Not yet. I haven't found a foil Dromar.

Anyone have a foil Dromar to give away?

Well, I started a thread partly to address your... curious... comment in red in that other thread.

Maybe. I'm just extremely busy this month.

Beats me. I have no idea what that article was talking about and didn't get around to wading through it yet. It would be a weird brand of humor to completely confuse the hell out of the audience before making them laugh. Anyway, I live in Boston for now and may see a few old friends I never did.

And fur hats are hardly common in Southeast Asia, you know.

Aw come on. Did you really believe Legend's story that I live in a thatched hut in a mountain somewhere?

TB: Smmenen got flamed quite a bit in the "old days." This would either be Brown Paper Bag (flamed for Prohibits, leading to the signed foil Prohibit in my collection) or a particular Keeper build with both Moat and Masticore in it.

Gabe: I'm not quite groveling yet. Shivering from the annoying cold you guys have here is more like it.

JOrlove: I'm not sure what you're smoking, but I'm still me. I've been in the US for a couple of months now, though I've only been keeping in contact with Smmenycakes and Jaypee.

Give me an identity test, I suppose. Try me.

Okay. I confess. It was me.

Over dinner, Smeny elaborated on his basic proposition that Type I is just about who resolves Yawgmoth's Will first. So I said, that creates four corollaries:

Combo: Strives to resolve Will before the opponent can do anything.

Control: Strives to stop the opponent from doing anything relevant before it resolves Will.

Aggro-Control: Strives to stop the opponent from resolving Will before it wins.

Aggro: Sucks.

With the decrease in writing and now coverage, though, I'd like to think it gets harder and harder to even identify the actual best deck in a tournament, especially when there's an upset when the Top 8 finishes.

As a serious reply, I think there was a drop in the quality of discussion when there was a drop in the number of experienced people writing Type I columns on Star City.

Forum posts are shorter, have a specific context, are often written with just a brief period for thinking, and yes, can degenerate into pissing contests. There are also gaps in topics covered purely by forum discussion. I'd like to think serious discussion began when "primers" were compiled, and that predates Mana Drain's existence.

Yes, some people discuss things with different implicit frameworks, but I always thought the more comprehensive, more thorough articles provided the easiest frames of reference that served as foundations for common discussion. I also thought they allowed (credible) players from lesser known areas to showcase their thought process without getting immediately flamed on a forum.

Yeah, Paragons of Vintage split into Paragon A (Short Bus, largely the members near Virginia, plus new recruits), Paragon B (everyone else, from Smeny to Jaypee), and the remaining third who vanished into this oblivion called real life.

Ironically (responding to your initial post), Steve, I am playing in Manila tournaments for once, but do not expect that to last given I am going to begin work about the same time you are.

So... did Shadow do anything decent over the last month?

After Chicago, I didn't hear anything else about this card.

You wait for the Canadians to invade an American tourney and show up with the tech you laughed at?

Seriously, I think you answered your own question when we had dinner... that thing you described as the "Featured Writer Effect."

Lol.

Biggest mistake of my trip: Asking Smeny where a nice place to eat dinner would be.

I actually went, "Steve... 'I have so many insane plays!'"

Heh. Next best thing. I am meeting up with Steve in Columbus this Saturday.

Well, I was just hoping we could resurrect a little of that good ol' days spirit, when it was an honor to be asked to write a primer or report for BD because you were acknowledged as an expert. I was hoping it might not be seen as a burden, but part of the bragging rights.

Put it this way. Everyone has a little time to comment here about their deck and answer questions after each tourney, right? Everyone (myself especially) is busy, but if you just took the same time to organize your comments into an article instead of posting scattershot in the forums...

Of course, I recognize that you in particular would hestitate to write about something if you didn't have enough time to write something as thorough as you want it to be. But a lot of great articles are stillborn because of this.

One other note. You know, it's very rare to find someone who has time to both play and write, and do both well.

I'm saddened to hear Pete give his reasons for doing away with "live" coverage of Star City P9.

Pete, however, has always been fair and honest, and has never wavered in support of the format and its players. If he says he's not even making money directly off P9, and if he says he's forced by circumstance to do away with live coverage, then I believe him.

Still, what can we do to maximize the venue created by Star City P9?

I remember the Magic (or Duelist) Invitational, back when it was covered with more showmanship and when it was more novel. Participants were, at one point, required to make tourney reports.

Why don't we just do this?

Require a decent (not even Otter Driver-level spectacular) report before you get your power card. Something even as simple as your decklist, key notes and highlight plays of the day.

Otherwise, we regress back to scattered forum posts and the occasional report. I feel that organizing knowledge into "primers" or even my attempt at "featured match" articles was important to making Type I more accessible and readily vivid to beginning and even intermediate players.

That said, I'd like to say again that past coverage was always amazing, and that I'm sorry to see it end. Being on the other side of the world, it was one way to feel still somewhat connected to the community.

An old Beyond Dominia friend was inviting me to drop by Detroit and maybe get a small Type I tourney together while I'm in the States, but it turns out he can't get off from work so the plan fizzled. Since Star City Rochester doesn't fit my schedule, either, I was hoping to drop a line and be able to keep any good Vintage locations in mind for the places I'm visiting.

Basically, I'm hoping to hook up with the old Paragons in the New York area, and Smenycakes' group in Ohio. The schedule's a bit tight especially weekends when some of my younger relatives or friends are free, but I was hoping to work a little Type I in if possible.

My rough itinerary is:

Nov 3 to Nov 5: Sacramento, California
Nov 6 to Nov 9: Washington, DC
Nov 10 to Nov 12: Roseland, New Jersey
Nov 13 to Nov 18: New York
Nov 19 to Nov 20: Hilliard, Ohio
Nov 21 to Nov 23: Cincinnati, Ohio
Nov 24 to Nov 27: Celina, Ohio
Nov 28 to Nov 29: Nashville, Tennesee
Nov 30 to Dec 2: Escondido near San Diego, California
Dec 3 to Dec 8: Los Angeles, California
Dec 9 to Dec 13: San Ramon near San Francisco, California

Also... how's the weather in each of these places, and what's advisable to wear?

True enough, but I cut Library of Alexandria from my Gifts list, and I think a lot of players have done the same. Consider why.

Haha. I sympathize, Paul, having seen "R-a-s-k-o" a little too often even from local players!

Heh. Thanks. I am so out of touch with prices, and wanted to confirm that local backpack retailers will make local combo players pay with pounds of flesh.

Before you ask, we have a banking system that does not readily support eBay payments just yet.

So you think Death Wish has lost most of its value now, unless you just can't find/afford Grim Tutor?

Yeah, that's how I frustrate people who side Energy Flux against me locally.

I just had this experience where the normal play would be to chuck Lotus Petal to first-turn Thirst, but my opponent's Welder threatens to turn my Moxen into Petals.

Like I e-mailed, this could be a stupid question, but I think my tourney appearance due to vacation has made Gifts the Manila flavor of the month, so CS is gone from the local meta for now, and this situation hasn't come up a lot for me.

Wait... I think I meant "SB" as in Short Bus.

Wait... how can you force a draw with Time Walk recursion in Top 8? There's no more time after the swiss right?

How did that variant do in general?

Haha, maybe, but I went home and started feeling guilty about it and honestly wondered how many people take advantage of Gifts' ability to recurse Time Walk just to force a draw. I mean, I was curious if it's relatively common in the more frequent American or European tourneys.

I also wonder if people have thought of changing the extra turn rule for Time walk. On the flip side, I've been in a position to win on my last extra turn by recursing Time Walk, but didn't get my extra turns because of the rules.

I thought there's no point to treating an unbounded infinite mana combo and the like differently from Time Walk recursion.

(And, as another aside, I was honestly wondering how an opponent would feel to get that kind of pile. My opponent was really nice, but I was wondering if other people got that kind of pile in past games. Gifts has been around for a while now.)

Thanks. (Aggro-Control-Combo... I am beginning to hate nomenclatures that increasingly seem to make no sense to the uninitiated. )

You should write another report/deck philosophy explanation. I don't think the last two were taken all that seriously.