It was a pretty fun tournament, and the new venue kicks the crap out of Sports Zone.  I only wish the turnout had been better, we were only 2 players short for another Swiss round.  We weren't sure if it was gas prices or the Burlington PTQ that kept people away.  Oh well.

Big props to Zherbus for making the epic trek up, especially since he was so tired he lost a game due to thinking he'd Time Walked, when in fact he had forgotten to

Big slops to any locals that didn't make it, and to P for showing up but not playing.  A pox on all of you.

And props to Wiley, the unassuming fellow who quietly Zombie Tokened the big win.

I know you have said that you don't care for Timetwister and would most often prefer a merchant scroll, etc.  Have you considered it in the sideboard though? 
My reasoning is that in many matchups it can be a dual answer AND threat.  Against Ichorid for example, it often functions as 1-2 time walks as they have to refill their graveyard from scratch, and if you can cast it turn one after they have mulliganed and Serum powdered to find Bazaar, possibly giving them a non keepable hand you will have all the time in the world.
Secondly, against aggro or prison builds, your opponent drawing 7 cards (not named force of will) won't necessarily hurt you, and can give you the fuel to go off (and maybe accidentally kill a Grunt or something while you're at it). 

Maybe I'm just partial to the art, but I think Timetwister is a really strong card right now, and this deck seems like a good fit for it, at least in the side.

I will be up from Cincinnati, and anyone in the area is welcome to ride with me.  can't believe I missed the one this past weekend, what a dope I am.

since paypal blows for refunds, the best way to get your money back is to call your credit card company to stop payment.  If you used direct bank transfer, you are probably S.O.L. if the seller doesn't agree to a refund.  But credit card will be no questions asked, because they are seriously anti-fraud.

I definitely plan to show up for the MD tourneys, but i was hoping for somewhere local I can play for a couple hours after work.  And somewhere to draft/etc.

Hello all,
 I recently moved to Cincinnati and have no clue where Magic is played in this town.  I know it must be somewhere, there are 2 million freakin people here.  Any suggestions?  I primarily play Type I but dabble in Legacy and WoW TCG.  I could drive up to Columbus to get roughed up by Meandeck, but i think it would be about 2 hours each way.  If anyone can help, please reply to the thread or PM me or email ajobrien223AThotmailDOTcom.  thanks in advance for your help and snarky comments,

AJOB

I will note that edicts are better than smother if for no other reason than they kill Colossi and Simic Swallowers (which were fairly prevalent at roanoke).

Frantic search is surprisingly good when you are "going off" because you can filter through extra lands, etc. for gas, and worst case you can get two black mana from one U sea.  In a pinch it can help you dig for a counter, or filter colorless mana into blue. 

I have also tested this deck with Cody for months, and found it just about impossible to cut down to 60 cards.  I think it would require replacing the Int/AK enigine, and we haven't found anything suitable for this. 

Since one of the goals of this deck is to use green instead of red, lava dart is not the way to go.  Why not include your own darkblast, since you are running black anyway.  Dblast answers everything that dart does, and is probably pretty strong in a gifts pile since you can have it either way your opponent splits.  

A one-of animate dead or corpse dance might be pretty good also, allowing you to ditch the doll with thirst, then reanimate it (and corpse dance gives it haste).  

White could also allow you to run orim's chant as protection.

Doesn't chalice at 1 nuke almost all of your threats?  As does pyroclasm?

It seems like combo will quickly outrace you and Stax will lock you right out of the game turn by 1-2. 

Also, rack and ruin is going to be better than Pillage most of the time. 

While I really like the idea of a Vintage slivers deck, i really don't think it can be done at a level that would be competitive in any decent meta.  Mostly because of reasons stated above, like Fish and SS doing the same basic thing for less mana and with more disruption and cardadvantage. 

That being said, I think that a Legacy build could be roxxors.  Muscle slivers make your guys too big to pyroclasm or attack through with gobbos, crystal/hibernation make them immune to StPs, and you can probably play rootmaze + chalice + stifle to get around combo.  You would only lose time walk/ancestral and would have to change your mana.

I am still waiting to see what cards they print that remove (or reduce) time counters on suspend spells (like Clockspinning).  If there is a card like the Medallions that reduces the # of time counters, This could be decent, but probably still not good enough for combo.

@Liam-K: I would think two for one Sphere of resistance and smokestacks are both pretty good.  but two for one Sundering titan (which does cost a mess of mana, i know) would probably be gg.  even just playing cards that aren't necessarily good in duplicate like Uba or Crucible would be good to protect vs. artifact destruction.  Or possibly Jester's cap?

This guy could be good in a bazaar/welder/reanimator deck (think Cerebral Assasin) with more lock components maybe.

I think a combo-oriented oath build with this guy sounds intriguing.  You can thoretically win unopposed the turn he comes into play, as opposed to 1-2 turns after akroma does.  Not to mention the fairly obvious "he pitches to force" observation. 

Another advantage to Psionic Blast is that if you go the tendrils route, Blasting your opponent is essentially 3 storm counts (in terms of lethality).  

Although it is red, Shrapnel blast could be an option also, for the reason above and that it also gives you an extra mox to play out of a Will later.  

Also off-color, but i don't think smother is a bad card to be running these days.  it takes care of most everything you would care about other than big artifact monsters and angels (kills grunt, welder, confidant, x-bees, cutpurse, meddlers, etc.)

Not to junk up the otherwise serious thread, but wasn't this an episode of Seinfeld?  Jerry can't remember a joke he wrote for Leno because Lupe threw it away.  Sorry, i know that is a big headache for Knut, but I do find it kind of funny.

I also played against a Rector deck. 

It was a really fun tournament, I hope we can get a few more players in for the next one.  I particularly appreciated Cullen and Hill making it, I know that it was a long drive. 

I may do a mini-report and discuss my latest list if I find time.  My first game versus Cullen was pretty ridiculous. 

Mono Blue that can't run Back to Basics = sad panda. 

You defintiely should be running Brainstorm + fetch, which should also be enough mana fixing to run Mana Drain.

Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond are probably not good enough to run, those should probably be the Tormods/Needle slots. 

What do you bring Spell Snare in for?  Should that be Rune Snag or Annul?

On the plus side you can Stifle the life loss.  But who cares?  Any card that draws multiple cards is worth a glance, but I can't imagine a deck that plays enough black mana to make this worthwhile being able to survive long enough to draw or use the cards drawn.

That being said, it seems like a very good card in Standard, when games last 20 turns anyways.  And life gain is actually relavent and viable in type 2.  Probably too slow for Extended also.

And yes, this card is probably worse than greed.  Better than Oath of Lim-Dul though.

In a must-counter situation (Will, Tinker, etc.) Rune snag could be a good intuition target, making it a (virtual) hard counter. 
And while I don't know if it would be a feasible deck, maybe a "control" version of Ichorid could use these? 

And while it is certainly tier 3 or worse, UG Madness can probably use this card, especially if they are using Life from the Loam.

Overall, probably equivalent or better then Mana Leak.  Defintiely a stong counter in formats not named vintage.

I think the decision to turn one duress also largely depends on what the metagame is.  If you are somewhere with a ton of Stax (Chicago, we are looking at you) you may need to duress first turn just to eliminate the chance of getting Chalice/sphered out before you can get anything going, especially with a one-land hand. 
However, if you are playing in the NE and every match is gifts or slaver, you want to save the duress to clear the way for going off.
Also, like Steve said, knowing your opponent and reading your opponent can go a long way in determining what you need to worry about.

I certainly see the value of chain of vapor, I didn't mean to question its inclusion.  I was more referring to the relative ease of someone dropping chalice=0 and chalice=1 and you have no real outs short of casting both cabals with threshold to build mana/storm (slight exaggeration, i know).  But in any event, in my build i run 2 out of 3 of: chain, hurkyl's, and/or rebuild to minimize my exposure to chalices.  I also realize that it may depend at least in part to the expected meta.

Steve, I noticed that you ran a MD Hurkyl's on Sat. but not on Sun., replacing it with a chain of vapor.  What was the reason for this change?  Doesn't that dramatically increase the damage done by a chalice for 1? 
Have you run into any problems where you wished an underground sea was the 4th gemstone mine?

Just for clarity's sake, are these lists from Richmond or Rochester?  The title of the thread says Richmond.  

And as for list #2 losing games because it was a mix of 5c and Uba, that doesn't necessarily make the deck weaker as I have gotten 8th and 19th in SCGP9 events with 5cUba (ScUba Stax).  I don't necessarily agree with all of his card choices, but the deck didn't lose just because it was 5c.  I imagine it lost because it ran Tendo over City of Brass.  This is further demonstrated by list #3 doing much better.  

and in my testing, Uba is not really as critical as many claim it to be, so running fewer than 4 makes sense to me.  You also have to consider that there are 3 tutors that can go find an Uba when it would be useful.  Running fewer than 4 Crucibles is much more foolish in my mind.  

With a ton of discard stuff, and Chains preventing your opponent from ever really growing his hand, would The Rack be good here?  One colorless mana, independent of blockers, etc. dealing damage could be good.  Someone mentioned that a flipped shortfang is gg, the Rack seems like a means to the same end. 

I think that waterfront bouncer may be a decent option in the deck, as it puts cards in the graveyard and answers DSC/Oath critters.  Maybe a 2-of?
No basic lands makes the baby jesus cry.  However, you could correct for that by running life from the loam, which is also a strong threshold enabler (and you can recur your strips).  Just a couple suggestions.

I came to the same conclusion about Uba Mask before Richmond, and thus chose to run this list:
http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=16527

The problem with the card (Uba) is that while it is quite degenerate in conjunction with Bazaar, it really isn't much of a lock component on its own.  It is not useful in multiples, except for one in play and one in the yard with active welder.  And in some instances (against combo for example) it is actually a really bad card to play, since it can turn brainstorms into ancestrals.  Also, it is more or less useless against other Stax since they will likely be able to play whatever they reveal anyway (and may be playing Bazaar of their own).  I feel that typically, welding the Mask in and out to steal a draw is less effective than welding smokestacks, tangle wires, triskelions, etc. and locking out their board instead of their hand (personal opinion).  Since the bazaar is good on it own (in conjunction with welders and crucible especially) i run three but only one mask.  And as i run 3 tutors to find it if necessary (and I am trying to fit Imp Seal and/or enlightened), it really isn't a problem getting it if I really need it.    That's my 2^9/10 cents.

Didn't wizards do some sort of buyback deal when time spiral, etc. were banned in Urza-era type II?  maybe we can mail our vaults in to wizards for fat checks? 
Seriously, this was totally a bitch move that "rules cleaning up" aside, adds no value whatesoever to any format.  I don't think it is reasonable to ruin a card because the rules can be messy.  That is why it is so hard to level up as a DCI judge - they have to know rules inside and out.  I am fairly certain that al;most all L2 judges and higher know about this card interaction and can rule on it correctly - so why the hell do we need to "fix" the rules on it? 
And as stated previously, this is funtionally a banning on the card as it will pretty much never be used again in any format.  But Wizard's official policy on bannings is stated that bannings are reserved for cards that seriously distort a format or environment.  Which format is that distorting exactly?  BM Gifts can just swap back to sev/belch no problem.  I don't follow legacy too closely, but i don't think it was running away with that format either.  They should have at least made this announcement when ravnica came out and saved a lot of people a lot of money.  This is indirectly a direct opposition to their reprint policy. 
Respecting the cards as an investment my ass. 
from the official reprint policy (sic in BOLD):
"Primary to the value of purchasing Magic cards is the concept that each card will maintain a reasonable value over time. Because we're sensitive to this issue and to the ramifications of nuking cards too soon or too often, we try to make decisions that won't negatively affect card collectability over time and that will enhance the value of cards you purchase.

To maintain your confidence in the Magic game as a collectible, we've created this Magic: The Gathering card nuking policy. "

Errata should not be used as an underhanded way to ban cards and destroy their value.
jerks.

If the only real argument against this card is that the new basic land will come into play untapped, then play root maze/orb of dreams with it.  This card looks really good to me.  I don't know that it can completely replace wastelands, but i think it definitely merits testing.  This also makes crucible + fastbond + strip only require one restricted card instead of 2.   

I don't think this card is playable in any competitive deck, but it could be pretty fun in some kind of cloudstone curio/kobold deck maybe?  Or maybe an aluren deck?  Not good in any case, the draw should be free.