The issue regarding proxies and reprints depends basically on the fundamentals of the game as you see it, do your want the game to be competitive for everyone or to be deserved monetarily. Would you play chess if you could "buy in" the pieces, and knowing if your opponent can buy better pieces than you. Would you play chess knowing that you can only afford five queens knowing that the optimal play is to buy in fourteen, would you play chess with your fifteen queen knowing that half the field is playing with nine rooks.

The whole point of proxies was to democratize Vintage and make it so the game skill and deckbuilding was made more important than the content of your wallet. Isn't reprints just a step up from that twice a year? I mean, theres about as much chances to get a sanctioned vintage tournament in your area right now than actually getting contacted by a legit Nigerian princess that wants to give you millions just for your bank account number. Reprints would literally mean nothing unless its accompanied by an increase in sanctioned tournament for Vintage, which obviously would be awesome, but is in no way supportable right now on a regular basis with the current state of original cards ownership; if more cards in the market means more sanctioned and Wizards supported events I can't see how anyone could lose from it, at least lose more than from a decaying playerbase. The current system seems to work in Europe and I can't argue results, but out of the 50+ players at each tourneys around here, less than a dozen own full power, and I honestly doubt with the current state of the game that anyone in their right mind would toss off thirty bucks "just to play" knowing that theres no chance in hell that they could win against a full powered tezz. Power makes way too much of a swing than it did ten years ago.

You can theorize all week about semantics of what percentage of your magic the gathering portfolio would drop if reprints would occur after considering the secondary market or whatever other random possible variable you can find, but it all comes down to, do you want the competition to remain healthy, or are you worried about your investment, and on the other hand, would your investment be still safe if your tournament size went from sixty plus players to twentyish since nobody but cutters and people with low aspiration like to play fish and goblin. For every player that can't afford playing non proxy vintage means worse prize support, less prize support means less incentive to travel to events, or even to put on pants at nine am instead of cracking open a bottle of JD and watch 90210 dvds in your underwear. The whole vintage scene right now revolves around not having to own half a car worth of cardboard, as soon as you put up the four thousand dollars entry fee it will all turn to shit like when they introduced the cloning machine in Family Matters.

I honestly don't think reprints would ever bring down the price of current reserved cards in a significant manner, opening to the format to more players would only mean more demand for the product, if anything, the slow death of the format will lower the value more than a reprint simply due to having more events to use them in. Don't even bring up the recently reprinted unplayable cards that dropped in price, before berserk was reprinted in how many decks did you see getting played? how about shivan dragon or psionic blast? Where were you when they took Savannah Lion to brown town and printed his soldat counterpart and loam lion? You honestly can't even compare printing playable often necessary cards to a collector item. Print a bunch of duals with the new "ugly like a pug with downs" frame and white borders and people will still rather have revised duals over them anyway, same would be with non foil white bordered pidgeon poop grey moxes. You would just replace the "need" for "want" the same way that foils and foreigns are worth twice to more than regular English cards, the same way that you can walk outside with two boxes of tissues instead of shoes, it works, but when at all possible, you'd rather have something that doesn't make you look like you just ate out of a trashcan.

This discussion is actually pretty moot for anyone playing Vintage in north america, theres honestly not enough sanctioned events to make the jump from proxies to real cards even worth it, and we've adapted around it anyway. How many sanctioned tournament would make the four-kay investment worth it in the end? That's a lot of money for an unsupported hobby. Legacy might just have to adapt also, there is a cap on how much people are willing to blow on meaningless pieces of cardboard, sure right now it's all fresh and new, but you only bring your dates to expensive dinner onces or twice before it's back to mac and cheese and a recliner blowjob. I cannot see this economic growth lasting much more longer once the hype dies down and people realize that they just blew half a rent on a single goyf, Legacy was a great format when nobody played it and the cards were all in the twenty dollars range, it was the poor-man vintage, the only people defending its health now are those who invested in it in its early ages. I mean, right now it's pretty well supported from Wizards, but as soon as theres enough disgruntled players who would rather not blow a proverbial year worth of grocery on a playset of futuresight bears and eight duals like it happened in 2001 for vintage and power, proverbial shit will hit the proverbial fan and as attendance starts to drop from sanctioned events for player friendly alternatives, so will official support and well have another player controlled format.

Before all this doomsday scenario happens, now would be the time for Wizards to pick its side, history is bound to repeat itself, Legacy is no different than Vintage was nine years ago.

Edit: jesus loving christ wall of text, sounds like I need to quit sugar.

Or a Karakas!

Sower is pretty golden in the Dark Times matchup, either steal their draw engine or their twenty twenty guy.

Personally I've been trying out Jace2 in the Sower slot, not quite sure how I like it yet. He seems to do everything Sower does but better in theory, but I've grown attached to my little fairy after she stole me countless game winning bobs/titans and even sometimes, narcomoebas.

Decklist #8 should have one less Black Lotus and three more City of Brass.

As awesome as my "My little Pony" Black Lotus was, they wouldn't let me play more than one.

I'd tend to disagree with giving a new Vintage player a Dredge pile. While obviously powerful and easy to play, it's pretty much the worst example of Vintage interaction that I can possibly imagine and in no way representative of our format, hell it's even barely a magic pile. Not only does the deck pretty much completely ignores the opponent on the first game, but it forces the other guy to drastically change his gameplan for game two, easily netting zero pertinent information on the format other than "mull into a guy with a beard and win". Is that really how you want to introduce Vintage to someone? If anything it only would reinforce the Vintages stereotypes.

Don't get me wrong, playing Dredge is one of my guilty pleasures, along with eating chunky monkey ice cream and watching my Gilmore Girls DVDs in my underpants, but it's pretty much, in my opinion, the very last deck that I'd want anyone to start a career in Vintage with.

I really did like the piles in the article, which was a great read by the way. Not only, as advertised, are they buildable on a budget, but they are great to introduce the Vintage strategies due to their simplicity of gameplay and the interaction they bring to the game. They do not require the player to have an in depth knowledge of the obscure techs of vintage to play, but still pack pretty powerful plays and most of all, are simple enough that the player can, instead of focusing on counting probabilities, concentrate on the game at hand and understand the format better, which is usually the point of the process.

Lorescale Coatl

I really don't see how this new guy could make the vintage cut to be perfectly honest, seems a bit too condition intensive just to be able to stand toe to toe with the goyf.

Is there any Network support for opening/saving decks? The user interface seems a bit rudimentary, lacks keyboard shortcut support (customs would be hot!), but the playing itself seems fine so far.

Good job!

I've been running a MD list very similar, but running a full set of Street Wraiths over the Unmasks.

Street Wraith is greatly under appreciated, he helps cut down your Thug numbers since he enables Ichorid, therefore allowing you to up the Dakmor numbers to deal with the low landcount for your Bloodghasts and speeds you up a full turn when draw in the starting hand/extra two. Not to mention that with Ravenous Trap seeing more play than Crypt and Relic combined these days, dredging for two is pretty damn clutch.

Also not a huge fan of Undiscovered Paradise, the Ghast trick is cute, but with a decent amount of Dakmors it shouldn't really be needed. I rather play Waste/Strip package in that slot, free disruption that triggers landfall. You obviously need to adapt the SB for that plan to fit in a set of Rainbow land or whatever, but since our SB plan is usually pretty narrow, it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

I'm currently toying with the idea of adding up Leylines in the maindeck, can't really figure out what to toss out just yet or if it's even worth it.

if you really wish to stay at 61, id cut a donate for a seal of cleansing, its rector fetchable and only 2CC if you are that affraid of challice@3.

also, running a few basic lands might be to considered, as a null rod/blood moon can really lock you down.

on another note, im currently thinking of trying out regress in my build instead of rushing river, without any way to remove an opposing tolarian i feel im playing *race for the academy*, and now with rogue artifact decks more rampant, i wouldnt be surprised to see the academy even more played, if thats humanly possible.