this is amazing. I just picked up the last card I needed yesterday. First proxyless vintage deck I've had with no compromises in YEARS. So excited perfect timing.

EDIT: maybe not....I ordered some cards for this event and they haven't arrived yet. Damn, I hate to miss it after spending all that money.

That makes it much more clear. Thanks.

Thanks for the response. That makes sense. So it's a hand sculpting thing. I get it.

This won't help as you lose in 1 turn my dude.

I have been playing vintage on and off for about 10 years but there is one thing I just can't figure out....


How do you use necropotence to it's maximum value?
If you draw more than 7 cards you still have to discard down to 7 right?
Why would I want a necro instead of an ad nauseum?

I've been searching for a while but I can't the answers I'm looking for.

Are these tournaments still going on weekly?

The title of this article alone made me sign up for premium lol.

I'm not a big fan of reading but I am a big fan of knowing everything there is to know so when I started reading this article I was predicting a confusing detail oriented play by play in the latter section. I was really surprised to see that you layed out the game in a very easy to read fashion. I got exactly what was going on and I didnt have to reread anything.

I think I have just made myself look like an idiot here but you all know what I mean...when you're reading something with a lot of specific data and lists and what not you read it once and then go...wait...wtf did i just read?....

yeah. I thought so.

ANYWAY!

Point is steve, your writing skills are a very welcome bonus to the wealth of knowledge you provide for the vintage community.

I was SO excited about this card. I was like can I have one now please? ...but....now I'm sad.

o i guess they errated it without telling me lol.

but yeah i never liked the deck in and of itself i just needed to no what was the worst parts of it. I dont want to make threshold at all though, i see how they are similar but im not interested in it. I am however interested in making this thing work.

Since the aether vial business is no longer a factor they are out, i think i will also take out the dryads. I need some new creatures to add to the mix. I am thinking maybe spiketail or something green. I really want a one drop in quirons spot though for easy bounce with the ninja.

anybody have any ideas to make THIS deck playable? or is it not even worth it. Think about it please before you say im an idiot. While it is true that I am, you dont have to say it out loud. heh.

Creatures
4 Hidden Guerillas (kind of creatures)
4 Ninja of the Deep hours
4 Cloud of Faires
4 Quiron Dryad <---needs to come out

Draw
1 Ancestral
4 Brainstorm
2 Syrum Visions

Counter
4 Force of Will
4 Daze

Other Spells
2 Oxidize
1 Time Walk

Artifact
3 Aether Vial <---needs to come out
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Black Lotus

Land
4 Mishras factory
4 Tropical Island
4 Fetch
1 Forest
7 Islands

Sideboard
2 Arcane lab
4 Dandan
2 Control Magic
3 energy flux
2 Null rod


Hidden Guerillas- They dont work well with ninja but drop one turn one and you're almost always garunteed a 5/3 soon after. If you end up playing someone who can get around them you side in the 4 dandans. I have encountered a few people playing neither artifacts nor blue buts its very rare.

cloud of fairies- great with aether vial, awesome to get ninja out then play them for free. awesome synergy.

quiron dryad- this card is definentley debateable. The one reason i like it is because i play alot of spells and people think im playing a quiron dryad deck so they focus their attwention on getting it out meanwhile it doesnt phase me too much.

ancestral brainstrom syrum - i dont like paying more than 1 for drawing especially since i have ninjas. I usually dont have extra mana.

force / daze- i def. dont like keeping mana open, i usually tap out exactly every turn for about the first 4.

oxidize- artifact heavy meta

aether vial- set it to 2 for quiron and cloud of faires, awesome when i have 2 lands because i can ninja a cloud of fairies and then aether vial them into play untap my two lands and then cast something else or get ready for the hard cast daze.

so thats it. It's very experimental, I was thinking I might need a one drop to help out the ninjas more, cos i really cant bounce hidden and i would hate to bounce a quiron dryad with counters on it. so i would like to take out the quirons but I dont know maybe they rule. they usually only get to be 4/4 or 5/5.

i was obviously wondering everyones opinion on it. has this been done before? if yes ive never heard of it so that would imply it sux? anyway, let me know.

I dound this store that had legacy tournaments in connecticut but i dont remember where it was or the name or anything.

Its not cave comics, and its not twin suns but they had legacy tournaments on some sundays that started at 5:30 thats all i can remember. It could have possibly been new york but i think it was Ct.

If someone could please help me that would be awesome.

Thanks!

I was just looking foward to some old school nostalgia. But on the other hand one could agrue "we are sentimental fools in a competative game where winning is everything and tradition is forsaken."

or

not.

?

nono i figured that. I really never thought about breaking this format. I guess you are right though. I just thought of it as a way to get back to our roots. When black vise and juzam were staples and you didnt leave the house with out a braingeyser and a recall.

it's too bad they are abusing balance like this. "Unfortunatley" was the exact right word. oh well though. when in rome....

I have 4x Balance in my decklist. I dunno guess some of you overlooked that.
Its probably not a great deck anyway.

Just wanted to point out I'm not an idiot.

I don't know if this is the right place for this, maybe casual or community? I'm sure It will get moved if I'm wrong.

Anyway,

For those of you who don't know Waterbury will be featuring a side event on day 2 called September '94.
http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/index.php?topic=24010.0

So I was wondering what kinds of decks people where going to be playing. Something like old school Blue/White control?? Maybe something chaos orb related. I'm excited about this event. Should be interesting.

Here's my Decklist, so theres some content.

Blue
4 Mana Drain
4 Counterspell
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Braingeyser
3 Serendib Efreet


White
2 Disenchant
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Moat
4 Balance
3 Serra Angel

Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
5 Moxen
1 Sol Ring
2 Jayemdae Tome
1 Ivory Tower

Land
4 Tundra
6 Plains
7 Islands
1 LOA
4 Mishra's Factory

NEW YORK

John Callahan's Sportscards
(914) 528-5198
1881 E Main St
Mohegan Lake, NY 10547

Champion Card Collector
(845) 462-9292
(888) 243-5101
43 Vassar Rd
Poughkeepsie, NY 12603

Dragons Den Comics & Cards Inc
(845) 471-1401
2600 South Rd # 9A
Poughkeepsie, NY 12601

i dont know if this is a software issue but at my house i cant access themanadrain.com, it hangs forver on the loading and then says page cannot be displayed, but im at work and it works fine. All other websites work fine on my computer.


(also, a long time ago i had to do something to access this page, something to do with name servers or flushing the dns or something. I dont remember, just thought that might be useful.)

do questions get answered anymore here?? anyway...

i know im dumb but why do many people use squee in dragon?
some people board it. whats the point of having it in your sideboard?

and why do some use 4x necromancy? and some use 1x? why is it in there in the first place? just as another animate dead or because its instant-ness?



Actually, those aren't dumb questions - they just show inexperience.  

1) Why Squee is used in Dragon?
Simply put, they make the deck better.  In the first place, you have staying power.  You can Intuition them up and use Bazaars to just outdraw a control oppponent.  If you randomly draw just one off a Bazaare and you are looking for a combo component like Animate, the Squee will enable you to hold the combo component in hand.  This makes Bazaar an overall better card.  

2) Why use Necromancy.  Here is an example I wrote in an article once and will explain why the deck uses Necromancy:

Here is a great example of that with Psychatog v. Worldgorger Dragon Combo:

Turn One:
Dragon:
Play Bazaar of Baghdad. Draw two cards and discard Worldgorger Dragon, Squee, Goblin Nabob, and Undergound Sea.

Psychatog: Play Underground Sea, pass the turn.

Turn Two:
Dragon:
Return Squee to hand. Play and break Polluted Delta for Underground Sea. Tap Bazaar to draw two cards discarding Squee, Squee, and Compulsion. Play Mox Emerald. Play Animate Dead. In response, Tog plays Brainstorm. Tog then plays Force of Will removing Psychatog from game.

Psychatog:
Play Polluted Delta. Break it for Volcanic Island. Play Mox Pearl. Tog has Intuition, Mana Drain, and Cunning Wish in hand. Generally, Tog plays Intuition for three Accumulated Knowledges and Cunning Wishes for Coffin Purge or Blue Elemental Blast to kill the Dragon Combo.

Turn Three:
Dragon: Return Squees to hand. Play Swamp. Tap Bazaar of Baghdad and draw two cards. Discard Squee, Squee, and Bazaar of Baghdad. Pass the turn.

On Dragon's endstep, Tog could play either Intuition or Cunning Wish. If it did, Dragon could play Necromancy (of which it generally has three in the deck and very likely has seen one by now) and win on the spot. Therefore, Tog has to use its resources inefficiently. It must to sit tight and wait until it has more mana to play it's draw engine and Wish + Purge/Blue Elemental Blast at the same time. Arguably, Tog shouldn't wait. But if it doesn't, it will likely lose on the spot. The Tog player must hope that if it waits, it can drag the game into the midgame where it can make its grab for Accumulated Knowledge with enough mana to stop the Dragon player at the same time.

Turn Four:
Dragon: Return both Squees to hand. Activate Bazaar discarding another Worldgorger Dragon, Squee, and Sliver Queen. Play a Polluted Delta and break it for Underground Sea. Play a Mox Ruby. Dragon has five mana available. Dragon plays Animate Dead - in response, Tog goes to get a Blue Elemental Blast and plays Blast on one of the Animated Dragons with the Comes into Play Ability on the stack. In response, Dragon plays Necromancy on the other Dragon. Dragon has Force of Will backup by this point (having drawn so many cards).

What you can see from this game is that Dragon gained tempo just from the threat of having Necromancy. This meant that Tog had to waste its mana on turn two and play defensively on turn three. Dragon thereby gained a Time Walk. The effect of this was that Tog couldn't play the draw spells it needs to draw more countermagic. Therefore, its game plan was constrained and its viable options dwindled with each turn, while Dragon's game plan grew stronger. By dictating the terms of the game, Dragon won.

Smmenen

i'd have to disagree with that. I do think HE should include it, and it is an amazing/br0ken card but calling yawgmoths will an auto include is a bit far. as of late many decks running black thrive off the graveyard. Dragon wouldnt use it, almost any deck running skeletal scrying wouldnt use it, back in the day i'd say yeah but i dont know if thats the case anymore. just mho.

i can be a moron all by myself thank you very much

i am mimicing no one.

ok i guess you guys dont realize the ultimate power of this deck yet. Thats fine, you can call it lame/unoriginal/plural/thirsty or whatever but none of that matters now because Rat-tat-too-ey 2.0 is here.(With Sideboard!) Yes I know its been a long wait but its finally here. Due to the metagame in my area I have adjusted the deck a little. As always feel free to copy this deck.

 Rat-tat-too-ey v2.0
30 Black Lotus
29 Relentless Rats
1 Oxidize

Sideboard
10 Relentless Rats
1 Sirocco
1 Jesters cap
1 Windseeker Centaur
1 Shrink
1 Echoing Truth <---against oath you target your own creature and they ALL go back to your hand...I know, I know, this tek is too hot for tv but I felt it had to be unleashed.

This is THE deck. I dont know if you're ready for this savage peice of tek. It brings a time honored classic back into the limelight. Some say its tooo powerful for type 1 and i say to them who cares??

I've done much playtesting and I think I can officially say this deck r0xxers and/or r0xxxxeRRss, and one extreme school of thought would even say it rr00xxeerrss. I dont know about that. anyway, without further ado your new type 1 juggernaut of unstopable beatination:

Rat-tat-too-ey

30 Black Lotus
30 Plague Rats

I know your all wondering about the match-ups...well here you go.

Im only going to address the 2 decks I feel are even close to the skill level of this deck. White weenie and channel/fireball.

Vs. White weenie
well there is no removal in this deck so a quick white night by your opponent/white mage/little brother can be devastating. My advice? slap the night off the table and never admit to seeing the card come into play.

Vs. Channel Fireball
well i've won every game against this arch-type but Its possible that is has something to do with the fact that the last 3 people who successfully channel fireballed me left with a can of soda emptied all over their deck. Hmm....nah rats is just too strong.

I guess Ill put this last match up here but i think it has no meaning in the current metagame.

This guy i faced at a tournament last week play a first turn mishras workshop and then he slaps down this peice of type 2 jank the likes of which ive never seen....Trinisphere...what a dumb card, anyway like i said this match up basically doesnt count because no one plays with either of these peices of crap....seriously. I dont even look at cards that were printed after 1999.

I know everyone here is going to be net decking this badboy so just make sure you give me the credit whenever you win a game. You should also send me $2.75 too....cause....you should. yeah.

nonono bro its totally cool, im always on the defensive with these skill intensive message board because people are always way too quick to flame an unsuspecting n00b. you know what i mean. sorry i acted like a dick man, no hard feelings.

i really have no idea how stifle works of eggs, i mean i've only encountered it once in my life so i dunno. doesnt make much difference to me. cest la vie

well i wouldn't say my deck is a copy of yours considering I've had versions of it since before future sight even came out...

well, there already is 4 helm of awakenings so i guess im one step ahead of you.  

nice to meet you too sorta, nick. heh. anyway the place was in poughkeepsie, its called champions sports cards. check out: http://www.championcard.com/


and to everyone else, that sux. i never knew that. thats why i love message boards. now im gonna go slap that kid in the face.

my bad, it was 5 rounds swiss then cut to top 8.

disburden: my name is jack skirianos, ive never heard of you though. heh. i live like 2 minutes away from the carmel/mahopac border. do you joe fagnoni? or mike bailey? they live in carmel. i dunno.

PipOC: the draw a card ability was countered.

Ifflejink: I chose it because i hate counting spells and this deck isnt an automatic loss to 3sphere and other stax goodies.

moxlotus: I played so many stax games I musta mixed them up. heh. I drew game three against one of them....

Disburden: You live in carmel??? whats your name? and thanx for the comments. and yes i do have trouble with fow's

this report may not be the most educational one but its definently got and interesting story.

Ok well first off I had the decklist and round by round plays but then I hit submit and the whole thing went away. I was pissed....

ok So Theres this local type 1 tournament I went to. 4 rounds swiss, cut to top 8 and winner gets a box. not too crazy.

So I come in with this weird combo deck. Its not that great but fun as hell.

so here it is:

I'm so Egg-cited or Eggcellent

Mana
4 Islands
1 Volcanic
1 Underground Sea
1 Badlands
1 Polluted Delta
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Minamo, School at waters edge.
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Diamond
1 Lotus Pedal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana vault
1 Lotus Pedal
1 Sol Ring

combo
2 Power Artifact
1 Grim Monolith
1 Kaerveks Torch
1 Stroke of Genius

Engine
4 Helm Of Awakening
4 Skycloud Egg
4 Darwater Egg
2 Shadowblood Egg
3 Vedalken Archmage <---wtf!?! oh yes.

Draw 7/Tutalage
1 Wheel Of Fortune
1 Time Twister
1 Windfall
1 Memory Jar
1 Time Spiral <---don't laugh. ok you can if u want.
1 Demonic
1 Vampric
1 Mystical
1 Tinker

Misc. br00ken & Utility
4 Force of Will
1 Yawgmoths will
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral
1 Hurkyls Recall

Ok this is sub-par but it is seriously fun to play.
Nothing like the look on someones face when I play an egg they are always like what??? Then I play 3 more and draw a card of each drop 2 more, so on and so forth. but it gets really crazy
when I have vedalken out cause each egg gets me two cards. I get um comin and goin. plus theirs nothing like: mox, draw a card, mox, draw a card, lotus, draw a card. Its great. I mean you love playing
lotus and moxen why not draw a card while youre at it.

anyway.

heres the part where i would list each round match by match but like i said i just did that befiore and it got erased so I really dont feel like retyping all that shit. so heres some highlights:

overview:
Swiss Round 1: B/R Void.
Swiss Round 2: n00b: Precon.
Swiss Round 3: Stax
Swiss Round 4: Stax again
Top 8 Round 1: Stax AGAIN!
Top 8 Round 2: Oath? 4cc? Tog? I dunno.
Top 8 Round 3: Mono blue (cringe)
Top 8 Round 4: STAX AGAIN!!!!!

Swiss Round 1: B/R Void
     Nothing interesting. he did bolt my vedalken first game. other than that I tore thru him.

Swiss Round 2: n00b precon
     1st game: he brought out battle mad ronin. I scooped
     2nd game: I woke up from a horrible nightmare in which I scooped to a noob with a pre constructed deck. I then procceded to win the game and thus the match (did u really think I scooped?)

Swiss Round 3: Stax
     1st game: Mishras Workshop + Trinisphere + first turn = game.
     2nd Game: I win
     3rd game: he brings out trinisphere but i already had grim monolinth out.
               I go draw wheel, use it, get power artifact hook it up to the grim, and go on to win he game. Infinite mana = trinisphere sux.

Swiss Round 4: Stax
     1st game: I destroyed him.
     2nd game: he sides in REB and whacks my vedalkens. I still won.
     3rd game: draw

Top8 Round 1: Stax
     1st game: Trinisphere + tanglewire = "youre head a splode"
     2nd & 3rd game: I win.

Top8 Round 2: Oath? 4cc? Tog?
     I never saw his actual deck.
     1st game: I burn myself to death + mana crypt twice.
     2nd game: Quick start. I drop my whole hand then wheel of fortune.
                I go to play vedalken.
                He force of wills it.
      I force back.
      He forces back.
      I forced back.
      He misdirections it. (doh!)
               Next turn I topdeck a timetwister. game.
     3rd game: 2nd turn he stifles my egg sacrifice. turn over.
               He goes drops chalice for 1 (no more eggs!)
               I go. wheel of fortune. then i time walk and HARD CAST a kaerveks for 20. with tolarian and minamo. He tries to say chalice counters kaerveks because the x dosnt count as far as chalice is concerned they look it up on-line and then inform him he is wrong(as far as the rules of magic are concerned) (u think i need my eggs? I don' need no stinkin eggs.)

Top8 Round 3: Mono Blue
     1st game: I combo out FIRST TURN. (no force of wills.)
     2nd game: 4 turns in all hes done is drop islands I then combo out taking a chance he had no counters because lets face it the longer i wait the more counters he'll have and i figured its better than scooping. I torch him for 7,000,801 he misdirections it back to me. N!ce.
     3rd game: I win.

Top8 Round 4: Stax
     nothing intresting.

So basically thats how I won the box. I was the luckiest son of a bitch ever but its all good.

*Eggz r0xxxxerzz
**Vedalken Archmage is your Daddy.
***and for anyone that thinks they should net deck this: dont. its not worth your time.