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Eternal Formats / Creative / Re: UW Fish v Grim Long Play Situation
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on: August 31, 2006, 03:30:16 am
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Disagree. Mage on Tendrils is a MUST answer. Anything else is an inconvenience and can be won around. Mage on Tendrils must be dealt with, which is what you want to force Long to do--deal with things in play. It's not that good at it if the cards aren't artifacts.
Eloquent and true. Agreed Edit:
Posts: 78
originalcommie
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« Reply #6 on: August 29, 2006, 11:23:06 PM »
Reply with quote
My plan in the UW fish matchup vs Pitch Long is to shut off their mana via Chalice/Rod/Stifle/Mage. Putting your first mage on Tendrils of Agony, seems most of the time to be a terrible play, given that it is NOT a must answer, as you state.
With all due respect, the last time I checked, Pitch Long has at 3-6 turns before you beat them to death with your creatures (after you cast mage on derf, tendrils). Thats 3 turns where they can Brainstorm, Tutor, and set up a huge Will with Force backup. Sometime during that huge Will (or Desire, or Bargain) turn, they will (derf derf) tutor for CHAIN OF VAPOR, bounce your mage, and lay a huge tendrils on your ass.
Isn't bouncing the mage considered answering it? I would like to see a scenerio where the generic Pitch Long list (i.e. no colossus) can win without removing the mage on tendrils... otherwise, it is indeed a MUST ANSWER) |
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Eternal Formats / Global Vintage Tournament Reports and Results / Re: Ongoing GenCon Vintage Results
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on: August 13, 2006, 02:09:02 am
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First off, Congrats to Travis and Roland for being our reigning eternal Format Champions. Secondly, has anyone else noticed that TK has come seemingly out of nowhere to a pretty savage Record as of late? First place at Rochester, t4 @ Charlotte, First Day 2 Waterbury, and now second at Gencon? ICBM should be damn proud to have him on their team! Congrats on the hotstreak TK, You were actually my pick to win Gencon, but second ain't bad.
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Eternal Formats / Miscellaneous / Re: The Cool New Thing in Vintage (Izzet Combo)
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on: July 04, 2006, 05:41:18 pm
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in game 2 when we were getting close to time yes i did have an erayo flipped and yes i did have 2 swords in play, but this took me like 10 turns to do. the swords were just sitting there for several turns until i finally drew my creature i needed. the game would have been over like 10 turns earlier if i could have drawn a bob or cutpurse. i wouldnt really say i got lucky except for the fact that i may have got lucky that george decided to let my erayo resolve when when i had already played 3 spells and still had 2 zero drops in hand. the erayo i flipped turn 2 was what won me the game. i believe george did have a force but decided not to use it for some reason.
Okay, I suppose I was wrong, I thought you drew sword, sword, erayo right during the time extension. As for George's supposed misplay I promise this comes from our lack of testing against the SS. He and Brandon thought it would be a cakewalk to beat, I knew they were wrong, but I really wasn't expecting any of us to play against Mr. SS himself. Either way, great job, both this weekend and at Rochester. |
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Eternal Formats / Miscellaneous / Re: The Cool New Thing in Vintage (Izzet Combo)
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on: July 04, 2006, 05:03:37 pm
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I had a much better response typed up, but then my computer decided to die just as I was finishing, so this is the repost. I had a brief question.
This deck, as mentioned, seems to need some good amounts of mana to make copies of spells off the Guildmage. With so many colorless requirements and no thirsts to make maindeck needles better, did anyone try more mana accelerants?
Mana Vault and Lotus Petal seem to be good additions to the decks mana needs. What was the reason for picking Pithing needles over more mana, when other Drain decks like Slaver don't bother to run them? I would think even petal would improve you casting an Izzet Guildmage early, so why not? I'd like to hear the reasoning behind this.
I love the list, it is very interesting.
Nick.
Actually Mana Vault was never considered, I don't really know why, perhaps one of my mates has an answer there. We did however try lotus petal in order for turn 1 drain mana, but needles tended to give more solid results. stopping wastelands, welders and bazaar's tended to have much more positive results than putting up turn one drain mana. the only matches where petal really won over needle #2 were Long and Gifts. My question regarding the deck is : is the Reset/Fire//Ice finish really needed ? As stated in your example, you won the game from guildmage without the combo finish. Time walk seems to be the real threat to copy, both to provide unrecoverable board position for your opponent and to win. Did you try cutting the Maindeck reset for something like perhaps Vampiric tutor or misdirection ? I feel that the combo finish is just a bonus but not the primary win condition. Also considering you like to play Standart cards (  ) and multiple copies time walk becomes your primary win condition, doesnt dark confidant deserve testing ? I really like the list too, first because you play standart cards (and i love standart cards in vintage) second because you play a reset finish. Honestly, we need a better secondary win condition than simply IGM beats, and I tend to like the reset win more than ToA if only for the fact that it is reset  . As for Confidant, I just don't think he is good in a deck w. Colossus, that alone is too much of a liability, not to mention 4 FoW. To the builder of this deck:
I'm sure many of us have thought about monoblue hightide several times. It would seem much more consistent and the need to tap out for a turn two Guildmage would never occur. Also you would have an insanely stable manabase. I would assume you tested it out or at least put some serious thought into it, what did you end up concluding?
Our idea when we set out to build said deck was to break IGM, that say, mono blue High Tide never crossed our minds. and like froz3nn said, copying sorceries is tooo good to pass up. as far as the deck being any good id say its only ok. We kinda talked about it day one after the tourny back at the hotel and decided it was almost like tog but with izzets.
I played aginst it and drew with it due to time. i have the match details in my report "the ss will never win again".
There is a few resons why the deck was able to due as well as it did.
1. the metagame was mediocre
2. there were multibple people running around with this thing
3. the players running it seemed to be fairly competent players
put these three things together and factor in the fact that the field was only 50 people its almost guaranteed that the deck will make top 8 one day.
I may be wrong and the deck may be the nuts, but im just saying i played against it and my opponent was fairly lucky to walk away with game one.
But congrats to the guys that played it, and for the new concept (reset seems a little janky though)
1)This is true, but in some instances made things a little harder on us. Day one Brandon's only loss in Swiss was to afinity, which we had NEVER Tested against. Then again, said afinity list went on to top 8, and Brandon beat him in the quater finals. 2)Day one there was only one person playing it, the person who t8'ed, day two there were 3 of them, and 2 of those were in contention to t8 until rounds 5 and 6. 3)There is no way this is right, there are no competent magic players in the south east  As for your match with George I didn't see game one, so I really don't know how lucky George got, but I do know that getting two unanswered swords of fire and ice and erayo, during your time extension right before turns is somewhat lucky as well.  Hey, thanks for the congratulations. As much as I didn't want to see the SS there, I was happy to see it doing well because I love to see new things in Vintage. It was also good to finally meet the ICBM guys, Dan wasn't nearly as much of an ass as I thought he would be. Dare I say he was actually pretty cool. This deck is terrible. It won because of suprise, but it will not be a serious contender going into gencon, like the new SS will be.
Thank you for your excellent comments and wonderfully helpful criticisms, with that kinda of elite deck analysis, I can't believe ICBM kicked you out! |
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Eternal Formats / Miscellaneous / Re: The Cool New Thing in Vintage (Izzet Combo)
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on: July 03, 2006, 10:20:45 pm
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What sets this drain-based combo-control deck above the others?
Yes, the question is short; the answer, however, should be thorough should you reply. Drain-TPS and tog as well as gifts and burning slaver (to an extent) follow similar paths to victory. What makes your 3-card-combo.dec superior?
Yes, I am skeptical. Make your claims and back them up.
Web
I really don't know what to say here other than insane card advantage wins us the game against most of those decks. The only deck that absolutely slaughtered us this weekend was GG Gifts, which I believe was running REB/Pyroblasts main. Copying Ancestral/AK/DT/Merchant Scroll/ Achieves extreme card advantage. I also often found myself not copying AK for 3-4 quite a few times in the tourny if I was playing against drains, which often prevented my spells from being countered when I knew my opponent had a counter in hand. In this aspect Izzet Guildmage becomes essentially a 3-cost counterspell, because my opponent knew that I would just copy in response to countermagic. Also, Izzet guildmage + mana drain continues to break the drain mirror open. I never lost a counter war w. Drain on the stack and IGM on the board. I have never seen a deck with "So Many Broken Play's" as this one has, atleast not a control deck. Against my round 1 opponent playing gifts on day 2 (the only day I played the deck) I went something like Time Walk +Copy, Copy Resolves, Copy again. 3 Walk turns ahead of me. next turn, Will-> Play Tolarian, Walk + Copy, Recall, Merchant Scroll for Cunning wish, pass. Next turn. Wish for recall-> recall->copy, copy resolves, draw Colossus + brainstorm + other, copy again, resolve copy -> draw tinker plus other, resolve original, brainstorm, tinker -> Colossus w/ 3 uninterupted turns ahead of me... Granted, any deck should win the game with like 13 mana available on the will turn, but it is insanely fun to see the look on your opponents face when you have 3-4 more turns to take without them getting to draw a single card. Izzet Guildmage plus Time Walk is soo good. As I said we have been tweeking this deck for close to 6 months, and at our most recent local tourny, I was playing against a teammate of mine in the mirror, and the match went to turns. He preceeded to talk all of the extra turns. How much, in your opinion, was the success of this deck a result of surprise factor?
I feel sure that this deck suprised a lot of people. However, when Brandon went off with the combo in round one word spread fast about "OMG IZZET-SOLIDARTY!!!!22132" We then got alot of questions regarding the deck, and I believe everyone knew what it was by about round 3 day one. However, people still didn't know how to play against it properly, and for the most part I still don't believe people know how to play against it correctly. A friend of ours who knew the entire list came to me after our match and said "I had no idea how to board against you." Granted, day one 1/1 people playing the deck t8'ed, and day 2 0/3 t8'ed, so it is entirely possible that I am giving the deck way more credit than it deserves, but I still thoroughly believe that it is more the fact that it is a solid deck than the suprise factor. Only time will tell. You and your team are soooooo greedy.
Seriously, how regularly do you have the four+ mana per turn necessary to make this guy better than Isochron Scepter within a relevant timeframe? I like the cute Reset kills with Fire/Ice and all, and I can see how Izzet GM could crack a Drain mirror in half if you both hand 10000 mana, but it looks like you're really bending over backwards to accomodate that possibility. When was the last time Intuition/AK was fast enough for this format?
I will grant you, though, Izzet GM + Time Walk was pretty hot the last time I cube-drafted it.
Seriously, it happens quite often. This is a control deck. I don't think any blue based control deck can win without hitting 4+ mana. The deck can also kill with Ancestral Recall, was this ever utilized during the tournament?
I don't know that this was ever utilized during the tourny, but I do know that we were aware of this route long before going into it. however, reset + draw spell + IGM was always GG whether we went with fire, cunning wish for charm, or AR. I must admit that the intuition AK draw engine seems a bit slow still not awful. Would it be worth it to just run like thirst (your already running a ton of artifact mana + pithing needles) anyways even if it doesn't have the some synergy with the guildmage? We tested every draw engine for this deck and the AK's just seemed to work the best. a main point in the AK's over anything else is that, when you have IGM + Reset, if you only have an AK in hand, you can go off and use AK to find Fire/ Cunning wish to win, this doesn't work with any other draw engine. I really don't remember enough of the tourny to post a report, but I would be glad to continue answering questions. |
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Eternal Formats / Miscellaneous / The Cool New Thing in Vintage (Izzet Combo)
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on: July 02, 2006, 08:32:21 pm
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Xerox (P9 Charlotte July 1 & July 2)
Artifacts/Mana
1 Darksteel Colossus
2 Pithing Needle
7 SoLoMoxen
1 Mana Crypt
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
3 Island
1 Library of Alexandria
Creatures
3 Izzet Guildmage
Instants
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
4 Accumulated Knowledge
2 Intuition
1 Rack and Ruin
1 Echoing Truth
2 Cunning Wish
1 Fire // Ice
1 Reset
1 Mystical
Sorceries
1 Tinker
1 Time Walk
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawg Will
Sideboard:
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Fling (Cut for day two)
1 REB (+1 for day two)
1 Pyroblast
1 Echoing Truth
1 Rack and Ruin
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Rebuild
1 Ebony Charm
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Fire // Ice
1 Stifle
There it is, we have been working on this list for close to six months. I'll be glad to answer any questions, and happy to hear any criticism.
Edit: Sorry Hi-Val, I am at the hotel and have to pay to get internet connection, my time is going to run out shortly and I wanted to go ahead and post a list for everyone who was asking. When I get home tomorrow I will have a more thorough post ready. Feel free to delete this thread if you like, and I will just post a new tomorrow, or I can just edit again tomorrow, it's up to you.
P.S. For anyone who doesn't know, this deck took 2nd Day 1 of SCG Charlotte
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Eternal Formats / Global Vintage Tournament Reports and Results / Re: ongoing SCG results
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on: July 02, 2006, 12:35:05 am
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What happened to storm combo? I thought Long was the nuts? Was Steve and others not there? I know Becker was, but I'm not sure how he did.
Izzet combo--wow. This I gotta see.
Louis made something more than power, he made infamy. This story is going to be remembered in the Type 1 community much like the "no lands for the rest of the game" ruling from like 5 years ago.
Steve and others were not there, as was stated earlier, only a turn out of about 50... but I still had fun. props to Star City for still holding both days of the tourny, and super props to Gentile for making the MOST SAVAGE play of the tourny. Becker was playing his own creation, he didn't seem really happy with it. I was playing long, and like I said I was ruined by drains all day... the one match I won, was against U/G Madness, and he still managed to Force 3 Draw-7's and Circular logic something else big... just way too much counter magic for me. Izzet Combo was the nuts, we've been tweeking this list for the past 6 monthes, I will post an exact list tomorrow night. |
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Eternal Formats / Global Vintage Tournament Reports and Results / Re: ongoing SCG results
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on: July 01, 2006, 09:54:45 pm
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Here is a bit more descriptive top 8 report from someone who was there.
Quarter Finals
Gifts beats Ben Carp Oath
Slaver beats SS [After match slaver guy gets a lecture about a bunch of mistakes in his match from the judge (not putting back two on BS, not taking pain from FoW/Fetches etc.)]
Brandon Todaro with Xerox (Izzet Combo) beats Old School Affinity
Slaver beats Gifts
Semi's
Slaver guy shows up late, the judges pay careful attention to everything he does. After his opponent cuts his deck he looks at the bottom card, the judges see it and pull him aside to question it. He claims he was looking to make sure his deck is facing the right way (so that when he draws cards they will be face up in his hand). This plus a plethora of other cautions get him removed from the tourny, his prize is forfeited, and he essentially has a fit.
Xerox beats Gifts
Finals
right before the finals are scheduled to start the disgruntled slaver player goes and asks Pete Hoefling something, then comes back and starts aggressively thumbing through his deck... him and the judge have a short convo I didn't really catch, and next thing I know he exclaims "MY BETA TIME WALK" then tears said card into quaters and proceeds to chew it... lots of pictures were taken, I'm sure they will be posted soon.
Then the finals finally start.
Game one Xerox mulls to five and Gifts leads with Recall->Tinker->Collosus go. the end...
Game two lasts something like 20 turns, most of which there are 2 collosus' staring each other in the face... GG Gifts eventually finds some business, and resolves a long will turn to Tendrils winning the lotus and a twister.
The environment was pretty drain heavy, I scrubbed 1-3 with grim long, running into drain after drain after drain.
Dan Carp played something with workshops, I didn't really see what...
Juggernaut Go played something with shops and Bobs... and that is about all I remember.
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Eternal Formats / Global Vintage Tournament Reports and Results / Re: Rochester News
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on: June 11, 2006, 03:13:12 pm
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Nevermind, sorry for the double post, but I found my answer on the SCG threads, and wanted to post it here for any other TMDers with the same question. ]
Congrats go out to ICBM's Tommy Kolowith (TK) who was MY pick to top8 with his "Pile" which is a fish deck that utilizes Erayo and Dimir Cutpurse. He crushed his way with a 5-0-2 and then in the top eight 2-1 Kowal, 2-0 a Canadian, and 2-0 The Finals to win Day 1 Rochester. They played it out, and tommy got the Lotus and the Twister (I assume)
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Vintage Community Discussion / General Community Discussion / Re: [Free Article] On Power-Level Errata
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on: May 19, 2006, 02:53:32 am
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By the way, the tournament will be in Pennsylvania
I thought you were from Georgia. When I saw that you were planning on hosting this I got all excited for a minute to see that there might actually be a decent vintage tourney within a reasonable distance of Savannah...  However, whether I can attend or not I think this is a great idea, and would be glad to help you with as much as I can, assuming there is anything I can do without actually being at the event. |
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