Hey, sorry about the SCG forums issues, they switched over to a new version of vbulletin and don't seem to have the rss plugin enabled. I temporarily replaced them with Eternal Central until I can load SCG forums into Yahoo Pipes or they decide to enable their rss feed.

Thanks again for the feedback guys. Added ChannelFireball and a few other sites and tweaked some small stuff. Any other site suggestions would be great.

I'm sure their are feed readers/websites that offer custom drag and drop of feeds, kind of out of the scope of this site though.

Thanks for the feedback JACO, incredibly useful.

All links now open in a new tab by default, which I think is what you were looking for. I also changed up the color scheme, so let me know how it looks now. The green/blue was getting a bit hard on the eyes. Also fixed the Starkington post typo.

I'll see what I can do on having more/different feed items. The number of feeds depend on how many items are in the individual website's rss feed, something I can't control at this point. I'll see what I can do though.

Hey guys, It's been awhile and it looks like magic has changed since my days of playing. Lot's of good memories.

Anyways after I quit mtg I picked up web development as a way whittle away my time and I was thinking the other day about what a hassle it was to read magic related content from different websites back when I played. So the other day I threw this together, http://mtgbuzz.com as a way to aggregate mtg content for people that aren't already hardcore feed readers. I'd love to hear TMD's feedback, particularly any websites I should add, I'm sure there are tons of new sites that I left out. Thanks guys.

Sorry mods if this is considered too spammy, if it is please just delete it and forget it ever happened.

The time has come for me and I have decided to quit Magic and consequently leave the forums. I am currently in the process of selling my collection and once I get that sorted out I will be done with the game forever. It has been a difficult decision because all of the things I learned and people I met through the game. I never could have imagined starting this game four years ago as a 12 year old kid that I would have taken it so far and enjoyed it so much. In the end however it is the right decision for me to make. I just wanted to thank the Vintage community and the Magic community overall and say goodbye.

It’s been real Magic The Gathering.

Jank Golem

I agree that Thorn will help Stax, Fish and Goblins but I do not see them overcoming Gush. Gush decks have so much sheer power it is difficult to push them out of the metagame because their power also gives them extreme flexibility. Gush decks have and can compensate by running Tarmogoyf and Hurkyl's Recall which circumvents a lot of counter Gush strategies those decks have. Tarmogoyf adds yet another creature to the already heavy creature environment, making Thoughtseize even better. Not all Fish decks will want 8 Duress effects, but I could see builds emerging based around Cabal Therapy, Duress, Thoughtseize. Even Gush decks will want Thoughtseize because it has a relevant target against all of the top archetypes. Against Stax you hit Welder, against Fish you hit 1/3 of their deck, against Flash you take Hulk, and against GAT you take Dryad/Psychatog. The life loss is a factor that is most relevant against decks with a fast clock, decks that run creatures. Thoughtseize can take these creatures and slow down the opponent's clock, counteracting the life loss. Thoughtseize is a very metagame dependent card, and right now the metagame is shifting in it's favor.

Thanks for the all the responses.

On Mirror Entity it is important to remember that it is only mana intensive the turn you cast it. Once Mirror is on the board you can use your mana to cast disruption pieces until you are able to alpha strike the opponent. Even if you are waiting for the alpha strike Miror Entity can get the job done faster than Grunt or Goyf. The initial mana cost is a drawback and to support it and other high costed disruption pieces Fish decks may revert to running off color artifact mana. In my personal opinion Mirror Entity will be played in Fish decks to speed up their clock.


That is another interesting factor to consider with Misdirection on Thoughtseize. The Misdirection player gains information by seeing the opponents hand and protects the information of the contents of their hand. The information is gained from Duress effects is useful but it is not as important as the discard effect. For example you don't see Vintage players running Spy Network because information alone does not win games. In the end comparing Thoughtseize and Duress is difficult and complex, but in the current creature heavy environment I think Thoughtseize wins out.

I would be grateful to hear any comments or discussion about my article The Whole Nine Cards: Lorwyn in Vintage, a Lorwyn set review for Vintage.

Let me clarify my point, Gush decks can resolve relevant spells that lead to a significant advantage before WU Tang Wizards can fully get online; which usually takes three turns. For instance a Gush deck given three turns on the play could do something like,

Turn 1: Duress
Turn 2: Scroll->Ancestral
Turn 3: Cast Ancestral with two mana open for other spells

You do have 8 pitch counters which help some, but Gush decks have as much if not more disruption in that particular area. Giving the opponent three turns execute their game plan, with little impedance from the opponent is not a good idea. I think Duress/Thoughtseize would be the best choices to help in this area because they are also solid against Stax as well as other Gush decks.

For instance Stax or Gush based decks are both able to threaten early. The earliest the fish deck can totally stabilize and answer these threats is turn 3, giving the opposing player plenty of time to set up a broken play. Running Duress or Thoughtseize allows you to slow down the early play enough so that you can make into the more favorable lategame.

Interesting deck, my one question is about it functions in the early game. You seem to have strong chances once you get Gush online and get a significant number of creatures on the board, but how do you stop early threats? You do have 8 pitch counters but the 4 Misds are very limited outside of a counter war. Perhaps running something like Disrupt or splashing a color for REB/Thoughtseize/Duress could help in the early game.

Lava Dart and Psychotic Fury are great aggressive components of the deck, but I can't afford to go all in there. When Dragonauts is not in play I would usually prefer to have Pyroblast in hand instead of Lava Dart. Basically Dart and Fury are dead cards unless Dragonauts is in play and the deck needs to be able to function without Dragonauts in some cases.

Interesting list, glad to see Dragonauts representing coast to coast. I agree that although we both run Dragonauts as a win the two builds play out very differently. The main things I see are the presence of Accumulated Knowledge, Misdirection and Fire/Ice in your list. I would hypothesize this makes the deck play a slower more controlling game like GAT. The mainboard Psychotic Fury and lower mana curve make my list play a more Combo role, capable of racing the opponent or even winning slowly in some cases. I would never think of boarding Psychotic Fury in my list for this reason, taking an extra step to tutor for it slows you down considerably. Maindeck bounce is something I was also considering, but ultimately giving the relatively aggressive nature of the deck I decided against it.

I still think being able to run Blood Moon to board in against GAT is worth the cost of not running green for Fastbond. A resolved BloodMoon usually has little effect on you, leaving you free finish the game with Dragonauts unhindered by the opponent. Fastbond's effect is also very powerful of course, and might end up fitting my deck better then Blood Moon.

There are several issues I see with attacking the mana base or life total of GAT. The only deck that can put pressure on the opponents life total is something like Goblins or an aggressive Fish deck. It does not make sense for a deck broken cards and a strong game plan to add Ankh of Mishra or Black Vise to try to attack the life total of Gush decks. The only decks that can do this are ones that are fully dedicated to the plan of dealing damage. The majority of Vintage is made up with broken cards and strong game plans that cannot afford to accomadate the huge number of slots for this plan. Yes attacking Gush's life total could work for Goblins or maybe even an significantly revamped Fish deck; but not for the majority of decks in Vintage.

As for attacking creatures in Gush decks, I agree it does stop their aggro control plan. It is still incredibly easy for them not go aggro and just go broken with draw spells. Then Gush can take their time getting Dryad or Tog on the board and winning with multiple counters in hand. Another option that has been explored in Gush decks is running Empty the Warrens, circumventing most creature hate strategies. This is strong because currently the only ETW hate that is really seeing play is a singleton Echoing Truth to tutor for. To summarize, it takes a significantly more removal spells to combat Gush's creatures then it does to combat their mana base or draw engine. Gush decks cannot function without their mana base or draw engine while they can still work without their creatures.


The reason it is prohibitive is because if you are paying the upkeep you can never get above one mana yourself. It does work well as a stall tactic if you run lots of artifact mana or have something significant to cast with one mana, but I don't see it working well outside of that.

I played Grow-A-Naut previously at Myriad Games a month ago because I didn’t feel my usual Fish jank could cut it in in a format with Gush. At Myriad I began 2-0 before dropping 3 straight games putting me out of T8 contention. I felt like the deck was still powerful however. We messed around with the list a little and realized we had the cards for two identical GAN decks, so my friend Justin decided to take a break from red cards and play GAN as well.

We meet the night before and dismantle GAT for spare parts to build a second GAN deck for Justin. We then test the most inapplicable match in Vintage, the GAN miror. Here is the list we decided on.
 
GAN (Grow-A-Naut)

4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Volcanic Island
3 Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Library of Alexiandra
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
4 Wee Dragonauts
1 Psychatog
4 Gush
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Duress
2 Pyroblast
2 Disrupt
2 Psychotic Fury
2 Lava Dart
4 Merchant Scroll
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Time Walk

Sideboard
4 Annul
3 Leyline of the Void
3 Blood Moon
2 Empty the Warrens
1 Pyroblast
1 Lava Dart
1 Echoing Truth

Leyline of the Void should be at 4, proxies issues forced us to run 3. In the board we considered both Annul and Goblin Vandal as Stax hate. We eventually decided on Annul, but Goblin Vandal might be optimal. Blood Moon in the sideboard is to attack the mana base in the Gush mirror, with 3 basic Islands it should in theory hurt them more then us. I expected vast quantities of Gush to bring in Blood Moon against, but instead the metagame had only a few Gush decks and tons of Stax. I did see plenty of other Gush hate including Extirpate, In the Eye of Choas, Disrupt and Encroach. Empty the Warrens is brought in to totally foil any attempts to attack your creature base.

The maindeck draw and disruption package is fairly standerd for Gush decks. I chose not to include green for a lone Fastbond because I felt it was not worth screwing over your manabase for a single broken spell. Disrupt is there as an early cantrip and counterspell to get the deck rolling and help draw the relatively small number of mana sources. Lava Dart is removal vs. Mindcensor, Bob or an ungrown Dryad and helps to combo win with Dragonauts. Psychotic Fury helps the deck pull off quick wins with Dragonauts, allowing it to play as Combo Control instead of Aggro Control like Dryad would in GAT. Psychatog is your late game win condition when the game is stuck in stalemate; a situation where Dragonauts is weak. I wouldn’t make any maindeck changes given the experience of the tournament, except maybe adding another mana source in the form of Volcanic Island or Mox Jet. I don’t know if the deck be better or worse then GAT on the whole, but it is certainly different.

On to the tournament. We leave at 10:00 planning for a 12:00 start time, which actually turns out to be at 1:00. On the drive down we discuss important issues such as the War in Iraq, the Vintage B/R list and how Swedish Fish are actually made in Canada. We arrive an hour early giving Justin time to use his OCD skills and organize my binder. People begin trickling in and we finally begin at 1:00 with 26 players.

I apologize for any names or game details I missed. My memory isn’t great and I wasn’t taking game notes.

Round 1 vs. Belcher
Game 1: I Duress and take Demonic Consultation. He Land Grants and draws some off Chromatic Star, but Dragonauts gets there before he can get his plan off the ground.
Game 2: I don’t board in Annul or anything else here because I didn’t see anything to indicate it was Belcher Game 1. The significant play was countering Belcher, and then Lava Darting Welder. This stopped him long enough to have Dragonauts go the distance.

1-0

Round 2 vs. The Jeff with Stax
Game 1: I keep a risky hand on the play with just Library of Alexiandra for lands. I was under the impression my opponent was not running Wastelands, which turned out to be incorrect. Either way the hand should have been mulliganed. I play Library and pass; Library then promptly gets destroyed with Ghost Quarter. I find an Island and cast Brainstorm EOT hitting the two other mana sources I need. Lock pieces and counters are played on both sides with Mana Crypt/City of Brass slowing pinging his life total away. He resolves 1Sphere and 3Sphere but I stay in the game with plenty of mana sources. EOT Lava Dart eventually wins for me.
Game 2: I board in 4 Annul but still to turn 1 Smokestack. This is one of the drawbacks of Dragonauts; you don’t run Moxen or Fastbond like GAT does to help win the permanent war vs. Stax.
Game 3: I am stuck without a black source to cast Demonic or Vampiric Tutor. I finally manage to draw Gush with three lands in play. I float two mana and cast Gush, he REBs and I FOW back. Gush resolves, I play my land for the turn and cast ETW for 6 guys. I attack with tokens bringing him to 1. He resolves Platinum Angel, which I have double Lava Dart to blow up. Goblin tokens go to the red zone for the final point of damage.

2-0

Round 3 vs. Dan Gagooch with Gush Tendrils
Game 1: I pull off a relatively quick combo win with Dragonauts backup with Duress and counters.
Game 2: I cast an early Ancestral which is Forced. I have the opportunity to Force back but decide not to. I then cast Blood Moon, brought in from the board, backed up by my Force He plays Sapphire, Petal. He has three cards in hand and I decide to force Sapphire and keep him off a blue source. This turns out to be a huge play mistake when he plays another Mox casts Tinker for 7/10 and wins.
Game 3: I cast Blood Moon again, owning my mana base. He finds basic Island and ETWs for 16ish to win the match. In retrospect Blood Moon is not nearly as strong against Gush Tendrils as it is against GAT. The moral of the story is not to rely on Blood Moon too heavily against Gush Tendrils or even GAT, especially if they know you have it.

2-1

We both have a fair amount of time after Justin quick win and my quick loss. I get Asian food and Justin gets Greek food in the culturally diverse food court. Justin also purchases a Monster, which should cause him to crash around round 5 and further hinder his blue card playing skills.

Round 4 vs. MaskNought
Game 1: Lava Dart takes care of some Bobs and I counter Illusionary Mask. I resolve Ancestral, and then cast Yawg Will several turns later. And finally win with Dragonauts.
Game 2: Lava Dart eats even more Confidants. I tutor up and cast Ancestral and eventually Dragonauts beats win.

3-1

Round 5: ID vs. Ray Robillard with TMWA
We take a look at the standings and my tiebreakers were high enough to make it in. Ray’s were lower, and he looks at the odds of drawing in vs. playing it out and eventually decides to ID. Unfortunately he doesn’t end up making it in.

With this time I go watch Justin play his final match against MaskNaught. A win for him would mean two Dragonauts in the T8. He drops the match 0-2, so I am forced to represent Dragonauts alone.

3-1-1

T8 vs. Kowal with  SSB:
Game 1: I keep a risky hand with only 1 Volcanic Island. I hit no more lands with Brainstorm. He draws a ton of cards, activates Mindslaver and owns my board.
Game 2: I get the broken nuts of first turn Dragonauts, Ancestral. I slow play it to ensure a win and furious Dragonauts wins turn 3.
Game 3:I get active Library on the draw. He casts a fair number of draw spells as well but is hitting mostly mana sources. I Mystical for ETW and cast it for 10 goblins backed by several counters.

We wait for the other matches to finish and all parties agree to a T4 split. We then begin the two hour trip home, and mentally try to prepare for school the next day.

Props
The store and TO for hosting the event.
My Mom for driving.
Justin for playing blue cards and almost T8ing
Wee Dragonauts for being playable jank.
Lava Dart for killing Platinum Angel, Dark Confidant and my opponents.

Slops
Mana Crypt for not killing my opponents faster.
Decklists only for the T8 and not for the whole field.
Tim and Emery for being at school and not attending.

Thanks for running the tournament, I hope to make the next event.


The missing card is in my Dragonauts list is Library of Alexiandra. A full Wee Dragonauts report should be posted shortly.

Sorry about the misquoted list, I was using the one SCG had in their database.


Fighting Merchant Scroll with Spell Snare is a good plan it targets their early game draw, Scroll->Ancestral as well as Dryad. Even without Spell Snare it can be correct to counter Scroll, as opposed to the card it finds. Letting Scroll resolve gives them a chance to draw Duress or counterspells in their next turn to back up the tutored for spell. Countering Scroll at the very least you have eliminates a business spell. Of course exceptions to this exist, in particular the early game tutor for Ancestral. If you counter scroll there they can draw another and tutor for Ancestral anyway.

Mystic Remora's upkeep cost is rather prohibitive, but if you can support that it is playable. If the opponent chooses to play spells into Remora you will virtually always be drawing the same number of cards because of the tutor chains Gush decks run. Not playing spells into it is not an attractive option either, especially if the Remora player can manage to apply some other pressure.

Thanks for all the responses, I will try to cover everything but I might miss some stuff.


Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon are great answers to Gush decks, but not all decks are the right colors or have the mana base to support running them. Disrupt is a strong answer in the GAT mirror, I believe Hi-Val's list that T8'ed at SCG ran several. Encroach was more directed at mana denial Fish builds which don't run red or are unable to support Blood Moon.


I don't deny Wasteland is a strong answer to Gush decks, I was trying to show that Gush decks can afford to play a smaller amount of basics compared to past Gifts decks which had no other way besides Fetch->Island to deal with them. I do think Wasteland has become weaker in decks like Fish however simply because it does not have a good chance as it used to of hitting a land. That also combined with the increased speed of the format and Fish decks spreading out to several colors. I would still play Wasteland in Fish in Stax, I just don't think it is what it used to be.

Totally agree, I talked about this briefly at the end of the article. You cannot just sit back and expect your hate to go the distance, you need a plan of your own and a way to provide pressure.

I wasn't trying by any means trying to imply that either Gush Storm or GAT are superior to the other. I was trying to highlight the difference between GAT and Gush Storm and GAT's extra game role. Gush Storm obviously has its advantages as well; as you mentioned it can run more draw and counters.


Sphere is obviously another great card. I was trying to focus more on cards that are underplayed right now, although I made an exception for Blood Moon as well as a few others.


Let me try to clarify, GAT runs more creatures and those creatures are more open to current hate then Gush Storm's win conditions, therefore creature hate is more likely to affect GAT's play. What GAT gains from this is the ability to play an aggro control role. When Gush Storm is casting it's win conditions it does usually does so after it has comboed off, not for an aggro control role. By this time Gush Storm has already won the game, so attacking the win conditions is just going to get your hate countered. GAT on the other hand uses it's creatures in the aggro control role when the game has not been won. This gives the opponent an opportunity to attack Dryad, and in some cases to succeed.

I considered both Chains and Extirpate, but in the end decided not to include them. Chains doesn't stop Gush deck's ability to draw cards very effectively. They can still discard and continue filtering, discarding useless spells. They don't play a totally Control role and don't always need card advantage to win, along with the card being symmetrical hurting you as well.

The problem with Extirpate is it only creates a possible future advantage, unless they are holding the card you targeted. The other issue with Extirpate is you cannot stop Gush decks in the critical early game when they are casting Ancestral or their first Gush. Once Gush deck's draw engine gets online they become much more difficult to stop, so you should be trying to attack early whenever possible. Both of these cards are still playable, I just don't think they are the best solutions.

I would be grateful to hear any comments or discussion here about my article Beating Gush in Vintage, a look at how to combat one of the most powerful cards in the format.

Jedi MindTwist has had widespread success in Europe, and I am glad people like yourself are trying it in America and succeeding. The deck even had a thread on this forum awhile back, but it seems to have died. MaskNought another popular European deck is beginning to see some play in America, TK even played it to a second place at the Vintage prelim at Gencon. These decks successes prove again that European decks and metagames are on par with American decks and metagames.

There is a Spanish thread discussing this article as well: http://www.elsantuario.es/foro/index.php/topic,805.0.html
and here is the translated to English version of the page. I would encourage you to read the thread mentioned to get a European perspective on the subject as well. Here is the response I posted on the thread.


First, please excuse my Spanish I don't speak the language so I must use google translator.

Thank you for all the comments about my article. I would agree that American players like myself are influenced hugely by what is posted on TheManaDrain, and often play and succeed mainly with what is posted there. From my perspective European magic influences take place on a much more local level. The subject of who creates and names a deck is very controversial and discussion of it often just degrades to insults. It is important for European and American players to communicate, and I hope my article started a conversation between both sides. For this conversation to continue however we cannot sink to the level of fighting about deck names and who created them. I would encourage everyone here post your established decks, tournament results and any other Vintage related information on TheManaDrain. I also hope members of TMD will in respond with an open mind to you and post their established decks and reports on this forum.

On the subject of American's attending European tournaments and vice versa, it is very difficult to justify traveling such a long distance to play magic when you could just play in local events instead. That said, would there be interest in holding a worlwide Magic Workstation tournament between players from all metagames? This would be a sure way for each metagame to see the other in action.

The b/r list decision just comes down to how much you want to hurt Flash and GAT. If you restrict Gush and Flash, you can still essentially run 5 copies of each because of Scroll, except you must pay an additional 1U in 4 of those cases Merchant Scroll cases. If you restrict Scrol, Gush and Flash still exist again with 5 copies of each card, except now you just pay their respective cost in all but the 1 Merchant Scroll case. In my opinion Flash and GAT need to be hurt harder then just restricting Merchant Scroll, you need to hit Flash and Gush.

The same can be said for the TMD Open, the top four decks at the event were all piloted by big name American players. Isn't it equally likely that pilot strength brought Flash, GAT and Bomberman to multiple T16 spots in America and that pilot strength also brought Storm Combo and Fish to multiple spots in Europe?


I agree, this bias is not just on the American side. It is human nature that people have a bias against decks they do not know and do not play against in their local metagame. Once both metagames start communicating there will be a positive feedback loop as local players playing start playing one another with foreign decks and begin getting used to them.

European Vintage forums do exist, they are separated into the different countries and languages though and are consequently not as large as TMD. This does minimize deck hype and make the metagame less fad oriented and more concentrated around deck performance in local metagames.



Yes "The Meandeck" was basically scroll TPS. Where had TPS been popular and been performing for years? Europe is where, apparently good ideas can come from there.

I am not only talking about TPS and Fish but decks like Masknought, MUD and Mindtwister Control which are not even on the radar of American players. Mindtwister Control did have some discussion right here on TMD, something I hope we will see more of in the future on both sides.

Past proxyless tournaments were a factor in the 5% larger Fish turnout in Europe. However Fish took 25% of the T16 in Europe but only 6% of the American T16. The point being that although Europe is still influenced by its past ban on proxies, those influenced decks still must compete with top American decks and win. I am not saying the European metagame has all the answers, but it should be given more weight then it is right now.

I agree that Europe is more influenced by "Institutional knowledge" then America is, they tend to stick with older decks longer. What interests me most though is that these older decks win. There could be several reasons for this, older decks do take up more of the European metagame helping their odds of a T16. But for older European decks to compete through a diverse eight round tournament against accepted American decks, there must be something more going on.

This is the the idea I was trying to get across in my article, I fully agree with you on it.
This has been true in the past for the no proxy European metagame. Now that Europe has begun trying out proxies we can no longer simply discount their metagame because they have unpowered decks. With proxies available at the UAL Power Nine, the European tournament I covered in the article and proxies also available at the TMD Open both metagames have access to the same cards and the same decks. Yet the metagame at the tournaments is still different, European decks are competing with and beating top American decks and we cannot simply ignore that.


This is the kind of American bias that we must remove. From an American perspective GAT and Flash crush TPS and Fish. Do Americans even test or consider these decks? or do they just take a quick look European decks, assume American decks are superior and move on? As I said previously top American decks are played in Europe to much less success then they are in America, therefore European decks must have some merit. The two metagames must learn from one another and improve Vintage magic on the whole.

I would be grateful to hear any comments or discussion here about my article Crossing the Vintage Ocean, an analysis and comparison of European and American Vintage metagames.

I might have missed it but  I haven't seen any talk of Blood Moon. It seems like with the GAT and Stax becoming big Blood Moon would be a great answer, and CS could support it. I think there was a list that T8'ed awhile ago at SCG that ran Blood Moon, cutting black to support it. Black certainly helps the deck but Blood Moon offers some really strong disruption. Magus of the Moon would also be a possibility, but I dislike the fact it gets hit by creature hate.

As much as I love Green cards and having played Mono Green Fish now does not seem to be their time to shine, even more so if you are playing Stompy. The format has gotten faster and counters are the only way for Fish decks to keep up. Why play Stompy over a combo deck that can win several turns faster with much more disruption. Green cards, even Mono Green could be viable but you have to make the deck Fish with lots of disruption rather then Stompy with no disruption.

Leyline of Singularity hits ETW along with Fish creatures, seems like a really interesting board option. Thanks for the report, hopefully I can make the event on the 2nd and 3rd.

I own 47 Junk Golems which I have signed by various people I have played against in Tournaments. I quit collecting them because it got to expensive, should have gone with a common.