At SCG power 9 Rochester, I was playing a UWb Landstill deck and my opponent was on Oath, this is right after Orchard was printed and Mean Deck Oath was the new hot thing.

In game two i had sided in 4 Extract. I go turn one Extract you, my opponent reads the card, and sighs heavily. We play draw go for a few turns, and on turn 4 i rip Yawg Will, and cast it with Extract as my only card in the yard, my opponent concedes. Turn 4 win with Landstill!!!

Yes that works and is really amusing, just remember to play your other spells pre combat!

So these seem interesting.

Strategic planning sort of upgrade.

KRec that can pitch to force, and hits more cards, and is one cheaper to flashback. If any decks still play that card they get an upgrade.

Forbidden Alchemy 2u
Instant (C)
Look at the top four cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand and the rest into your graveyard.
Flashback 6b
Illus. David Rapoza
55/264

Memory's Journey 1u
Instant (U)
Target player shuffles up to three target cards from his or her graveyard into his or her library.
Flashback G
Illus. Slawomir Maniak
66/264

Concerning Pros wearing Mtg Chicago shirts.

I was at GP Toronto on the weekend and there were a lot of pros wearing these shirts. I have a friend who spent some time in Japan and knew some pros and could translate for me when talking to Shuuhei Nakamura and Kazuya Mitamura, I asked them about the shirts. Essentially they weren't happy about wearing them and they didn't know he was a thief and bad at the time but they had agreed to wear them and were paid to wear them for 1 full year, and they said after that time is up they will stop as a lot of people have come up to them and raised concerns, but they felt obligated as they had agreed and been paid already. I don't necessarily agree with their position to honor their agreement but i certainly understand it and i can't fault them for that. 

As far as i can tell all the pros who this happened to are in the same boat, and it seems that MtgChicago paid a bunch of these people probably at the beginning of the PT season. So hopefully come January we won't see this shirt around at events and in coverage anymore.

These are hilarious, keep them coming.

This seems like the better guy of that cycle. I like drawing cards and blue guys with no activation way better than White critters with activations.

This guys seems really interesting.

None of the other ones in this cycle really power themselves up, but this one can chain a bunch of activations together, especially if you have two out. I can see this working really well in some sort of Welder/Will type deck.

Actually this guy would be a 3/3 in your example as he does count himself.

FTFY

Of the 5 relevant cards in the first list, REB kills 2 of them, and pyroclasm kills 2, that doesn't seem like a good comparison.

Also how does Top stop your opponent from Brainstorming every turn?

I've been out of Vintage for a while now, but i try to keep up reading top 8 lists and articles and i'm always thinking of new ideas. Recently Shockwave has been trying to stimulate some local vintage interest and it got me thinking, is Lightning Bolt undervalued right now?

Here are relevant things that are Tier 1 that bolt straight up kills in the format:

Jace TMS (assuming they Bstorm first)
Trygon Predator
Lodestone Golem
Dark Confidant
Metal Worker

A little less relevant but still not bad:

Juggernaught
Goblin Welder
A Spirit token to buy a turn against oath
Tezz after a search activation
Everything that isn't a Tarmogoyf in Noble Fish
Gorilla Shaman

I know usually in vintage removal or burn are discounted as not worth it, but if Natures Claim and Spell Pierce are fine maindeck choices Bolt seems pretty decent right now too, as far as limited removal/answers go.
The fact that this can hit Planeswalkers seems fairly relevant over something like swords to plowshares. Obviously people can play around that, but that is only if they know it's there and only if they can afford to do the +2 at that time.

I guess this leads to the question, what sort of deck would want to run Bolt?

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Do you know what sucks about these surveys? they say it is mac compatible on firefox, and it's simply not true. I don't know anyone who can get this to work on the "select 3 out of the whole set" who is on this set up.

I have no idea where or how to send my gripe to wizards, i've contacted a few people who know people at wizards over a year ago, but they haven't changed anything, so i only get to do half of the survey, and i don't even know if they count that. 

But baneslayer isn't even that great in standard at the moment. I'm fine with Plummet and Combust as they aren't totally narrow, they are good against multiple cards. I do agree that it sucks that otherwise playable cards like World Queller get squeezed out, but it doesn't squeeze out everything. Queller has seen some sideboard action and i'm pretty sure Sun Titan is unique and different enough that it should see some play.

I was specifically talking about BBS style things. I totally agree that CES is way better in Noble fish and what not, but i wouldn't write this new phid off completely just cause it is worse comparatively in that one deck.

The thing is, you can't play Selkie on the first turn so easily. The thing that makes Phid so good, is that having 2 off colour moxes, or a mana crypt or a mox and a sol ring will let you cast it on turn 1, selkie is very hard to cast on turn 1, without running something like chrome mox or petals etc.

The casting cost also works a lot better with colorless lands. Which is huge in a deck like BBS, it also works better with drain.

The casting costs are worlds apart.

Scroll Thief
{2}u
Creature - Merfolk Rogue    Common
Whenever Scroll Thief deals combat damage to a player, draw a card.
1/3

So better Ophidian with tribal synergies? Seems good.

Is there potential for an old school BBS ? would you want to run more than 4 phids?
I could see 6 or 7 giving you a lot of redundancy for a first turn phid.

Wow as a mac user who doesn't have MWS i really look forward to trying this out, though i'm a little afraid it will suck up all my free time that isn't already magic based.

Actually ChannelFireball has a pretty bad reputation of doing exactly this as well with their pre sales.

Posting for the TO



Hope to see everyone there!
If you have any questions post them here or the MTGOntario thread (you need an account) and i will pass them on to the TO. You can also contact the store and TO.

I'd so run a gate to phyrexia in the board. Seems awesome with bloodghast.

33 Players

I was unable to get decklists, however there were a number of people who did not want their lists posted, and while i disagree with this, it wasn't my event so not my call to make.

You can go here if you want the names of the Top 8
http://mtgontario.com/index.php?name...ewtopic&t=7633
Shockwave on these forums was the Landstill player in top 8 and i was the guy running Contaminated Demons

Top 8 was:

UBR Faeries defeating NO Bant (Madrid list)
UR Painter defeating UW Landstill
UWb Control defeating ANT
UGW faerie/trinket aggro control beating Contaminated Demons (Bg)

Top 4:
UWb Control defeating UBR Faeries
UR Painter defeating UGW faerie/trinket aggro control

Top 2:
UR Painter split with UWb control


The painter list was running Intuition AK's and trinket mages. Back to Basics was in the board or main, not sure.
The UWb control was mostly UW i'm not sure what the black was for maybe just board, it ran humility and back to basics, vedalken shackles. It top 8'd the 46 player event the day before.
The UGW faerie/trinket aggro control was not running counter top, it had spell stutters, war monks, Vclique, goyf, and trinkets with all the usual suspects in force, daze and swords etc. It also ran Mutavaults over wastelands.

Thanks to everyone who came out.

No love for Alien Vs. Predator?

JK


I seriously love all the films with the 4th coming in last for being too cheesy and trying to cover to much ground. I never understood the hate for number 3, i always thought it was solid. That being said i still voted for Alien.

I can't really see a good reason not to just run black as your splash.
Maindeck you have 2 E tutors, which could just as easily be a vamp and demonic.
In the sideboard it's mostly white for anti creature stuff but that could just as easily be black removal.

The only down side of going black is that horizon canopy and karakas in the board are a little less potent, but you are running bojuka bogs so it evens out.

I think if you did go black you could maybe reduce the Selkies for Bob's as you already have tops and CB, it just seems like there is more synergy there.

Posting for a local tournament:

I was surprised to see this too, maybe Saito doesn't really know what has gone on. Saito is one of the best in the game and really well liked so he must have been paid a decent chunk for that.

Maybe it's just the batches in my city but every set of those sleeves (regardless of picture) have been super terrible just like all other ultra pro products i've tried since 1998.

i guess YMMV.

I've had nothing but bad experiences with the Magic brand sleeves. I've had a lot of them split or peel, or have imperfections where the clear part is too big for the back so they wobble and are totally marked. The Nicol bolas ones i bought out of the 80 i'm down to 64, which is really lame as if i lose many more i can't even sleeve a deck.

I've had the best results thickness wise with dragon shields and i've never had them split. That being said they are pretty thick and sometimes curve a lot. Also in the 100 count boxes usually 50 are one size and the other 50 are a different size, which is irritating but manageable.

So my experiences are totally opposite to FFY's.

I suggest just buying a couple different types and seeing what you like.

I think having it in Canada as opposed to somewhere just on the other side of the border is a mistake. I think there are a lot more magic playing Canadians with passports than Americans. Being close to NE and Montreal seems less important now a days compared to 3 or more years ago, their scenes are a shadow of their former selves from what i understand.

All that being said, i'll dust off my vintage and play in this for sure, and if for whatever reason i can't play, i will donate to the prize pool, maybe even both.

Seriously? Seriously?
Give me one good reason that 4 of these are not Verdant Catacombs.