dang i want to go to this but i don't have lodging or a good way to get from stratford's rail station to the venue (i live in nyc and can take the metro north to stratford, but after that it's a little bit of a trek).

sad, i wanted to meet more east coast vintagers

My Spellground Void mat has kept its art fairly well over the years; it's a bit faded but the ink is definitely soaked in. You can get them from most gaming shops, or from Khalsa Brain Games online directly. You could also just go to ebay and get some of those blank playmats that are made of the mousepad-like substance - don't know how much it bothers artists to have to draw on that, but they're certainly quite nice.

Roxas hooked me up with an account yesterday, Eastern Sun is totally sweet.

I'm gonna install it tonight. Do I need to be a goon to hop on the realm, or does that matter?

As far as I know, you have to make it uncounterable before the reveal. Once the trigger resolves and the reveal happens, the countering can't be responded to because it's all part of resolving the trigger and neither player gets priority until resolution is done.

Congrats on the split and thanks for writing great tournament reports, web and fob. I miss Eudo; maybe I'll try and make it back to the left coast for the LoA/AR weekend .

"Although, they're doing exactly what Chris Pikula said they should do. Ban everything until Necro is good again...then ban Necro and you're done!"

One of many timeless classic quotes from the Davis/Maher PT: Chicago 1999 finals coverage

*1337jon on USEast

currently a lvl 71 meteor/orb sorc with some other characters in the pipeline

congratulations on yet another win, web...although c'mon now, a pity party for winning despite never going off with fastbond or getting a turn 1 kill? oh darn

did luis and jeff show up too or were you flying solo?

Don't preregister me yet, Eric, but I'll do my best to make this one. Gotta figure out work schedule and stuff. It should be fun, though!

Wish I coulda gone but just couldn't find a way. Good luck all!

Ah, so Zherbus is now officially the red-headed step-child of the Vintage community

I liked the article. Even handed but still took the DCI to task where there were perceived failings.

So what's the plan, guys? I'm about 90% sure I can make it, but I need a place to stay. Stefan, is your little "GGs compound" full?

EDIT: internet would be nice. Dunno if Red Roof does that, but it'd be nice. Also, if anyone could tell me what the easiest way to get to Enfield from Manhattan is without a car, I'd be much obliged.

Of course they'll never admit if they weren't planning on writing anything further if there wasn't such a big outcry so quickly about the slap in the face the Vintage community received. But think about it this way - if this is all the effort they put into the initial "explanation" after having had an entire week to work on an article and after having (presumably) discussed all of these restrictions at length for a period of time before June 2 and having had good reasons for restricting all of these cards, is it really reasonable to think that they were just putting things off so they could do an extra good job for us later? This is the internet. It's not like it's a hard copy magazine where there are space constraints (although apparently it is, because the biggest changes to the game since the new card face and MaRo's explanation didn't even last on the main page for an entire week), or that you have to have the entire thing shipped off to the "publisher" (webmaster) by a certain due date for it to make it onto the website at all. And given that the "article" in question would have taken the average person approximately five seconds to write and there were at least four days between announcement and article publication, it's not like WotC "didn't have time" to assign that column or that the writer "didn't have time" to write it. It's never been a problem before. Why is it a problem now? They certainly didn't have any problems finishing a humongous article about why Standard is awesome and Shadowmoor doesn't suck, and therefore nothing needed to be done there. Would it really have killed them to spend even twenty minutes writing 500-700 words about FIVE RESTRICTIONS? I don't know if anyone realizes this, but we got 124 words. 96 hours between announcement and publication and presumably at least 48 between announcement and submission deadline, and we got 124 words. That's just amazing. Fifth graders write more than that in their daily journals.

Whether the problem was that they didn't assign it to anyone in a timely fashion, or that Mike Turian didn't know the details of the restrictions but was assigned to write the article anyway, or that they didn't think that it'd be such a big deal, or whatever reason, none of it is legitimate - not only have all of these problems been avoided or superbly dealt with in the past, but any reason I can think of for such a half-assed job also shows a distinct lack of respect for the Vintage community with respect to the biggest format changes in eight-plus years.

I call BS. And I don't mean Brainstorm.

None of this is meant to be a stab at Mike Turian. I understand that there were likely factors beyond his control and that he were probably just the messenger of a poorly-planned assignment. But until we see who was really responsible for this whole fiasco, he's the only person whose name we have, and in that sense I feel bad for him - because he's being nailed to the cross unfairly and it probably wasn't his fault in the slightest that WotC decided to blow the community off.  Of course, that's probably another thing we'll never get the whole story to, although I sincerely hope I'm wrong and that full disclosure (and I mean FULL disclosure) happens in next week's article. But on that front, I'm really not holding my breath.

A few days removed from the initial shock, I'm in agreement that the sky isn't falling and Vintage isn't dead, but I still take severe issues with the fact that they went and restricted five cards at the same time after feeding us the line time and time again that they wanted Vintage to change gradually, that they'd deal with problem cards and archetypes as they arose and make small changes and wait to see how they affected the format before proceeding further. I think we're all in agreement that this was not a small change. It's probably true that Flash should have been restricted (if Trinisphere deserves its place, so does Flash), that Scroll probably had to go, and that Gush never should have been unrestricted (I certainly was crying about the sky falling when that card was unrestricted, and all in all I'm glad it's back on the list). I also think it's not really much of an argument that Brainstorm was probably too powerful for its cost and that there was at least a very good argument for its restriction, even if I don't like the decision to restrict it. Ponder still really gets my goat, but let's leave that aside for now. But all that considered, I still firmly believe that all five at the same time was not the right way to go about it. In fact, I think that including Ponder on that list is almost proof positive of what others have been speculating about - a sort of 'up yours' to blue as a color in Vintage. I have a hard time believing that Ponder is anywhere near the power level of the other four and deserves to be on the restricted list. Which is not to say that it isn't replaceable - it probably is - but it reminds me of the DCI banning Ancient Den in Standard along with the other artifact lands - just to make a point, more than anything, and I still don't think that's a valid reason to ban or restrict a card.

On a more general level, I'm opposed to using the B&R list to merely 'shake formats up'. In fact, I think that's exactly the kind of policy that Eternal players should be unanimous in opposing. Unpredictable and arbitrary changes to the list destroy player expectations about what is and isn't too powerful and what should be allowed to run amok in any given format. It's long been my belief that change, while not necessarily a bad thing, isn't necessarily a good thing either. Today it's Brainstorm and Ponder. Tomorrow it may be Workshop/Ancient Tomb/City of Traitors, or Bazaar and Dread Return, or Dark Ritual and Cabal Ritual, or Sphere of Resistance and Thorn of Amethyst, or any of a number of excellent cards that are widely considered to be extremely powerful and are widespread in use. Using the B&R list to 'shake things up' for no reason destroys player expectations about what will be allowed to live and what won't. You could argue that none of the above will happen, but after Brainstorm and PONDER? Really? Do you know that? Do you know anyone prior to Monday who would have said that Ponder was too good to allow as a 4-of, or that they saw that one coming?

All in all, I think that they majorly screwed up when they unrestricted Gush (Psychatog? Really?), and then way overcompensated in the other direction on Monday by restriction-hammering the five cards they did. It may all turn out for the best, and I'm hoping it will, but I'm also hoping that they'll return to their minimalist approach to the Vintage B&R list after this massacre. True, that probably means I'll never get Brainstorm or Ponder back, but at least I'll be able to develop expectations about the power level of cards allowed to run free in the format again.

4 Ponder, 1 Brainstorm is nowhere near the equivalent of 4 Brainstorm, 1 Ponder. They are fundamentally different cards, and Ponder is nowhere near as abusable as Brainstorm was. You could make an argument for Brainstorm being a conditional Ancestral Recall in tandem with a fetch, which arguably makes it too strong to stay; you can't say anywhere close to the same for Ponder.

You clearly haven't been paying much attention, because a lot of people have stated their desire for Trinisphere to come off the B/R list because the "unfun" rationale given wasn't enough and everyone knows it.

I was on the fence about attending this but now I'm going to try my hardest.

After the format gets murdered on the 20th, I guess I'll be playing lots more Extended and Standard. Or just quitting entirely.

HOLY MOTHER OF...

Can't say anything other than "wow".

stefan convinced me to go. it's my first NE tournament so i'm looking forward to meeting you all!

Congrats, Web, on yet another great finish. Good to see Norcal Vintage going strong! Wish I could be back in NorCal to partake

Oh, and because Albert rudely failed to do so, I will be the first on this thread to compliment you on your "godlike clairvoyance." And really, dying of laughter isn't such a bad way to go...

mr. ye has notified me that we should be able to make it back to boston in time for my commitments that evening, so count me in as well.

This tournament was tons of fun. Great seeing everyone again and cube drafting afterward at Denny's, quite an experience to say the least. Also, LotusHead is savage at topdecking Academy right in the nick of time...nice Energy Flux, sir, I'll just pay for it in the future with a freshly-topdecked Academy and this nice Gilded Lotus over here! And also, bash your face in. (Using it to activate Memnarch on DSC was also not terrible).

I was clearly out of practice in T1 and not comfortable with GAT, and I had an uncanny knack for drawing two lands on just about every Gush I cast today (in one game I went Brainstorm-fetch-Brainstorm-fetch-Ponder-fetch-Gush with a Fastbond in play and ended up passing the turn with five lands out and a Force of Will in my otherwise-worthless hand), but it was still a blast. Good times and many props to Who's On 1st for putting up a minty Workshop even though the turnout was disappointing.

Finally, though I didn't think my four-creature cube draft deck would work out, apparently it was the nuts. So at least the day wasn't a total disaster

Only in Vintage do 'threats' and 'win conditions' mean such wildly different things   

I'm putting it together now, looks interesting!

I mean, the card has been changed on the spoiler from Sorcery to Instant, apparently reflecting a foreign scan that they got ahold of, so the point is moot. As an instant, it's certainly better than Opt.

Scroll wasn't even much of a problem until Gifts was restricted, Flash was unerrataed, and Gush was unrestricted - sure, it was a key part of MDG-style decks, but those were hardly unfair to the extent that GAT and Flash are. Scroll is certainly a powerful card, but the best plays with that card absent Gush and Flash are plays that we already know to be somewhat fair - Scroll for AR and Scroll for pitch magic are known quantities that haven't shown themselves to be overly degenerate in the few years that we've gotten to know them.

In short, I think Scroll is certainly very powerful, but not abusive enough to be restricted. I think a valid comparison is to liken Scroll to Brainstorm, in that both help the decks they're in for the purposes of consistency and flexibility, but are not overly powerful. I mean, you could even call a lot of the decks in question Brainstorm decks, because all of them play 4x Brainstorm without question or hesitation...but that doesn't mean anything in the abstract.

Flash and Gush, on the other hand, are just flat-out stupid, and I would support restricting both without hesitation (though Becker does bring up an intriguing alternative, restricting Flash but not Gush, so we could see that dynamic play out...would be interesting).

Hey folks, so I drafted 10th Edition yesterday and I ended up with a pretty solid base of U/R cards, but I just couldn't make the last cut to 40 (I played 41 and was iffy about it). I raredrafted a Battlefield Forge and a Troll Ascetic, meaning I had to miss out on a Sift and some other mediocre (but playable!) blue card, or the situation would've been worse . Here's the pool of relevant cards:

1 Merfolk Looter
1 Sage Owl
1 Flamewave Invoker
1 Bogardan Firefiend
1 Wall of Air
2 Snapping Drake
1 Thieving Magpie
1 Furnace Whelp (foily!)
2 Thundering Giant
2 Sea Monster

2 Unsummon
2 Shock
1 Spitting Earth
1 Persuasion
2 Uncontrollable Anger
1 Dehydration
1 Boomerang
1 Counsel of the Soratami
1 Flowstone Slide

25 cards I want to play, 23 slots. I basically just ended up cutting one Uncontrollable Anger and running with 41 cards - 24 spells, 9 Island, 8 Mountain.

I know Uncontrollable Anger looks like the easy cut here, but it was really good for me almost every time I drew it - it lets me punch through spiders, have a somewhat unexpected (and large, and permanent) combat trick to kill a key blocker, and so forth. I wanted the second one really badly but didn't want to go to 42. The one in my deck won me quite a few games attached to a Snapping Drake. Another card I wanted to cut was Dehydration, but I desperately needed an answer to the billions of wurms I saw going by.

So...what would you do?!

(by the way, I 3-0d)

I remember something on mtg.com talking about how Martyr of Sands was printed as a way to gauge how good life gain had to be before it saw serious tournament play. Judging by Martyer/Proclamation, I think they got their answer.

That's not really true; though the white weenies are the centerpieces of the aggro decks, the control decks play white purely because of Wrath of God, and to a lesser extent Faith's Fetters. Now that Damnation is around, a lot of the decks that play white for Wrath would be better off playing black; for example, I don't see any reason to play U/W Control now that black has a Wrath of God. You can basically straight swap Wrath for Damnation, Fountains for Graves, and UGRs for Adarkar Wastes, and end up with essentially an equivalent deck in better colors.

No doubt that Savannah Lions and their ilk will continue to be important parts of the metagame, but I really don't buy the argument that white is a primary component of any control deck in the current format. White could only be considered a major component because it had Wrath; now that black has co-opted that, there's very little reason to play White. The only white deck I can think of that didn't play white for Wrath are Glare and Boros, both aggro decks that don't want Wrath anywhere near their 75 (that includes across the table).

I liken it much to Gifts control, pre-Saviors and post-Saviors. Pre-Saviors, white was an extremely integral part of the Gifts deck - it provided the Ethereal Haze lock and Final Judgment to deal with Kodama of the North Tree. Then Saviors happened, Kagemaro was printed, and poof - the white was gone, because it no longer needed Final Judgment.

Of course, when we see the rest of Planar Chaos, we'll see exactly what shenanigans white will co-opt to replace its 'loss' of Wrath - and all of that ridiculousness might be reason enough to continue playing white. I'm definitely not selling my Wraths yet - I'm just saying that if Damnation was in the core set over Wrath right now, none of the white control decks would be playing white.

EDIT: heh, "Darkness" is not the new Wrath.

So you expect to go t1 guy, t2 guy, t3 guy, t4 time walk, and not be disrupted in the meantime? You can't even do that because you need to spend one of t2 or t3 playing a Bad Moon to pump your guys because you aren't actually guaranteed a free turn. God forbid they Leak your Bad Moon or your 2/3-drop critter. Not to mention that mono-black has absolutely no good reach spells, aside from Soul Spike. So what if he pays half his life if he's going to Wrath next turn? He could be at 1 with one counter in hand and feel perfectly safe because mono-black can't touch him. Realistically, you're looking at the following 'nut' draw:

T1: Swamp, Plagued Rusalka
T2: Swamp, 2-power 2-drop (Confidant, Jump Knight, etc.); swing for 1 (19)
T3: Swamp, Hypnotic Specter, swing for 3 (16)
T4: Swamp, Swing for 5 (11), play Temporal Distortion.
   a: You do not get your extra turn. Opponent is at 5, and takes his turn as normal.
   b: You get your extra turn. Opponent is at 11, and you attack him down to 6, unless you have Bad Moon.

Compare this to Boros' nut draw:
T1: Foundry, Lions
T2: Foundry, Lions, Rusalka, attack for 2 (18)
T3: Attack for 5 (13), Foundry, Char EOT (9)
T4: Attack for 5 (4), Char or Helix+Rusalka activations (0)

This card is terrible for the same reason that Browbeat is terrible - one mode is completely irrelevant pretty much all the time. Unless you get your opponent to 1 with this thing in your hand, and then proceed to resolve it, he always has a choice - and if you're banking on getting your opponent to 1 life, or halving his life from 2 to 1, then I question why you're not wrecking his hand and his ability to respond instead of trying to take an irrelevant extra turn. If you have your opponent in those dire straits, then he's not going to care about going from 2 to 1, or 3 to 1, or whatever - he's dead next turn anyway, and you're never going to get your Time Walk. The fact of the matter is that most of the time, it's going to go to the face as a burn spell, and unlike red decks, you can't take advantage of that choice by pointing more cheap burn at your opponent's face, nor can you even kill your opponent with that extra turn unless you draw a miracle hand with four Swamp, 1-drop, 2-drop, 3-drop, Distortion, Bad Moon. I don't think I have to tell you what happens if, god forbid, they stall you long enough to Wrath or (even worse) Wildfire - and unlike Boros, when that happens, you pack it in, because you can't win by going over the top, and odds are you're not going to get very much else to stick around.