To be fair, the Pyromancer Ascensions are some kind of a joke that I don't get.

Friday, Round 3 - Soly playing Burning Oath I think. Could have been Doomsday with Oath. There was definitely Oath involved.

Soly is very vocal about how he is going to destroy me. I shrug and agree.

Game one I keep a hand that has some interaction if I get a turn, but it doesn't have Force. He imprints Griselbrand on a Chrome Mox to Thoughtseize me, and all of the sudden I don't have much interaction anymore. He goes into Orchard and Oath, and I have nothing to do to stop him. On his turn, he Oaths. After flipping the entirety of his deck, Griselbrand is the 5th card from the bottom. Feeling dejected, he passes the turn. I draw an Echoing Truth, and I have the mana to play it. He draws and swings, and I take it. On his next turn, I Echoing Truth the Griselbrand, and he derides me for playing Echoing Truth. I do little else, as his second to last card in the deck is Time Walk, and after casting it and drawing the last card he scoops. Soly informs me that I had no right winning that game, and that I should know that I had no right winning that game. I shrug. Bob Maher, who had been watching the entire ordeal unfold, tells Soly that that's what he gets for playing only two creatures in a deck and walks away.

Soly is not happy at all. I think that probably gives me an edge.

Game two I keep a terrible hand that wins in five turns. Dark Depths, Thespian's Stage, 4x Snow-Covered Island, and Blightsteel Colossus. The way I see it, I won game one, and that allows me to keep a risky hand in game two. Soly mulls to five. On the play, he uses an Underground Sea to Thoughtseize me. I drop my hand and Soly derides me for keeping a terrible hand. I draw a Force of Will, play a land, and pass the turn. I think he plays a land and also passes. I draw an Intuition, play a land, and pass the turn. On his next main, he attempts to cast Oath of Druids, but I RFG Intuition to Force of Will it. Soly derides me for lucksacking into Force and a blue card off the top. Nothing more that's relevant happens as I get the combo assembled and kill him. He states that he was one mana away from hardcasting Griselbrand. I had a Mindbreak Trap by that time, but I don't know if he had a supporting Duress effect to clear the path.

I tell Soly that he needs to relax, but he says he is relaxed. I don't think he's relaxed. After I take the match slip up he apparently got into a verbal altercation with the guy sitting next to him (who apparently said he knows me despite me having no idea who the guy is), but you'd have to ask Soly for the full story on that.

Hope you brought your baking skills cause we're about to send you home with a Condolences Casserole!

Classic mistake of bringing an axe to a gun fight...

And so it begins....

Team Serious has been putting countless hours into practicing for this shindig.




EDIT: We've also grown some sweet hipster beards too. Yangtime's is quite remarkable.  

Hi, thanks for the podcast. Just one comment:

It is easy to make and eat pancakes when the recipe is at your disposal. The hard part is to come up with a recipe of your own.

Players did make the trip from Michigan and Canton, and the rest of the field was Columbusites.

There are no good cipher cards.  The cheapest, and closest to not awful is the 1U untapper, and even that is bad.

Theros is just a really clever set.  Powercreep is there, but in ways that eternal formats cannot possibly abuse, i.e. devotion, monstrosity, heroic.  Its like one big troll of the vintage community.

EDIT: On the topic of Heroic -- since I can't listen to the podcast any more for awhile -- it might be helpful if you guys checked out the Mana Drain threads on new sets going into your review.  We went over some of the things that DO work with Heroic.  Spoiler alert:  They're all pretty stinky as far as Vintage goes.

First, you got your repeatable enchantments like Rancor + Auratog (lol), Flickering Ward, Mark of Fury, etc.  These are terrible cards on their own, so this is probably a non starter.  I could see some kind of janky Enchantress + Auratog + Parallax Tide thing being played for the LOLs.

Next, you got your Flashback cards.  Hunter makes Artful Dodge, Canopy Claws, Deadly Allure, Defy Gravity, Feeling of Dread, and Thrill of the Hunt into somewhat decent draw spells.  However, again, they are bad on their own.  The only ones that are interesting are Deadly Allure, which is not a terrible wrath effect, and maybe Thrill of the Hunt in a deck also featuring Cold-Eyed Selkie.  I dunno.  

Finally, you got your Rebound spells.  Distortion Strike reads "draw a card now, and draw a card next upkeep" for U, which is absurd.  It deals 6 damage to your opponent in the bargain, since your dork is swinging unblockably!  See also crappy cards: Emerge Unscathed, Prey's Vengeance, and Virulent Swipe.  This might make sense in a Chimera / Pyromancer deck, but I sort of doubt it.

Honorable mentions go to: (1) Buyback.  It works, but there's nothing cheap enough for this to make sense; and (2) View From Above, which works fairly well with all the White heroic dudes but is a stinker of a card on its own.

Something many people are overlooking is that, though Theros is not a great set for Vintage, it is still steathily upgrading and invalidating tons of old cards.

Mesa Pegasus got a strict upgrade.  Ley Druid got a strict upgrade.  Ixidron basically got an upgrade.  There are a bunch of others, I just can't think of them right now.

I feel like Theros is power creeping, it's just doing it in areas that Vintage doesn't care about.

Don't take the Fire Covenant to serious, I really love the card, and it was my attest to all the young pyromancers around...

I guess one way to differentiate yourself from other Magic podcasts is not to actually talk about Magic on your podcast...?

That may be a bit too harsh.  If I was going to Gen Con, this was an excellent guide to restaurants and venues, which would be useful if I wanted to stalk you and punch your sandwiches.

http://Everyone ends up where they belong.

RE: Interview Feedback

I enjoyed the content of the interviews.  What a given player was playing and why, their predictions of the meta-game, food and drink choices (a running theme of the show), and highlights/lowlights of the tournament so far.  As a new player getting into the format it was helpful to hear why decks were chosen or how some key interactions may have happened.  While I do not think I will ever choose to play Belcher because, "it is the only deck I can pilot while drunk."  It sure was entertaining to hear as a reason for playing the archetype.  Interviewing the players at different times in the event was a little disjointed, but there was a warning up front about it, so thanks for the heads up.

Also, I have a little constructive criticism about the audio.  The background sound was a little distracting at times during the interviews, if there is a way to dampen the ambient noise for future player interviews it would be appreciated.  The other point is the sensor beep, it is a harsh contrast to the conversation.  Having it be less jarring, or not as loud would be preferred.

All that said, I really enjoy the content you guys are creating.  Keep up the good work.

Hey, i did my part.  I asked Forsyythe months ago.    at least I noticed the discrepancy in the Gencon event listings.  I was the first to ask about this...