Yeah, I didn't get that. I thought the pink polo was a meandeck thing.

Nice finish. 2 things:

1. So apparently non-proxy tournaments will have less attendance than proxied one? Hmm Ben Bleiweiss, hmmmmm. Maybe there's a reason why you don't want to prove your point with a SCG P9 no-proxy event?

2. It's great to see a Pro Player do well at vintage. Come to think about it, LSV has had a great year or so. Would I be reckless in saying that LSV is the greatest magic player we have seen in the last 1-2 years?

DFT approves DFC.

Hey Justin,
 Now you can use outside notes and record piles. How lucky.

Maybe, maybe not. Most of the tournaments that "matter" (maybe an unfair term here), are in the U.S. Where do you guys pick up your decks from?
  That's what I was getting at. Steve is using European tournies for 2/3's of his stats. I'm saying those stats are slanted because they represent a community that's innovation and building are almost completely net-decked. Maybe it's my lack of insight here, but I'm not ever going to take european t8's as my indicator for the metagame I'm going to face here. That's seems obvious, but my point is that your meta always seems to be a couple months behind. Take a look at the euro t8's before tezzy and post tezzy. Notice any lag?

 Article was good. Liked the graphs...
 As far as res/unres goes, we have to admit that American Vintage is what has truly defined the format (or at least in my experience for the last 4-5 years.) Scattered power-poor Euro tournaments aren't great indicators. No offense to our overseas friends, but I believe the highest level of competitive vintage has always been in the states (Eurovino might be the exception.) To be frank, Vintage is at it's lowest point since I've played. I don't think we should take any action until after the ICBM open and Championships.
 If there is still a problem, Restricting drain might be the answer, because I can't really pinpoint any unrestrictions that would even the field for everyone. Plus, I'm sure that a drain restriction would still allow Tezz to be VERY playable.  (Just saw your agreement with that point. Sorry if i brought up old topics. Didn't read first page)
 

I skimmed over most of the posts, so forgive me for any redundancies.
As someone who came into vintage with no staples, no power, and no play skill (Well, that one is still true) while ending up doing well, I think I have some merit pertaining to this subject.
 It is true that the ability to use proxies wasn't exactly the congenital reason for my curiosity with vintage. However, I think that my interest would have been a quick flare rather than the burning passion I have for vintage without the ability to utilize them. Now that proxies have been used for many years, taking away that crutch wouldn't hurt me as much as it used to. However, the many vintage players would drop, and I mean MANY. This forum is a nice little group, but it is the random people who come to proxy tournaments that really make up the community we don't see as often on here. The solution isn't abolition, and I'm glad that you, Steve, agree.

 Furthermore, Benthetenor and Gunslinger are correct. We can't simplify these conditions on a multi-variable scale. I am actually ashamed of Ben Bleiweiss for his actions and his disgusting cover up. While his arguments have some some truth derived from them, he is forcing us to only see his non-sequitor syllogism. His motives aren't a surprise either. Where does he work and what does he do? Sell cards. So here lies the question:
Are we trying to raise attendance or are we trying to increase the prize value?

 As Steve has pointed out, these are not inherently the same, nor are they that different. Steve, I agree with many of your solutions. Holding more exclusive, low power count tournaments will indeed increase the utility/demand/price for power. However, I think that a healthy mix between the two would increase participation and value of power to the extended that these factors have power over. I think the best solution would be for more WOTC support. If WOTC could stir up some non-proxied tournaments (besides worlds) with decent prize support, I think a great thing would happen. People would play at SCG Power 9 to earn their proxies and then play at the big Wotc non-proxy events to earn cash and hopefully Pro-Points. Bottom line, we need better motivation for non-proxy if we want to complete this system.

 As for IE and CE, we need to be careful. I think that releasing these as playable is a great idea, but the effect on the secondary market might be completely different that what you guys are putting in a vacuum. Instead of lowering current power prices, it may have the exact opposite effect. While introducing substitutes into the market usually lowers price, real power has such a strong personal value to it. I think we will be greatly underestimating that in the future until it hits in the face.
 In conclusion, we shouldn't have an exclusive standard on proxy limit rules, especially since it is only one factor. Diversification is the best way to have as much utility as possible and we need to find ways to make that work. Different leagues should be created with different proxy limits, but limit the prizes. The less proxies you use, the greater the prize support should be. Whether that be in Pro-Points or cash, WOTC needs to get involved. We can't secede vintage as much as we wanted to in the past.

 Well to be fair, you had a 1/10 chance of only losing $5 dollars according to illogical probability.
 All this talk about about banning players and low payouts from a monopolizing TO makes me wonder how many vintage players we will be picking up this year. It's almost as if it was better to not have a tournament at all.

 Here's how this convo should have went:
 Vroman: Fuck you pastimes for reasons X,Y,Z.
 Alan: Sorry, we realize this now and we weren't prepared and/or organized. Will do better. Thanks for the feedback. No, I'm not using my witty sarcasm this time.
 Vroman: I won't take back the "fuck you", but I'll consider driving 5 hours and spending $30 on one of your tournaments again.
 Alan: Fair enough.

 Think about this Alan. Every player you ban is one less guru swamp you can buy/trade/sell. It's pretty much a dead weight loss in your guru swamp surplus.
 

Nice
 However, we have been talking about it, just in a different mode. It's good to know that the 2.0 version still does well, but Vroman's 3.0 version seems a lot better for this metagame. With the temporary popularity of elves, I think cannonist is needed. Also, the 3.0 has fewer dead draws (although less stable. My version is slightly more stable.)
Check out the cannonist/sculler thread.

I've just been messing around with this on mws. I'm using the originally posted main with this sb:
4 Extirpate
2 Thoughtseize
1 Duress
3 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Seeds of Innocence
1 Oxidize
2 Echoing Truth

I'm not going to lie, I haven't played the seeds yet.

I feel that cursecatchers, thorns, wastes, and extirpates are enough. The stifle and fast clock are just icing on the cake.

Obviously I have no major answers to oath. I guess I have e truth and extirpates? Maybe this deck should be ran like SS 2.0 and play spell snare.

Good point but Scullers are VERY good against stax seeing it's not discarded. They don't have a lot of outs to creatures besides tapping them down and making you sac them.
I'd tap one mana to keep my vial alive any day.

I dunno. If you wrath and are left with say, three lands, there's going to be at least one card you can't play. On the other side of the field, they have the lands needed to cast anything they have plus the chance of top decking wastes/strips. I don't want to face stax at a top deck war.
I guess I'm also assuming a lot. I dunno, I've just had bad experiences with banking on art wrath to win me the game.

My version is fine against stax. The stronger base plus kataki is fine. Serenity is a double edged sword here. It's probably a terrible idea in vromans list since it knocks out your scullers, moxen, and vial. Without a strong mana base, the ability to drop teed and/or sculler is compromised.

I would still run zaar and squee minus the singleton loam and zombfest. With aether vial as the primary source of making dudes after turn 3, your land is pretty much just cycling material. Otherwise, I would cut all of it. However, with leaving in the engine, there's no reason not to run at least one loam and zombfest.

Except the part where Steve is actually good at playing magic.  Oh, and that part where his decks do well.

The deck seems interesting. I might play around with it for awhile.

With such a suicide-like tendrils build, I'd say that the opponents game plan would be to lock you or slow you down so they can catch up. I wouldn't dismiss pact as a distraction right away.
 While seize has proven to be better in past interactions, this is an entirely different deck.

 As a comparison in the context of your list, Seize is inferior for two reasons. While you have addressed these, I am not quite satisfied with your answers.
#1-It costs mana
#2- Poor synergy with Ad Nauseam

 However, from the current  obsession with disrupting bears, I have to reason that cutting the duress would be the right move over seize. Therefore, I propose -4 Duress and +4 Pact. I have not tested the deck, so maybe I will see your logic in time.
 
 Until then, this deck needs pact. Otherwise, it's just meandeck tendrils that plays 4 copies of 6 a costing duress target.

What are you pissed about?

I'm sorry, I didn't know I had to point out the differences. I assumed you could read and compare/contrast.
Also, you are making a lot of assumptions.
#1 I wasn't giving expert advice. I was just posting a list that I liked better on paper as a possible list to test with. IF you really needed me to tell you the difference between the lists because you just looked over 20 lines of text, then you have a problem. I don't need to spoon feed you information like the scg deck contrast on deck finder.
What's my justification? I like the look better on paper. How did I come to this conclusion? Through experience and knowledge.
#2 I don't care if people believe me. This deck is not going to be very good if everyone plays something that considers these lists. Actually, I'm a bit surprised that V posted this on here in the first place. Perhaps because the chances of him playing at a major vintage tournament are slim?
#3 I'm not shrouding anything. I'm just throwing ideas out there. You said so yourself, "speculation." It's also called brainstorming.

If anyone should keep their mouth shut it should be you. All you have done is exacerbate the situation. If you would have asked nicely for justification, I would have given you my testing results. Now, I couldn't give a damn.

@Pierce- You're right, It's not sound. The deck in is it's infancy. You have to throw around ideas first before you start analyzing matchups.
Seedtime? Really? That card was too terrible for extended. You want some justification? I played medium green aggro in the blue dominated extended format with kamigawa being the last block. The deck wasn't too far off from this one. You play guys and equip with your mana there. Therefore Seedtime will never be played in the first 4 turns. If you are still alive by turn 5 in this format (playing fish/ aggro control), you most likely won. You could argue that aether vial frees up your mana, but then 8 of their blue spells won't be played and you'd most likely play another guy due to the high spell count in the deck.(There's your content moderators)
In conclusion, seedtime is either win more or a dead card.


But why mention seedtime? What is your justification on asking about it? Why should I care about it? Throwing around random ideas lessens the value of this forum as a whole.
Maybe I should have asked "what are everyone's thoughts on this list" preceding my list posting.

Verbal warning for violation of Rule 2, Inflammatory Posting (flames) -DA

I can see where you're committing a fallacy of composition.

Yes, I can make assumptions at a list by looking at in just on paper. Mostly because I know what the cards do. I don't need to play test sb cards (I.E. no main synergy) I have played with for the last X years.

Here's my list with 0 testing. I like the base and sb better.

6 LoMoxDiamond (- Saph)
4 Fetches
2 Bayou
1 Riftstone
3 Scrubland
2 Waste
1 Strip
1 Swamp
4 Bazaar

1 Zombfest
4 Squee
1 Life from the loam
3 Vial

1 Vamp
1 Demonic
3 Swords
4 Seize
1 Balance

4 Dark Confidant
4 Goyf
3 New Fiend
3 New Cannonist
2 Teeg

SB:
4 Extirpate
3 Null Rod
1 STP
3 Ray
3 Kataki
1 Oxidize

Gotta love Nigerians!

Lol, did you read two lines then write two lines?

@Poppa V, see other forum for response.

Verbal warning for violation of Rule 4, Lack of Content (spam, personal message)  -DA

Steve, I wasn't targeting this at you.
However, you have to agree that people made mistakes and poor decisions. Otherwise we wouldn't have a problem. The debate is whether they should be accountable or not. Moxlotus says yes. You are saying no for the sake of the overall economic health. Am I correct?

Moxlotus isn't too far off here.
The general reason why we are in this crisis is very simple (I apologize for the redundancy.)
 Much like this forum, important economic decisions were made by those who pretend to know economics. Fortunately, it seems that many of the people who do know economics are in the house.
 Should we call those who failed stupid? Not all of them. I think a lot of it has to do with a herd mentality and therefore fallacy of composition.
 Also, we cannot blame the ignorant being hounded by flashy tv commercials, anxious "investors", and a seemingly stable trend.
However, if we would go under, it would be from the same "pretenders."

Maybe due to the fact that those who are able to pay off the mortgages don't want to pay more than they have to?  Thus the banks would have to somehow strong arm debtors with some sort of legal push behind more government meddling. 

Flashes weak top 8 showing was not due to "inherent" weakness. I would argue that most players refused to play it because of a variety of factors. Looking over the overall flash participation, there wasn't a whole lot of top players. Perhaps the low input made winning less important? I guess this also applies to ichorid.  (This is just one speculation. Some people have been playing the same deck for 6 years.)
I'm also going to go out on a limb and say that two card combo decks are not inherently weak. Although I see what you mean by saying two card combo's are weak.

 But in the case of tezzeret, he is a one card combo in the deck. The question is, how much better can the deck get with playing more vaults? I don't see any more than 2 being the best number. However, I still think its a bit unfair being able to tooth out two wins while your opponent (with one scroll) has to find two answers.

Shhh!!!!!!

This deck could benefit from a bazaar or two.

Another Ichorid question:
 Why did you keep in duress and ditch force of all things? (Nor would I side out a tutor.) Best case scenario they are playing "mana'ed" Ichorid and they kept a non bazaar hand. Even then force is more relevant and stops them on the draw. Was there something Stasch played that you didn't mention?
 I do realize that you won anyways, but I have always had duress branded in my head as an auto side-out card.

@Steve
   Did you have 3 or 4 mana sources the turn you duressed and d-tutored in your last game versus Paul? Basically, would you have 5 the turn after?

Eveningtide in general is a terrible set. None of the tier decks (in STANDARD!) can afford to replace slots. I think it has a lot of potential for post rotations, but thats only because strictly better cards will be gone. I really don't see many sleepers here beside the counter win condition. Although, it's most likely a red herring.

You can't play absorb on a shusher. If you do, it means you are playing absorb.