QFT

The DCI provides unbiased judgments towards the game. Ultimately they keep the format from growing stagnant.

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Consider that we adopted a do it yourself restriction policy. Consider that we tweaked and jiggled the list and ended up with a meta that had multiple archetypes, fun to play with archetypes, and was ultimately balanced. How long would that last? Where do you go from there if it does last? Would people really be able to play in that environment for an undetermined amount of time? Keep in mind, this restricted list is the best we are able to come up with: it's ideal. So it's not going to be changed.

If we don't want to change it at all we end up relying solely on the newer cards printed in each set. A nice feature of having specific banned/restricted announcements is that they don't occur the same day a set comes out. The format can expect continual innovations even if they are minor.
Vintage is defined by cards created 15 years ago that have had a lasting impact. The format should tailor itself to staying focused around them. Not to say it won't--it's just vintage should not be thought as a format frozen in utopia waiting for the next set to see if it will last. Let the DCI shake it up and see what happens. If it is truly terrible it can be changed back. 

~~~

A casual format played with a few friends can follow house rules i.e. buddies playing vintage. Tournament environment formats such as vintage need strict rules laid out that everyone can adhere to. Vintage isn't just casual, it's competitive. Finally, is it really realistic to say we can change the list while remaining unbiased?

With all that said, I still believe the biggest issue is realistic expectations. This change will never work, not on paper, nor in real life. This fact, in the practical sense, doesn't take a vintage mind to realize; so it's that much more difficult for one to argue in favor of giving up the list.

WTF?
I mean seriously...

@ jdizzle

Where I do tourneys in nor cal, the to's collect the deck registration sheets about 5 minutes before the game play starts. I believe it would be really easy to just have people pay the $20 or whatever price up front, then give the to's the extra few bucks they need for proxies. If a player knows he needs them, it is a simple enough matter break a five dollar bill before hand. The honor system would work perfectly

The same logic could be applied to larger tourneys. And, if people are dishonest, the random deck checks will do the trick.
a.) that person pays the extra money
b.) he or she is give appropriate punishment

Before you post, please read my post 4 above yours that says basically everything you just said.

How do you figure it costs them $1000 to run the tourny. My local regionals cost the rent of a room(much smaller room for scg) and the pay of 4 judges.

It is another point that star city is effectively selling a set of power 9 at each tournament, for full price. They can effectively start a cycle, buying power 9 for cheap, then selling it back for over a grand in profit at the next tournament, not to mention online.

Keep in mind, that if scg has 125 players per tournament, making $3750, they are making a huge profit.This can also be seen by the fact that scg recently added a booster box worth of italian legends to the prize structure. Starcitygames buys power 9 for much less then the average person, power 9 might cost scg roughly $2000.

When it is all said and done, starcitygames makes much more than just a monetary profit from the prizes to cost ratio. Having 12-15 proxies allows for diversified decks, and since those proxies are for expensive cards, people still have to buy chepaer ones from starcity booths. Starcity also buys cards on hand at the tournaments iirc.

Not only do the scg tournaments help with public relations(as has been mentioned), but they help starcitygames online sales. By creating such a large, popular format for vintage, starcitygames sells many more cards online. Having premium memberships not only helps starcitygames because you have to pay money for it, but people have accounts already set up, and this makes it much easier to buy cards. Many of these cards made popular by scg tournaments.

My point is this. Many of the profits starcitygames receives aren't from the cash they make directly off tournaments. The profit comes from other areas.

Talk about hitting a bulls eye. This is a great point that hasn't really been addressed fully. If the format is allowed the full capacity to grow, then power value will never decrease, it will only increase. Trust me when I say this, the collectability of cards makes a huge difference. And if a format is a pt or gp, this factor will make a noticeable increase. Don't believe me. Here are a few things to consider.

1.) The fact that it is extremely difficult--and only done by a few players over a long period of time--to win back the amount of money spent on unlimited power 9, the cards are purchased for more than just being able to play with them. The cards have status, style, and collectability too.

2.) Look at the difference in price between black border and white border power. $1000 for unlimited, $2500 for alpha/beta black lotus. The price difference in moxen is ~$200. If the sole reason for buying power 9 was to be able to play with them, and make a profit from them, not only would unlimited power 9 be just about the cost of alpha/beta, but the price of power 9 would be back to were it was years ago.

3.) More than anything, the popularity of a format (type 1) is going to dictate the price of vintage cards. While it can be argued, and might be true on a smaller scale, that power 9/mana drain/workshops/bazaars will drop in value initially if 15+proxies are allowed, I believe the general resulting growth will greatly outweigh the impact on prices. Look at the format currently, and where it used to be. The format has grown greatly over the past couple years, even with 10 proxies allowed. The growth in power prices/vintage card prices is directly related to the popularity of the format.

As I have said before, power 9 etc. do not warant enough of an advantage to be able to win back the $3000 or $5000 spent on buying the power in the first place. (I know it can be done overtime, but simply put, winning money isn't the only reason to own power. Yes it makes your deck better, but it will not immediatley, and in many cases ever, justify spending thousands solely to win back thousands of dollars. Power 9/manadrains/expensive lands grow in price more than anything because of the growth of vintage. As long as increased proxies helps vintage grow, the price of power 9 will grow.

Currently, after reading many suggestions, I feel that 5 proxies, with a dollar a proxy thereafter, stopping at 12 total proxies. It allows for many archtypes to play, and still lets power 9 hold value--because a player still can't play every deck on 12 proxies, the format has the full potential to grow, and everytime a player wtih power 9 sees a proxy across the table from him, he not only knows that he has power and the other player doesn't, but doesn't feel like he wasted his money, because that player has to pay money to use the power cards.

I also feel that proxies should be set to a minimum of only cards $100 or greater in value after the first 5. This rewards power 9 owners, and doesn't let players "cheat" on the proxy rule, proxying cards they should very well buy.

I think increasing scg P9 events to unlimited proxies would have two possible results.

In a nutshell

Result A: type 1 becomes even more power and those astronomically high prices continue to rise even higher. Because collectability might even become a factor for power 9.

Result B: regardless of what direction unlimited proxiess sends the format in, the value in power drops because there is no purpose to having power, other than style. However, I do not think the prices would drop significantly, only a little.

I believe 12 proxies is the correct number for vintage for a couple of reasons.

1.) Players don't have to have access to every deck to play type 1 ( riddler, vroman stax). They just have to have access to the best deck. 10 proxies does not give a player access to the "best" decks, without forcing him to spend an amount of money significantly more than type 2 or even extended. Meandeck gifts, giftsungivien.dec, mana drain.dec, dragon, and workshop.dec are all unavailabe to many players in type 1. Players can managae to find the money to drop on duals, forces, etc. just like they do for kokushos and cranials in type 2, it's when you have to work so hard to get the duals and force of wills, and then you realize you are still down 2 cards that cost ~$200 to complete your deck that it gets really discouraging. Playing with a deck that is suboptimal will discourage many, many players from playing that deck.

2.) What purpose does 15 proxies serve that 12 doesn't? There is a huge, astronomical difference from 10 proxies to 12 proxies. Ask any good player if he would run control slaver on 5 moxen, a lotus, time walk, ancestral recall, and 2x mana drain. Not only is more play skill required to break even with a player who runs power and 4x mana drain, it is just plain demoralizing to play a suboptimal deck. There has to be a line though.The power 9 etc. do not have their value because of jaw-dropping, one of a kind art, because of their superior collectibility, or their status. Power 9 have a huge dollar value because they make a deck significantly better, so much better, that many people would pay hundreds more to make sure they have a 2 card advantage in a deck (2x mana drains vs 4x mana drains). And the reason this makes the power 9 worth $500 dollars a pop is because the assumption goes that your opponent won't have this significant advantage unless he shelled out big cash like you did.

For the format to really grow and power 9 to maintain value, every one must have access to manadrain.dec and workshop.dec, but nothing further. If a player wants to master riddler, he can win his power or be content with manadrain.dec. I don't want to get into how prices would fluctuate right now, but so long as the format continues to grow, and owning expensive cards provides and advantage (no matter how big or small--not too small), the price of power will continue to rise.   

....I know that.
I just haven't seen it played in a while, and smmenen reffered to meandeck gifts in his other forum as a new form of bbs. So I didn't know which one IMNION meant. So I'll wait until he posts again.

I'm assuming you mean variants on gifts ungiven--if you don't, my bad in advance.

Extract, tormod's crypt, phyrexian furnace, swords to plowshares (if you are running white for mages), rootwater thief. Those are the few i can think of off the top of my head.

I am really going to have to agree with dxFiler on this one guys. Vintage will never be an extremely succesful competitive environment until it is backed as a pro tour/grand prix format.

The reason type 1 seems to be loosing players is because you simply can not make a competitive format without a pt/gp prize structure (which will attracts crowds and crowds). Many of the vintage players play vintage for its casual and relaxed atmosphere. It is my opninion that these people don't mind the very competitive decks--like gifts and cs, it is the competitive atmosphere that is created by power tournaments that throws many of the casual players off.

People need to take a step back. There is no reason to play power tournaments for the prize--it's all about fun. Wait!? What the heck!? Theres no reason to want that prize--shade are you crazy!! No, I'm not. What I mean by saying this is that Type 1 power tournaments are not tournaments players should go to solely looking to walk away with power and nothing else.

Let's use an example. If there is a 50 player tournament that plays 5 rounds and cuts to top 8, with prizes like the y last power tournament I attended ( 1st: time walk, 2nd: 65 store credit, 3rd-4th: 35 store credit, 5th-8th: 20 store credit, there is no mathematical reason to support playing competitively, solely for the prize, unless you plan on finishing in 1st place. In the 6+ hours it takes you to play the tournament, you could have been simply working at California's minimum wage of 6.75 and made $40.5, which, at the end of the day, is what 48 players should have done--unless they are playing for sometheing more than money, like fun and a great atmosphere.

So what point am I trying to get at? You simply can't force a format to be cutthroat competitive when the means simply aren't there. If the prize structure was different, something like a pro tour, like frances recent vintage championships, being very competitive would not only be justified, it would still be a good environment, because people would know what they're getting into.

When a tournament doesn't make sense to be competitive in, because you are simply loosing money if you take that attitude, unless you are an extremely good player who consistently top 4s, it will create a bad attitude for everyone there because a lot of the casual players understand these simple mathematics--that it doesn't make sense to play type 1 just to win power or workshops.

Until type 1 has a backing from wizards of the coast, the format must always casual at heart, and competitive in nature-for the purpose of winning a game, not a prize.

First off, ill add in the fact that i forgetfully didn't post that the assumption is made that the deck meandeck gifts is playing against is also running the merchant scroll-->ancestral recall draw engine. If that clears up everything, then whoops my bad (ill edit that when im done typing) and ignore the following. if it doesn't, keep reading.

Just a general conclusion, 90%+ of the time it is appropriate to run misdirection. The argument is that if the opponent runs more disruption (the 10% or less times), (for arguments sake lets say 4 drain 4 force of will 4 mana leak and 3 duress), then more often then not, misdirection will be a 1 for 2 card disadvantage, whereas duress will be a 1 for 1 that tells you what your opponents game plan will be.

 How do either misdirection or duress lead to board dominance?

Edit: only if opponent runs merchant scroll-->ancestral recall draw engine.

I have a general rule of thumb im going by, and i find it to be pretty solid for meandeck gifts. Of course it only applies if you know your metagame, but here it is:

If you have equal or more counters/hand disruption, running misdirection is better.
If you are facing opponents with more counters/hand disruption, running duress is better.

In conclusion, misdirection is a clear choice currently, but as the metagame changes to adapt to meandeck gifts, duress might fall back into the maindeck.

Interesting looking deck. It's nice to see dradles being used. For a fish metagame, the deck looked solid. However, with all the meandeck gifts that will be popping up, I might suggest following Lunar's suggestion of running welders--not only for all the great tricks in the deck, but because recurring early titans destroys the manabase on gifts--one of its only weaknesses.

Wouldn't it just be attack with the negator, damage on the stack, ninjuitsu the ninja, take 5 damage and i draw a card? Or am i missing something?

@ Lord of the Goats

I think you are completely right. If the only solution to the merchant scroll-->anesctrall draw engine is to run that very draw engine, plus whatever other draw you had, then misdirection does become much weaker. Gifts currently has 1 up on control because scroll-->ancestral resolves before the opponents draw engine, and that means gifts resolves. However, if both decks run scroll-->ancestral, then intuition-->ak, thirst for knowledge become a turn faster than gifts ungiven. In that case, duress gains more value than misdirection because its sole value is no longer to resolve a gifts, but additionally to stop the opponents draw engine, which misdirection doesn't do because its a 1 for 2 and it is just a terrible counter for an opponents spell in general.

My thoughts on…

Duress Vs Misdirection (or rather why misdirection is better in 4 merchant scroll gifts)

Steve M. pointed out the solid theoretical argument for why duress should be played. When you have 56 cards, and 4x duress, and duress will more often than not be taking a more powerful card than you could have played in slots 57-60, it is the correct choice to play duress. The other argument for duress is that it is used to force through a bomb, in this case gifts.

However, the unique comparison with meandecks gifts, which is also a sign that the deck should have restrictions made, is that duress’s first reason to be played doesn’t apply. The 56 cards meandeck gifts plays are better than any decks 56 cards (although TPS does play a relatively broken deck list). Therefore, the only purpose of duress is the second purpose, to force through a card. It should be noted, that earlier versions of gifts didn’t play as aggressively because of the lack of 4x merchant scrolls, and, accordingly, duress didn’t have the sole purpose of forcing through cards as it does in meandeck gifts. Sometimes its versatility was more important than forcing through your cards. Like I stated earlier though, that isn’t the case with meandeck gifts. The 56 cards you play are better than 100% of the 56 cards other decks play.

Thus the argument for misdirection Vs duress is solely based upon resolving a bomb—gifts ungiven. Duress doesn’t cut it because it allows the opponent to draw into counters, and weakens the mana base in two ways. More underground seas must be played, but the curve of an incredibly aggressive deck is weakened. Being able to turn 1 merchant scroll, turn 2 drain or ancestral recall, and turn 3 gifts isn’t possible with duress, and simply casting gifts on turn 3 is harder when ancestrall recall can't consistently be played to search for 3 more cards.

The only argument in favor of duress is that it is a 1 for 1, where as misdirection is a 1 for 2. However, this argument is much like the argument for life totals. Being at 1 or 20 life doesn’t matter if you control the game, and having force and misdirection back up to gifts ungiven (or at least making the opponent have to guess if you do or not) even with the possibility of losing 4 cards doesn’t matter because if gifts resolves you have a great chance at winning that game, especially if you both trade counters, and then you gifts for scroll, fact or fiction, gifts ungiven, and brainstorm and draw 4+ cards while your opponent emptied his hand of counters and cards. The idea is that is doesn’t matter if you win the game with 1 life, 100 life, 1 card or 10 cards in hand, as long as you win the game. And, if gifts resolves, winning that game is easier. Your opponent either has no counters left and you get card advantage or you both have counters still and you find that broken combo. Because of this, misdirection has too many things going for it that duress doesn’t: it some what eases a weak mana base, it allows for an incredibly aggressive deck to stay aggressive, it keeps the opponent guessing, and the strongest theoretical argument for duress, that it is a 1 for 1 and not a 1 for 2 doesn’t apply because if gifts resolves your hand can simply be refilled.

Just a quick question. I know it is incredibly, incredibly hard to pilot the deck perfectly--only a few people in the world  consitently play the deck perfect, if even that, but about how long would you say it takes to get a good understanding of the deck, a week, a month, 6 months?

While this is probably known by most, ill just bring it up since it hasn't been said. If you have an active tog, and you cast gifts ungiven before damagae for time walk, yawgmoth's will, ancestral recall, and gush it is an autowin. they can give you the will or time walk and expect to lose next turn, or they can give you gush and recall which net a total of +13/+13 to the tog for only 5 mana, and you just have to discard 4 cards from there, or 3 with 3 in the grave etc., which isn't all that difficult. Even though gifts is 1 mana more than intuition, it functions as an auto win under an attacking tog, which sets up crazy gifts configurations. Just my $0.02.

While gifts obviously won't be cast behind an attacking tog all the time, it does provide huge gifts leverage, almost like running recoup without having the red

Just to chime in on the merchant scroll argument. One of the biggest advantages of mercahnt scroll + ancestral recall is the mana can be split up over 2 turns. Being able to drop a mox land and scroll on the first turn, and have mana drain and ancestral recall on turn 2 is huge advantage over having tfk on turn 2. It's not just that they both get you the same amount of cards, splitting up the mana cost works perfectly into the curve of gifts.

I don't think you're threat density issues necessarily come from having too few threats. You do have 4 masks, 4 naughts, and effectively 5 tutors to find them. If you are finding this to just not be enough, try adding some negators, shades ( you only have 2 color producing lands that only produce red), lavamancers, etc.

The main issue with your deck is that it doesn't have any card drawing, at all. You are running into the problem every deck with a good amount of disruption and even a decent amount of threats has, you disrupt and play threats, but then you fizzle, not because of a lack of threats, but card drawing. Perhaps you could consider wheel of fortune, necropotence, night's whisper, or skeletal scrying. They would greatly help you find your threats after you have disrupted the opponent.

A few other notes. With 6 total tutors, are 2 rack and ruin really necessary, the same could be said about chains of mephistopheles, but I don't know your meta.

Finally, 2x umezawa's jitte seems greatly out of place. Mox monkey is going to die if you equip him, wretch is going to die. And lord knows a jitted dreadnaught is overkill.

not to mention waterfront bouncer which also helps against oath and an opposing colossus.
I am probably going to test a deck in the near future running 3-4x waterfront bouncer, 2x moxen, 2x crucible of worlds, and 4x null rod. Giving the deck a way to shuffle the colossus and 8 artifacts to sacrifice, effectively giving the deck 3 null rods 1 crucible and 2 moxen to sacrifice with no real worries. Is running this setup realistic for fish, or too much anit synergy and dead cards?

Edit: If I also play kataki, which is a legend, that is going to leave the deck with a slew of unplayable cards, which might mean ideas unbound could replace standstill or work alongside it, time will tell

Pretty simple question. Why doesn't fish run tinker, mystical tutor, and darksteel colossus?

dark confidant is definitely going to be played, as for what creature and how many copies (3 or 4), time will tell. Furthermore, chains of mephistopheles will probably go into the deck as a two of and round out the deck, instead of having 3x open slots or silver bullets, it will simply be 2 tutors, necropotence, and two chains, but until ravinca comes out, the maindeck looks pretty solid. Just the sideboard needs to be worked on. Suggestions??

Sol Ring works perfectly. Jitte, negator, withered wretch, and even chalice of the void all become stronger from it.

In 5 minutes I'm leaving home for a week, but I should be able to come up wtih some cards on the sideboard and post later on today.

Well it would have to be a 2 of, probably trading for brainstorm, because nothign else could really leave. chalice is leaps and bounds ahead of pithing needle, and cotv would be the only plausible thing to cut without completely screwing with the deck, so it falls back upon brainstorm. In the right meta( bazaars, togs, welders) 2x pithing needle for 2x brainstorm would probably be stronger.


4. For two reasons.
1.) The first is pitch counters. The deck needs the 4 gaea's skyfolk to make sure it can consistanly pitch to FoW.
2.) the second reason is simply creatures. u/g fish is much more of an aggro deck than previous u/w or u/r rish. Accordingly, it needs all the beats it can get. Even though spiketail isn't a huge beater, it can stall the opponents game plan long enough to get them in the danger zone with creatures and jitte. Without the extra turn from spiketail, gaea's skyfollk is needed to make up the extra damage lost from that turn. u/g fish plays ordinary tempo, like other fish versions, but then has a point and time in the game were aggro takes ove and you win or you win,to a lesser extent,by  extreme card drawing, or you simply lose. Spiketail greatly helped because the one extra turn it can stall the opponent can be more than enough, especially with jitte. I rarely lose a game where I untap with a jitte that has two counters on it. The deck has to keep those 4 blue creatures to make sure the pressure is always aplied on the opponent.

Exactly. This deck is meant to be played like fish, not sui. The flatout more powerful cards suicide used to play don't belong in the deck. Fish is about cards working together, and every step towards individual strengths of cards weakens the deck, with the exception of 2x tutors, and 1x necro, which, like recall and time walk, are simply toooo good to pass up.

 If you haven't already, compare this deck to u/g vial fish. Side by side, the cards are practically identical, just with abilities of their color. I really like the combination of 3 night's whisper, 1 vamp tutor. That leaves the deck with 4 silver bullet slots, 1 necro obviously, or 3 metagame choices. Chains has been suggested, but is it really worth it, or can 3x more spells make the deck more powerful?

Updated version 57 cards:

3x nantuko shade
4x mesmeric fiend
4x negator
4x withered wretch

4x aether vial
4x chalice of the void
4x duress
3x night's whisper
3x umezawa's jitte
1 x vampiric tutor
1x demonic tutor
1x necropotence

1x mox jet
1x black lotus
4x dark ritual
10x swamp
4x wasteland
1x strip mine

At this point , the deck has 3 card slots which could be devoted to:
a) 2x more swamp for a more stable mana base, or 1x Library of Alexandria and 1x swamp, with a metagame tutor slot open
b 3x something else??? Suggestions???unmask?cabal therapy?perhaps even chains of mephistopheles if nothing else can be found?

The deck does have a decent fight against oath. 4x duress, 5x strip effects, 4x mesmeric fiend all help against oath. Also, if the jitte gets active before oath does, they've lost too. Another neat thing about the deck is that it plays like fish, ut with negators and such u can race before the oath comes down.

the stax matchup I haven't tested. I would imagine it would really depend on chalice and what kind of hand stax got, but it probably isn't too bad.

The aggro damage alone isn't enough to race combo, however, 4x duress, 4x mesmeric fiends, and 4x chalice all help out greatly against combo, along with shades, negators, etc.