these events obviously NEED a bubble prize...

Congrats again, Roly, and to the rest of the T8!

Great...double bacon butter cookies for the Joel troll...

I prefer the one in the wheelchair. You know, for Jeskai Relevancy.

In "The Atog Lord" I Trust

So, what's the next problem guys?

On the face of it, it looks like the deck needs a more consistent way to push through Spheres/Chalices, unless you want to devote 9 slots in the SB for Shops. Also, how's the Dredge matchup? Dredge seems faster and you don't want to RIP with the Fatestitcher plan.

For some reason, this didn't pop up in my unread threads until now...Anyways,


"Proper" is pretty subjective, obviously the devil is in the details. In such a case for T3, if I don't think the result of the game will hinge on me having access to U open, I would play Reejerey here first. This gives you the most efficient use of your mana per turn. I don't think keeping it back to bluff is worth the cost, unless your read is 100% that the bluff will work and you avoid losing on your opponent's next turn. Short of that, I'd lean more towards mana efficiency. T4, you can machine gun out the rest of the guys in your hand by untapping your Cavern/Land, and if you don't win that turn, then T5 is still a lock. If you know your opponent has removal for it, consider playing the Lord T3 so you at least have U up on their turn. If you're unsure, I may still lean on taking the risk with Reejerey since the payoff is much higher if they don't have it.

Basically, due to his +1/+1 AND his ability to drop your hand the following turn, this is why Reejerey is faster than TNN. Reejerey provides a faster average kill. TNN provides a reliable clock through spot removal/blockers at the expense of that speed.


I haven't really tested this, but on paper I have to imagine that this should be a good matchup. Null Rod shuts down EE pretty well. You can also play around EE if you don't have a Rod, by mixing CCs and forcing them towards the wrong CC or to blow it early. If you don't kill them a turn after they get a Sphinx in play, you are probably going to lose, although you were likely losing this game anyways if it already got to this point. This is a matchup that you rely heavily on Cavern of Souls. The Bomberman matchup sounds similar to this one. When I lose that matchup, I think its usually due to not having a Cavern and multiple STPs/Snapcasters. Mono Blue has no real consistent volume of spot removal. I'd say make sure your starting hand is favorable for this matchup, more aggressive, less control (I consider Null Rod fine here). You're not going to win the control role here. With all of that, I think you should win this matchup a considerable majority of the time.


Going under Delve seems like the only real plan with dealing with it. If you haven't tried Misdirections for these matchups. I would recommend checking into it. Bolting YP's and Decaying Oaths is one way to lock up a game before the CA takes over.

Jitte is the best of the worst, imo. The deck wants a removal spell better than Dismember, especially against YP. I'm not crazy about it but I haven't found anything better yet. Pongify etc hasn't cut it either, and I'd prefer a non-misstepable spell anyways. Try things out and let us know how it works!

I had Needle in the SB since the beginning and it one of the last cuts. Now that 50% of the field shouldn't be Delver/Cruise, I could see it going back in. Although, similar to Surgical Extraction, as a 1-of in the sb, it never seemed to be that relevant or powerful enough for me.


Glad to hear its going well! I can def see cutting the 4th misstep if you're not expecting a ton of Delver or Storm (or now Jeskai Ascendancy! ). Not sure about the 2nd Misdirection as it may end up being too much card disadvantage. Cards I would also consider are another Spell Pierce/Flusterstorm, Daze, Spell Snare, Mindbreak Trap. Also, as above, I'm not sure how to improve the Jitte slot, again it feels like the best of the worst scenario. Maybe just cutting it altogether and attacking those matchups in a slightly different manner is best? Anyways, good luck this week!

I love me some merfolk discussion

My list for Worlds this year was something like this (working off memory here):

1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Sapphire
4x Cavern of Souls
4x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
10x Island

4x Lord of Atlantis
4x Master of the Pearl Trident
4x True-Name Nemesis
4x Phantasmal Image
4x Silvergil Adept
4x Cursecatcher
1x Waterfront Bouncer

4x Force of Will
4x Mental Misstep
1x Spell Pierce
1x Flusterstorm
2x Null Rod
1x Time Walk
1x Ancestral Recall

Sideboard:

3x Dismember
2x Umezawa's Jitte
4x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Flusterstorm
1x Null Rod
1x Hurkyl's Recall
2x Steel Sabotage
1x Annul

FYI, this was actually several cards off from the list given in the Deck Tech. The Deck Tech was done on Friday and when I finally decided last minute on Sunday to run Merfolk back, I had to make some changes to further address the Treasure Cruise decks (which I still ended up going 0-2 against).

I think the only currently viable 3cc merfolk here are Merrow Reejerey and TNN. TNN is better for the fair decks and creature decks (assuming we can still lump Delver with Treasure Cruise in here). Reejerey is faster and better against the broken decks. Thada, Sygg and Selkie were just too situationally beneficial for me, and seemed like win-more cards.

I haven't had any consistent success with Stifle and I don't think it fits in this form of the deck currently. Maybe it could fit in a version with 4x Chalice of the Void and a focus more on disruption. Personally, I'm not going to be tinkering with such a version for the foreseeable future. For now, I only want to interact where I have to, and I'd rather have a more reliable early disruption spell like Spell Pierce or a more powerful one like Flusterstorm instead of Stifle. Also, with running 4x FoW, that's as much card disadvantage as I'd be willing to have in the deck at the moment, assuming Stifle gets used in this manner often. I understand it can be a great Wasteland, and if you want to focus more on the mana denial line, then sure. However, in the current overall field, I think Wasteland itself has lost its value and I'd even consider going down to 3x Wastelands to add another disruption spell (I would still not go below 12x Non-Cavern blue sources). Your own metagame obviously takes priority here though. Same argument against Disrupting Shoal, for the card disadvantage and its more situational use.


The 1x copy of TNN had really nothing to do with the card just coming out. The increase in TNN's in Merfolk since last year was simply a reaction to the rise of BUG Fish and X-Delver. In 2013, results aside, I still think 1x TNN was right. There were very few fair decks in the field and a ton of broken decks, which was expected, and the reason why Merfolk was the weapon of choice. I would not have wanted to play zero, as, especially in the earlier rounds, there were going to be creature decks, which I played against two of by Round 3/4. Against the rest of the field, I needed Reejerey for the speed, and I didn't want more than one less optimal 3cc guy against these decks. Depending on your current field, I think 3-4x of the appropriate combination of these two is fine.

All that being said, I've never been a person to think there's only one right way of doing something. The deck may need some further innovation to compete against Treasure Cruise. I minimized dead cards mainboard (2x Null Rod), maxed out creature count to try to overload their removal, increased removal by adding Jitte's to the side on top of the 3x Dismembers, and this still was not enough to have a favorable matchup against Delver. Maybe there's another tweak or some kind of overhaul out there. However, at the last event in my area, the above Merfolk deck may have been a great choice to play! There was a ton of decks soft to Null Rod (Big Blue, Oath, Martello Shops) and not much Delver, which I think the better builds even slow down now in order to better answer Oath (3C with Trygon at least). Although there was ~5/32 decks on Dredge. Either way, test things and let us know how it goes!

It wasn't THAT big of a deal, I mean, the deck wasn't even in English!   

Definitely, I owe YOU one now  

I admit, I did get tripped up in sb'ing games 2 and 3 since I wasn't sure if you were running SFM and I didn't bring in enough Dismembers. Games 1 and 2 I had only seen Trinket Mage, TNN and Clique. That cost me dearly in Game 3. And that last turn where I was rep'ing lethal, your line of play was absolutely sick! I was actually happy to lose to the insanity that was your turn! Great match!

Good job on the Top 4 Craig! Well deserved, you repped NE well. Great match we had, too!

John Grudzina (4C Delver) and Myles Caracciolo (Grixis Control?) split the finals. Congrats guys!

NY (Forino/Dixon/Fenton) won the Grudge Match. Close showing from PA/NJ (Magrann/Berry/Lim) and it came down to the Top 8 matches. Will Magrann finished T8 but the master himself, Mr. Raffaele Forino advanced to Top 4, taking the title. PA/NJ never actually played anyone from NY in the swiss and we were single-handedly taken down by a most savage Will Dayton consecutively Rds 3, 4 and 5...he was clearly paid off by NY.

In other news, a true winner, Matt Murray won 9x One With Nothings.

Thanks Nick and Visna for making this event happen and for the crazy prize support for the 47 in attendance! Visna even handed out random door prizes to EVERYONE that entered, someone received an Alpha or Beta Lightning Bolt and one of the things I got was a Beta Fungusaur!

Good times were had!

This team voting thing is impossibru!

Gonna switch it up this time since I feel like something different is in the air...or maybe because we're in the same car.

Will Magrann
Craig Berry
Joel Lim

Alternates:
Shawn Griffiths
Keith Seals
Anyone who may be offended that their name is not above 

Also lookin to carpool, pm me.

Anyone from NJ going to this, I'm feeling be-GRUDGE'd!!!

DAMN! ...last minute change of plans and I am now working this whole weekend. GL, have fun and hopefully see everyone on 10/4!

If these are similar to the ones circulating earlier this year, you can generally tell the fakes apart by the significantly glossier texture and appearance. The text also appears slightly less sharp. A black light can easily show the difference although even just using a regular flashlight of some sort should be good enough. There's even a youtube clip about how to identify these.

Also, prices haven't dropped because of this, they're higher than ever. All these fakes did was ruin our "beloved" modern borders

Fixed that for ya...

For the record, aside from Paul (DC), 3/4 in the Top 4 are also PA/NJ guys. 3 NE guys made Top 8 but none advanced, with the 4th Top 8 guy being a NY/NJ. Time to step it up NY/NJ and NE

Congrats to Will Magrann, the Top 8 and literally everyone who attended this!!! Thanks, Ray!

Main Event:
1st Will Magrann (actually won)
2nd Paul Mastriano
3rd Justin Kohler
4th Dominic Difebo
5th-8th (in no specific order)
Andy Farias
Taylor Pratt
Ben Feingersh
Brian Pallas
(apologies for any spelling errors)
Top 4 did split, "Splitting is for gymnasts" - Craig Berry

Team Results:
1st - Vintagemagic.com (Mastriano-Menendian-Lim)
2nd - 2 Kohlers and a Kelly (figure it out)
3rd - No Fat Chicks (Magrann-Granberry-Berry)

Grudge Match Results:
1st - PA/NJ (woot)*
2nd - NY/NJ
Honorable mention - NE
*Determined by tiebreakers, Top 2 had the same match points. Of note, Greg Fenton was on steroids. Actually, he wasn't. But he did concede in the last round knowing he couldn't crack Top 8 to his opponent who had a slight shot at Top 8, like a true gentleman. His opponent obviously then finished in 9th, sorry Dave Kaplan.

Nick Detwiler          Brian Coval        Andy Farias            JP Kohler                 Steve Menendian

AJ Grasso              Justin Kohler     Matt Murray            Jesse Martin               John Grudzina

Shawn Griffiths       Ben Kowal         Craig Berry              Mike Ruggerio            Paul Mastriano

Joel Lim                Will Magrann      Vasu Balakrishanan   Michael Mahr             Keith Seals

Greg Fenton          Joe Brown          John Lessard           Brian Kelly                Tom Dixon 

Nick just broke the bingo game...thanks, Nick.

Might as well write "To Joel" on them now...

That's how you trash talk!!!

Between rounds 6 and 9? Think I'll take a raincheck, don't wanna distract you from your Team PA/NJ responsibilities...

Right on, congrats to the Top 8! Except for the dredge person, no one likes you

If anyone has room for 2 cuddly vintage players pm me. Fixin to stay for Sun!

So what happened here? Did someone get really lucky in the finals or something

Unfortunately, I can't make this one. I'm sure it will be a blast! Have fun everyone and I'll see you at the next one!

FYI, there's some pictures of the event up on Facebook here, if anyone is interested:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.692393980836963.1073741864.478134122262951&type=1

Thanks again, Mike and Cal, for hosting such a great event!

I'm hearing that Rob and Shawn may not be able to make this. Although they would be missed for this Grudge Match, fortunately, this area has a surplus of qualified candidates. For now, I'm assuming they can't make it:

Keith Seals
Will Magrann
Craig Berry
Justin Kohler
Shawn Griffiths

Edited: I obviously misspelled Shawn Griffiths as Matthew Murray