It sucks losing a regular T1 Venue.  We had the same thing happen about a month or so ago.  We always had 8-12 people coming out and probably 3-4 of us were powered (These were sanction since the store owner only wants to run sanction events.)  Unfortunately we went 2-3 weeks were the guys who were powered couldn't show up for various reasons and everyone just figured they might as well convert to Legacy instead. 

I've talked to various people during the last couple weeks while playing Legacy or even at the pre-release last weekend, and it's really sad how much people think that a) not having power in a sanctioned T1 event equals auto-lose ,b)T1 is about turn 1 kills and c) it's too expensive to play vintage.

Hopefully we'll be able to get things going again.

And in hopes of not derailing this thread I'd say the top Vintage cards in the set are these:

Ratchet Bomb - As you said it's great and is an all around answer.  Also allows for decks running vault-key to ramp the bomb a turn or two faster.

Steel Hellkite - This should and will replace one of the bots in most lists almost guaranteed.  It can clear to board so easily it's insane.

Leonin Arbiter - This guys is huge,  he slows down te game drastically.

Mox Opal - I figure it might become moxes 6-7 in a few lists but not much more of an impact.

I played this list to a T8 finish in a 23 man tournament.  For the most part it was great and Dreadnought is great at the oops I win factor and it makes them  use answers on them and not on your other threats.


4x cursecatcher
4x dark confidant
4x tarmogoyf
2x phyrexian dreadnaught
4x force of will
4x stifle
1x mystical tutor
1x ancestral recall
1x time walk
1x vampiric tutor
1x demonic tutor
1x life from the loam
1x entomb
1x echoing truth
1x Engineered explosives
1x brainstorm
1x ponder
2x duress
2x thoughtseize

1x black lotus
1x lotus petal
1x mox jet
1x mox ruby
1x mox emerald
1x mox sapphire
1x mox pearl
4x flooded strand
3x underground sea
2x tropical island
1x bayou
1x volrath's stronghold
1x wasteland
1x strip mine
2x island
1x swamp

Sideboard
2x tormod's crypt
2x relic of progenitus
2x illusionary mask
2x diabolic tutor
2x seal of primordium
2x pithing needle
2x hurkyl's recall
1x curfew

I would change a few things from this list however
+ 1 dreadnought
+ 1 illusionary mask
+ 1 top
+ 1 chain of vapor
+ 1 trinket mages

- 4 Cursecatchers
- 1 entomb

The mask has the added benefit that if you get color screwed you can still play your crits.  Also it's immune from sphere effects and counterspells once it's down.  1 trinket mage probably just because I'm not sure what else I wanted there and it'll get the board options games 2 and 3.  Of vourse getting dreadnaught is always great too.

I don't think it's a lack of commitment to proxy a 5$ card sometimes it's hard to find certain cards at the last minute.  Hell since nobody keeps commons laying around that much and most of the people I know only play vintage I couldn't find cursecatchers until I stumbled on somebody who had a playset at the store.

Again proxying isn't the problem per se.  It's the fact that proxy tournaments are the only ones around.   If it's all proxies there isn't a real reason to own the cards even if you wanna play 7 days a week, especially when a lot make really good aesthetically pleasing proxies. (Don't get me wrong I love owning the cards myself)  If large scale sanctionned tournaments with good prize support happened there would be a reason to get all the cards.  Which is probably why even with a full P9 the ICBM OPEN didn't get quite the same ratio as BOM.  If you win you win sometihng you don't really need.  

If you have a regular set of tournaments with proxies with some big sanctionned tournaments it creates the drive to want those cards again and in the end diminishing the use of proxies.

I've seen the same thing in other hobbies.  Why buy the equipment I need to do XYZ when my neighbour/family member/friend let's me borrow his equipment anytime I want.

@Marske
Your missing the point of what I was saying.  First I mentionned I was from canada and the same destination would cost about 1000$CAD and then there's food and lodgings.  Like you said I agree anybody with a decent job and who wants to save for it can.   That is at least true in a bubble.  When you consider that most people don't have Magic and Work as the only 2 things in their lives, it invalidades that perspective.

As an example.
I travel for work a fair amount actually, so I try to spend as much time when I'm not working with my GF.
I've got pets.
I play hockey
I go fishing
I have various outings outside the city with friends and family
I have season tickets to a professional sports team.

Once you look at that the money spent to go that event would be substantial.  Now I don't wanna bicker about what's affordable and what's not it's a matter of priorities.  I think we can all agree that inter-continental travel is subjective and restrictive to culture and life priorities.  Heck if I'm not mistaken it's easy for europeans to travel between the EU countries but the Canada-American border can be a pain in the ass.  As for driving between cities I'm in full agreeance with you.  I've driven to Toronto approx. 5 hour drive leaving first thing in the morning, play the tournament and coming back the same day arriving at 2 am after playing out the T8.

If you read a lot of posts it's clear that a lot of people think the solution is pretty much the same.  North America lacks the big sanctionned tournaments.  Without these the value of owning power is little to none.  I like playing with as little proxies as I can so I do buy, or try and win as many as I can, but I can see why someone won't.  

I'd like to see if BOM or something of that level were hosted in Canada or the States, how would the attendance be.  I see regular power tournaments of 40-60 people which isn't horrible but usually that's a mox with very little for the rest of the T8.  You can't compare that with a tournament like BOM.

It'd be like having 2 free draws in 2 locations having a pontiac sunfire in one place and a ferrari in the second.   More people will show up for the ferrari.

I can see this spiraling out of control and I think we'll be going off track very shortly.

Comparing one persons ability to travel to and fro to play magic is pointless because there's 150 000 different reasons why one person can and others can't.  Unless we start getting into individual situations we'll never get anywhere.  I'm also Canadian not American but in some instances we are encountering a similar problem here.  The reason why traveling to Europe is often decided on financial return is because the difference in the cost of driving 10 hours and a flight between North America and Europe is substancial.  Don't get me wrong I wouldn't mind doing it sometime but it'll be for a big event, not because I intend on making a buck on my winnings but because it's a big investment.

To keep things back on topic,  I think the key is to hold both proxy and non-proxy tournaments.  Regular proxy tournaments to keep people playing and 3-4 large tournaments a year with insane prize structures (see BOM) which are sanctionned.  This allows the introduction of vintage to new players as well as given players a reason to get the cards.  Over time the proxy tournaments can probably be reduced but I think they're a necessary evil.

I know a local store that holds regular sanctionned tournaments and the field is atrocious.  The first time I heard about it I should up with STAX and got paired 3 straight rounds against kithkin or changelings.  Most of these players are younger and being in school can't get all the cards they need to compete.  That's boring for fully powered players, which is why smaller tournaments I think are better with some level of proxies.

Also I've been trying to get a couple local stores to hold proxy tournaments on a weekly basis with the following structure.
5$ entry
each proxy costs an additional 0.25$ - 1$
Total entry fees are distributed in product or store credit.

The store doesn't lose out because he's basically selling product and making players play.
The players get exposed and can test different Archtypes to see what they prefer playing.
It provides incentives to collect Vintage staples and eventually the higher end cards.

Of course the costs can be modified to fit any area.

I do aggree that having only 10+ proxy tournaments and only 1 sanctionned one (with horrible prize support) vintage becomes very difficult to maitain.

Hi I'm gonna going into New York for a couple days in September and was wondering what stores I can check out while I'm there for Magic.   I'll be staying close to Time Square if it helps any.

thanks

I Top8'd last weekend with this version of Deeznoughts,  going 3-1-1 losing only to a dreadnought servant deck.   I lost in the top 8 to a platinum oath deck.  Here's the list I used, I'm going off the top of my head mind you because I'm at work.

Deeznaughts

4x Force of Will
4x Brainstorm
4x Stifle
2x Duress
2x Thoughtseize
1x Demonic Consultation
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Time Walk
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Echoing Truth
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Ancestral Recall
4x Dark Confident
4x Phyrexian Dreadnought
3x Tarmogoyf
3x Illusionnary Mask
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Black lotus
3x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
3x Underground Sea
1x Bayou
4x Polluted Delta
1x Swamp
1x Tropical Island
2x Island

Sideboard

4x Leyline of the void
1x Engineered Explosives
2x Pithing Needle
3x Hurkyl's Recall
2x trygon Predator
1x Darkblast
1x Extirpate
1x Gaea's Blessing


As far as changes to the deck I changed the demonic consultation to life from the loam and the sideboard darkblast to another extirpate.

Most of the deck is pretty standard but I find having 4 dreadnought/3 goyfs to be extremely strong.   You can control the board with counters and mana denial (strip effects & stifles) whileplaying your beats, and 7 big creatures is a lot harder to deal with than 4.   Life from the loam will also make the goyf big fast.

I've considered running top, it's extremely powerful but I just don't know what I would cut.

Is the trygon predator in the board for oath?    It seems rather slow am I missing something?

I know this can't be Tier 1 or anything ohter than just a fun annoying deck to run. I've seen someone a few years ago try this at a tournament and actually win a fair amount of rounds.

I haven't really made a list and tried it I figure we can brainstorm a bit on it and I'll test as we go. Here's the starting list I threw together and of course there is no win condition in the deck because once they start drawing off your deck you don't want them to do anything useful

Shared FateV1.0

4x Shared fate
4x brainstorm
4x force of will
4x mana drain
4x duress
1x mystical tutor
1x vampiric tutor
1x ancestral recall
1x time walk
1x timetwister
4x night's whisper
1x imperial seal
4x thirst for knowledge
2x dark ritual
1x black lotus
5x moxen
1x sol ring
1x mana vault
1x mana crypt
1x tolarian academy
4x underground sea
3x polluted delta
2x flooded strand
1x swamp
4x island


I think most of the cards are self explanatory there are no answers main deck and the tutors are all top deck tutors.

Thirst for knowledge is an iffy one but there are a fair amount of artifacts there and it digs. I'd gladly replace that with some better I just can't think of it right now.

Anyone have any ideas for this? There's also the SB question and although the deck technically doesn't need a sideboard since it doesn't try to win with it's own cards but if it works game one an opponent might just remove it's win conditions and go from there. Maybe a transformational sideboard?

The sideboard could also have wish targets for any wishes that you might draw off your opponents deck but that's pretty much only good against GAT.

I've found the same thing in Ottawa.   The last couple of tournaments I've been too has had about 50% of the field as Gush base deck and the Top4 being no gush (they've been small samples of 12 players only)   I know the tournament sizes make the results a little less meaningful but it's still important to note.

The first tournament had a finals of MBC and Bomberman (I believe Stax was the 3rd of the 4 decks that one and I forget the 4th)

2 weeks ago the tournament featured 2 stax, goblines and SS (me) in the top4.   In this one I walk over GAT twice in a row.  5th and 6th here were the same MC and bomberman decks that won the first one.

I'm looking at starting a cube but I really don't have the patience of going through a ton of cards and figuring which 400 to include (50 of each color, 50 artifacts, 50 multicolor, 50 lands)

Does anyone have an updated cube list up to future sight?

Echoing truth is obviously a better choice and should be maindeck.     Curfew is 100 times better games 2-3 against oath once SSS is down because they don't target.

Granted if you don't expect to see oath you obviously don't play with it.

Have you looked at using curfew in sideboard for oath?    I remember using it last year when I was playing UW fish and it was awesome.    It returns a creature for both of you but you can normally re-cast your creatures fairly easily compared to oath.   Not to mention targeting a spirit token from your end of the table is fun on it's own.

I would replace some Stp for these because of SSS.