One mistake I have seen new players make with gush is casting it at the end of their opponent's turn. There are only a few situations where this is correct, as waiting until your main phase will allow you to make a land drop after gushing and take advantage of the mana boost. If you gush in a phase that is not your main phase, you are giving up that mana boost as well as potentially valuable tempo.

What is the status of this event following the proxy announcement by Wizards?

Edit: Looks like the proxy issue has been clarified by Wizards. I will likely be at the event.

This card plays very well with entomb, a card that itself opens up a lot of possibilities for deckbuilding.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. The aforementioned tutor and draw-3 alone seem very powerful and are enough to make me want to test/brew around them already. Meanwhile, there are many other cards including(but not limited to), Void Winnower, Brutal Expulsion, Greenwarden, and many of the utility lands, which fit the description of "probably bad but interesting enough to test". While this set is not Innistrad, there will likely be many vintage playables in this set. Additionally, the set will probably lead to a great limited and standard format, which is good for most players as well as wotc's bottom line. The way I see it, if the average set was like this one it would be satisfactory to most people(obviously not all).

I am with you on not wanting another Theros block. The worst thing about Theros was that they said it was going to be an enchantment block and instead it's a "stick as many auras as possible onto a creature" block. Myself and everyone I know who played magic at the time interpreted their advertising to mean that it would be a "fixed" Mirrodin block, but with a global enchantment theme. When they announced that scry would be a theme I got even more excited. Although I enjoyed the standard format it created, the block itself and the lack of eternal playables was such a letdown.


I agree with most of this.

I honestly feel that BFZ is a fine bar to set for Vintage-playable cards. They just printed another potentially playable tutor, as well as a 3-mana draw-3. Not every set needs to be Khans of Tarkir. In fact, if every set did change the format on the level that khans did, I'm sure many people would be furious. This set will send standard in an excellent direction while printing at least two cards that are very likely to be strong Vintage playables, and this set is no Theros.

Could not have happened to a better guy. My deepest congratulations to Brian and the rest of the top 8.

Thanks for the responses. There are a lot of good ideas in here. I should clarify that I wasn't really thinking about win percentages so much as the amount of matches you should play for a given matchup in order to prepare for an event (Obviously this should vary depending on the expected popularity of each deck in your gauntlet.).To be even more specific, after you have learned the core interactions and recurring patterns in a matchup, how much more should you test it if you are preparing for an event and have limited time? Ar what point does the diminishing returns aspect become big enough that jamming more games isn't worth it if you have a limited amount of time to prepare? For example, is there a value of x where after x amount of games there is not much to be learned until you have played several hundred more?

When you are testing a deck, how many games/matches of each matchup do you play to become proficient in the matchup? How many games should you play as the opponent's deck? This doesn't have to do with win percentages, but more being comfortable with how your deck and the opponent's decks interact in the matchup, and knowing what lines of play to take.

Nice report and congrats on the finish! One minor nitpick is that Marit Lage can't be targeted by duplicant, so the only card that can punish you in the situation you described vs shops is metamorph.

It turns out that this card is a powerhouse in standard. After playing with this guy in standard and seeing it tested in vintage, I've changed my mind on the card just the same as some other people in this thread. It's no JTMS, but it's a turn 1 play a frequent amount of the time.

Bumping this in case anybody missed the announcement. This event is five days away!

Looks like the auction ended today. It ended up going for just under $15,000.

I understand that many people would have taken the Burst Lightning, but I'm completely shocked at the wording some of the pros have used to describe his pick. What if he needs the money to go to more tournaments, for example? Not everyone gets paid airfare and hotel accommodations as they do. Saying that this pick makes you "lose all respect for Pascal Maynard" or that you're ashamed he would "sell out for so little" seems like a complete overreaction.

I've read all of the articles that you've posted, and I have to say that this is the best so far. I'm glad that you made the point about how the format needs Workshop decks to prevent it from becoming completely inbred. Some people tend to forget this when arguing for the deck to be gutted by restrictions. I'm always glad to see people taking the time to create Vintage content, keep it up!

There's a high profile Magic Online Tournament going on right now, which lasts for three days. One of yesterday's formats was Vintage. They archived it here:

 http://www.twitch.tv/magic/v/5061417

The vast majority of the field is made up of Gush and Workshop decks.

In case I wasn't clear, I am referring to the Storm Deck popularized by Smmenen with Burning Wish, a rainbow manabase, Oath of Druids, and a disruption suite of either pitch countermagic or discard. What happened to this archetype? Not only was it seeing a good amount of play a year ago, the deck appears to have the tools to compete in this metagame. It has a very strong plan for beating Workshop decks. In game one, Oath of Druids is a free win against Gush creature decks and you can use your sideboard as an extension of your deck in this regard to keep them off their feet(For example, you can side out the oaths so that they have the same amount of dead cards postboard as pre board). In fact, the blue pillar is dominated by gush right now. This seems bad for a deck like tps, but in a deck like this you can throw your bombs at them fast enough that they can't refuel in time with gush, which makes their low density of relevant disruption will hurt them. Is there something I'm missing? Why has this deck fallen off the map?

This card was used in Doomsday Sideboards for a while as anti-shop tech in the vein of Hurkyl's. I believe it is no longer used because in a deck without full moxen it can't consistently be cast.

Does it need to be a creature? Minister of Pain fits your description but it seems worse than toxic deluge.

I had to miss this. Who won?

I find this very hard to believe considering the deck's abysmal shop matchup.


The podcast was excellent. The probe discussion was a great example of the type of content we need more of. The interview was incredibly eye opening. Whenever I have heard someone mention a TMD open in the past(a rare occurrence) they have done so as if the events had a mythical quality. Now I know why.

I think Sensei's top would be a good card to cover sometime. In the same note, I like the idea of a cast on managing your manabase in tandem with cantrip sequencing(Holding or cracking fetchlands before cantripping; planning ahead a turn to fetch the right color, and how your actions change depending on what cantrip you cast). I'd be very interested to hear your views on both of these, especially the latter.

Definitely the 3 weeks plan. I'd imagine Single Elimination can lead to frustration in a format with so much variance. You should have the option to not switch decks, though(This option is available in the VSL).

I like this idea, and I'd be very interested in competing, but I have a couple questions. Is this gonna be streamed? Recorded? Will there by Skype-Commentary by the players like the VSL? Also, who gets to play in this? How will it be decided?

Edit: Will first place get a prize like the VSL? It could be that all the players pitch in some amount of money for a prize. It could even just be some bad card signed by all the players. I've heard that the 93/94 players in Europe do this with a Giant Shark for first prize.

I think the main issue here that no one has mentioned is the effect probe has on mulligans. I'm not a shop expert, but from what I've picked up the opening hand needs to have early disruption and ideally some pressure. In the best-case scenario you will drop multiple lock pieces on turn one. Now, what happens when you have a shaky hand with a couple of probes? You have to send that hand back, because you don't know if those probes will draw you into mana, disruption, or a threat(which could easily be an uncastable 6-8 drop which is effectively a blank). Your hand will likely need a card or two from one of those categories, but with probe in the opener you never know which one you'll draw. This happens in blue decks, too, but that is somewhat offset by the fact that many blue decks have taken to running preordain, and that in some blue decks the downside of probe actually obscuring information from you can be offset by deck design(Running very few win conditions in a control deck, for example). The shop pillar can't afford those luxuries.  If the deck is actually good like you say it is then by all means keep playing it, but don't be surprised if people are skeptical(at least until you start putting up results with it).

This is the one weekend in that timeframe in which I can't make it. Unless it gets moved like the December event, I will unfortunately have to miss this.

They could, but most of those streamers aren't Vintage Players. Considering the number of Vintage-playing pros that have declined an invitation, I'd like to see another Vintage specialist added to the roster.

Huh? Chewer was printed before Lodestone.

This was a very fun event, as always. I have a couple of disclaimers about my list:

I procrastinated on buying cards in my deck for too long. I was able to get some at the store, but I was at the proxy limit. This meant that I was unable to play Mox Sapphire or Time Walk. I desperately tried to find a fourth standstill at the event, but could not, so I replaced it with an Izzet Charm. The Charm disappointed me somewhat, mainly because my manabase is not like those of other landstill decks; It is slightly harder to get UR when it matters.  Despite these glaring issues, I'm happy with how the deck performed. Most of the games that I lost were very close.


 
I second this. Blaine was supportive of doing these 6 times a year, and I think that seems reasonable.

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense.

Congrats on the finish! I love the deck. I've just got two questions on card choices. Why only three wastelands as opposed to four, and why only two mana drain?

I'm still somewhat skeptical. What are you cutting from Belcher lists to run this thing, and what does it do for you? They seem to have a pretty tight balance of business and mana already, and this card doesn't solve any of the problems the deck faces.