This isn't quite the drawback that it seems.  The mandatory coops are helpful in building a resume that has actual work on it, offsetting tuition costs (especially if you get one somewhere that pays well) and securing full time work after graduation.  If you do well on a coop there is a good chance the company will offer you a full time job as they have already invested 3-6 months of time and money in you.  This makes you attractive vs a fresh candidate.

That said it's definitely not for everyone.  I'm pretty sure everyone I graduated high school with is either working by now or in grad school.

Edit: Everytime I drive to Rochester and see signs for RPI I think "Man, if I was going to RPI I wouldn't have another 3-4 hours ahead of me..."

This has the risk of being a really wordy card.  If you want to stay true to the spirit of the Prisoner's Dilemma, it should be something like this:

Interrogation [cost]

Enchantment

At the beginning of your upkeep, you and target player each secretly choose whether to "cooperate" or "defect" and then reveal your choices.  If both players chose to cooperate then they each lose 1 life and put a 1/1 prisoner token into play.  If both players chose to defect then they both discard one card.  Otherwise, the player that chose to defect draws a card and the player that chose to cooperate discards two cards.

The best scenario for a single player is for them to choose defect and have their opponent choose cooperate.  The point being that if both players are greedy then they will both suffer.  If only one is greedy then he will make out like a bandit.  If they both cooperate then they both get hurt, but less so.

This correlates to the original problem where if they both cooperate they serve 6 months, if they both defect they serve 2 years and if they choose differently one goes free and the other serves 10 years.

This might not be what you're going for, but this is just my thoughts when considering a prisoner's dilemma style card.

Edit: Grammar on the card

Alright.  Thanks everyone for your input.  Everything seems pretty clear.

I didn't realize this.


Probably a good point.  Given what Apollyon said, I guess I'll follow your advice and speak with him beforehand if he's judging another tournament I'm attending.

So, given the outside notes thing is a similar situation in the future likely to be resolved the way this one was where I just go with the head judge and keep on playing?  Without the comp rules I don't really have any ground to stand on.  Openly arguing with the judge is asking for trouble and I'm not going to approach whoever it may be before each tournament to address this rules point because it's insulting to assume that they will rule incorrectly.  I'm not out to make enemies with the judging staff.

Hmm... that's annoying.  Do you think it's worth it to print out that portion of the rules and carry it out in case of a future misruling or would that or would that be considered out of line and just get me in trouble.

I didn't exactly have the game in the bag at the point when the ruling was made but I started losing hardcore afterwards because he did the same thing next turn.  Braids/Smokestack is pretty bad when it doesn't do anything relevant.

I looked over a bunch of the previous posts on this and they seem to support what I think.  Given a ruling that I was presented with recently, I'm asking anyway.  So, here it goes:

It's my turn.  I have a Braids, Cabal Minion in play.  My opponent has Aether Vial with 3 counters, and a bunch of lands as his permanents.  I pass the turn.  On his upkeep he goes to make the stack look like this top to bottom:

Aether Vial (add a counter)
Braids (sacrifice)

So, he adds a counter to aether vial, vials in ringleader, draws 4 goblins and then sacrifices ringleader to Braids.  I was under the impression that It was the AP, NAP rule and that on his turn all of his effects triggered first and then mine triggered on top of them (So, braids would resolve before he had a chance to add a counter to aether vial).

The ruling by the head judge was that any player on their turn was allowed to stack the triggered effects in any order they wanted.  To follow this up I posed the following question:

"If I had two triggered effects (for example tangle wire and smokestack), would I be able to choose the order they go on the stack on my opponents turn because I control them both (individually, not in relation to my opponent's triggers)."  The answer was that no, I wouldn't and that my opponent still gets to stack things as he chooses on his turn.  The judge also, cited that on magic online the game sets it up like that for you.

Now, this was the ruling by the head judge at the tournament so obviously there was no argument at the time.  But, I want to know if this is really how it works now.  I though that for years stax players had been abusing the stack to make their opponents not be able to sacrifice tapped permanents and then reversing the situation on their own turn so that they would be able to sacrifice a tapped permanent.  Not to mention being able to fade tangle wire on their own turn before they tap to it.

Thanks for any insight you can provide...

edit: minor clarification

You can do this as long as you didn't play the factory that turn.  If you played the factory that turn, after you turn it into a creature it will have summoning sickness and won't be able to use it's <tap> ability.

I'm going to go with Winter Orb on this one.  It essentially marked my move from Verdant Force + Forests.dec to something a little more useful.  As soon as I saw it I traded for 4 copies and of it and every card with the urza's untap mechanic (except Time Spiral, who needed that bad card...  ).  At the time I mostly played multiplayer.  My winter orb deck quickly made the game me vs. everyone else and I subsequently lost, but it was still fun.

I guess the guys I played with at the time can be glad it was Winter Orb I stumbled across and not Stasis.

edit: Shortly after my first game with the deck the most experienced of us explained what happened when he used Icy Manipulator to tap Winter Orb.   Yes, it was all downhill from there.

If you have firewall software installed (McAfee, Sygate, Zone Alarm, Norton, etc) and you have set it to never tell you when it makes a decision whether to let a program out or not that could do it.  For example, if you had been using it for a while and already set up all the rules you though you cared about and then made it silent so it would be less annoying.  That could possibly explain why newer versions of things are not working internet wise.

If you do have a firewall, the first thing you should do is disable it temporarily and then try and use these programs that havn't been working.  Note that this doesn't include Windows Firewall.  While Windows Firewall can cause problems when attempting other network related tasks, it would not restrict access to the internet by something like IE7.

You could do something like:

Reveal the top 6 cards of your library.  Target opponent divides those cards into 3 piles of 2 cards each.  Choose 1 pile to go to your hand.  Then that opponent chooses 1 pile to be removed from the game and 1 pile to go to the bottom of your library.

Though I guess that kinda gets rid of the whole "not paying attention to what you are getting" thing.

I'm not the Gifts Master here, but my 2 cents...

Mana Drain is pretty important.  This can be shown by identifying the differences between Mana Drain and the obvious second choice of Counterspell.

Mana Drain is a threat, Counterspell isn't.  Lets say you have 4 mana on the board and want to cast smokestack.  If your opponent has UU up, it's a lot more dangerous to attempt this if you suspect they are representing Mana Drain than if you suspect they are representing Counterspell.  if they Counterspell your smokestack, you shrug, pass the turn and cast something else next turn.  If they Mana Drain your smokestack you grimace and pass the turn.  Then they get to use that 4 mana to Gifts/Fact or Fiction/Thirst for Knowledge/Yawgmoth's Will and either win the game or put themselves far enough ahead that you will have a serious uphill battle on your hands trying to win.

This example isn't meant to show what a stax player, or a gifts player should do in any of these situations, it's only designed to illustrate the fundamental difference between having your spell countered and having it drained.  Definitely read someone else's (who actually plays gifts) opinion on the difference too.

Having the ability to gain life back and draw yet more cards is not what made Necropotence and Yawgmoth's Bargain good.  If both of those cards had that extra clause of not being able to gain life people would still play them and they would still be broken.  So, I guess the ultimate question here is the cost to draw a card enough.  I'm tempted to say this is fairly well balanced given its prohibitive casting cost (Greed was 3B).  I think maybe the mana in the activation cost should be black.  While it's not like other colors are going to sneak this into play it's probably not a bad idea.

1.  Scallops
2.  Grilled CBC
3.  Strawberry Cheesecake
4.  Stewarts Root Beer

I wouldn't take it personally that your thread was moved to this forum.  The Vintage Improvement Forum was not created in order to insult decks.  People will be just as able to give input on your deck here as in the other forum.

With that said, I think that MoxLotus has a point.  Your game against storm combo is a little weak.  I played combo for a while and typically you don't care if your opponent draws cards as long as they don't draw any cards that stop you.

With no intuition, the Accumulated knowledge draw engine is only so so.  With intuition it needs an inappropriate amount of mana early on for too little of an effect and uses up (usually 7) a lot of slots.  You want to be casting creatures with your mana, not drawing creatures you won't cast.  You already have a lot of other draw spells so I don't think that losing the AK's will hurt you too much.  In their place you could add chalice of the void since that would help you against combo.

It also might not be a bad idea to try to squeeze another basic into your mana base so you don't get owned by a wasteland heavy draw on your opponent's part.

Lastly I would suggest adding a fourth brainstorm.  If you run them and your mana base can support it then you should be running 4.

You get the cards when "at the end of turn" stuff triggers.  Then you have to discard down to seven.  The discarding down to seven happens after the "at end of turn" stuff.

how about something like:

If a card would be put into your graveyard, remove it from the game instead.
Pay 2 life: return target card in your graveyard to your hand.

If you're going to keep this type 1, fastbond might not be a bad addition.  It will let you randomly break your curve in half since unlike traditional combo decks you can't really rely on a full set of moxes to ramp up your turn 1 mana.

Edit: to make actual sense.

I think this sounds awesome and I'll go if I can.

Ah, I see.  I knew it was going to be something obvious.  Thanks.

On a more relevant note... This now seems like a really cool idea.  As noted already, it's weakness is the dependance on Time Walk because combo decks will up and kill you on that extra turn that you have to wait.

The deck does have 5 tutors and 3 gifts.  Maybe it's not a bad idea to include a single dark ritual for gifts/will so you can ramp up enough mana to get doll and conscience in play and then tutor for and play time walk.  As has been pointed out this is pretty mana intensive.

I think I'm missing something here.  As it stands:

1.  Get the doll into play
2.  Enchant with Guilty Conscience
3.  Time Walk
4.  Tap doll to do 1 damage to itself.  Opponent takes 1 damage
5.  Guilty Conscience Triggers and does 1 damage to the doll.  Opponent takes 1 damage.
6.  ...

Isn't it guilty conscience doing the damage to the doll not the doll doing more damage to itself so it doesn't trigger into an infinite loop?  No doubt there is something I don't understand about the combo.

I agree.  This is highly unfair.  Vore is bad enough when they get the T1-Sleight, T2 Eye of nowhere, T3 stone rain.  Giving them the ability to do T1 Bounce, T2 Eye, T3 stone rain on the draw isn't a good idea.

Making it non-basic only isn't a bad idea because then it would just force people to play out basics before they drop non-basics to make sure they don't get hosed.

re: Jeff Greene

I was the fish player he beat in the top 4.  Jeff was a great guy and I can confirm that he quite honestly, fairly and soundly stomped me into the ground with Sundering Titan.  Congratulations on winning Jeff, I was rooting for you in the end there.

RE: All this about nobodies not getting support like Roland and Jacob have and Name Players getting overwhelming support.

I am obviously not a name player.  Maybe 4 people on these boards know who I am.

<--- There's my post count.

If I lost my collection (maybe a few hundred dollars?) , I highly doubt that I would recieve anywhere near the support that Roland and Jacob have.  I would probably expect maybe sympathy at the most if I posted about it.  The thing is, this isn't the point.  I didn't chose to go to the benefit tournament and donate because I was hoping to get something out of it.  It's not about my personal gain.  I went because I wanted to do something to aid their loss.  The thing is this is about their loss, not about mine or anyone elses.


This statement describes most of what happened when the incident was reported.


This describes the rest of what happened.  Absolutely noone was obligated to help them get the cards back or rebuild their collection.  There should not be a general feeling of animosity towards those that did.

The secret pouch was mine.  It was stapled because I wasn't planning on being there Sunday and was going to send it down with Derek.  I suppose I could reveal its contents, though they are rather lackluster and might spoil the excitement. 

As an aside I find it rather amusing that every occurence of SECRET POUCH is capitalized in that post.

Thanks for a great tournament Ray.

-Matt

Edit: Luckily I met Derek at a nearby card shop Saturday night and he offered to take me down and help me build a deck.  Thanks Derek

Also important to note is that you can't announce a spell, wait for them to not counter it and then sac LED for mana while that spell is still on the stack.  If you want to have LED mana the way Matt said you have to announce [D-Tutor type spell] and then break LED before passing priority.  At times it can be a little risky, but if you set up properly you should be all set.

This doesn't work.  Wizards actually removed the "as though they were in your hand" clause to cards like Yawgmoth's Will because it was confusing people.  Now it reads:

Yawgmoth's Will  2B

Sorcery

Until end of turn, you may play cards in your graveyard.
If a card would be put into your graveyard this turn, remove that card from the game instead.

Will makes it so that you can play the cards in your graveyard, nothing more nothing less.  You cannot use them in any other way that would require them to be in your hand (discarding, put on top of library etc).  Cards that have abilities that you can play while they are in your hand (See: Elvish Spirit Guide, Ninja of the Deep Hours) cannot be used for those abilities when they are in the graveyard and you play yawgmoth's will.

you could make it black and do the following:


Dark Deed
[some_cost (1BB ?)]
Sorcery
You lose life equal to the number of cards in all players' hands.
Then, each player shuffles his or her hand into his or her library and then draws a card.

Was is worth it?

If Turbulent Dreams is the card you were talking about from Torment, I'm not sure if it's what you want.  Typcially instant speed bounce is better than sorcery speed bounce.  That way you can do things like bounce all of Stax's lock components at the end of their turn and spend your next turn doing other things.  Also, Turbulent Dreams costs you at least one other card along with it to just bounce one permanent.  You may want to consider Echoing Truth, Rebuild or Hurkyl's Recall.

Hey, I was your round 4 opponent.  I'm from RIT as well.  One of the more amusing things about that last game was that I finally scooped with 1 life, no library and necropotence in play.

congrats on your finish.

This is correct.  You don't name the card until the needle enters play.  So, you really shouldn't say anything at all regarding the named card until Pithing Needle resolves.

Of course if he does waste in response, you can still name wasteland if you want to prevent any future use of other wastelands.