1. WI (Madison)
2. Cool Stuff. Doesn't have to be power, just interesting cards (Pimp, Foreign Language staples, etc).
3. Clean bathroom. Places to eat that are close. Reasonable inventory and prices of cards.
4. 2 or 4, depending on the deck.

I want it!

Right about the time Lorwyn block came out, I used that as an excuse to build Giants for multiplayer. I used the giant that fetched equipment (stone-hewer giant?) to make my giant guys even better (they obviously needed the help in combat), but it could also get Sunforger which could then go get assorted instants for value. The only time I ever connected with a Worldslayer was with this deck. I tutored it up and attacked someone without blockers. One of the players specifically said "Man, I could kill it but I've never seen a Worldslayer hit" so I got in. Trigger on the stack I used Sunforger to go get Ghostway! I won that game and lots of laughs were had. Honestly, that is the best thing I remember about my kitchen table days; hanging out with my friends and playing wild games.

I'm pretty sure Tooth and Nail is a must counter anyways, as it can get Sundering Titan/Woodfall Primus at the least, and adding more colors allows various infinite combos. Iona is likely not going to get banned (though the EDHRC is really sketchy about it's banning principles), so have fun with her. That said, I think as a general she will draw you a lot of heat.

I sure hope so.

Abandoning the Uba Stax shell here seems reasonable, though a few (non)inclusions seems odd. Why City of Traitors over Ancient Tomb. Tomb has the added bonus of not being total garbage if you don't have crucible out, and with only 2, I can't see the damage piling up being an issue, though I haven't tested it yet so I'm not sure. Lotus Petal over Mana Vault looks wrong as well. Also, why Mystical Tutor over Imperial Seal or the 3rd Welder. 2 welders looks kind of low either way, though the Seal would give you another way to tutor for one if you really needed it. Finally, a single Gorilla Shaman seems strong here as well, as another way to attack artifact mana. The list looks though, and I plan to test it some.

~Lennon

I think the point Nephtis was trying to make, was that there is a fundamental difference in using Twiddle compared to Voltaic Key. Twiddle is a cute trick. And when looking at the card pool from 1994-95, it was something that you could make a deck around with Regrowths and such, take some back to back turns, and beat down, or whatever. Key+Vault functionally wins the game, which at this point I think most will agree is far from "cute".

That is manual, just in formal-logic notation. Again, I'm not even sure if that is what AD was looking for, it's just how I read it.

I think what he's looking for is something along the lines of something like (though this may be too formal):
There exists X, Uses_Thirsts(X), Has_Welders(X), Has_Robots(X) <--> ControlSlaver(X)

where Uses_Thirst(), Has_Welders(), Has_Robots(), and ControlSlaver() are relations such that Uses_Thirsts(X) means deck X uses Thirsts and so on (kind of self explanatory now that I type it out). Please correct me if I am wrong AD.

~Lennon

Hey there, this does sound like an interesting project. I'm a CS student, and am fairly adept at Prolog style logical programming, if that will be helpful for the archetype definition stuff. I'm mostly a Java programmer, but like bert, I could learn one of the languages you wish to use for the project.

~Lennon

I'm with LHC on this one. I've been saying that Fact or Fiction should come off for some time now. It costs to much to be super degenerate, and unlike Gifts (which, honestly, probably could come off) it doesn't find 4 specific cards to wreck you. I think it would allow things like BBS and maybe some kind of Tog to at least be playable. Besides, the logic for restricted FoF, as I recall was "Fact or Fiction is better than Geyser/Stroke, those are restricted. Thus, restrict Fact or Fiction." I think it would be interesting, if nothing else, to see Fact or Fiction off the list. It can't be any worse than Gush, anyways.

Regarding the rest of the list. Grim Monolith can come off. I can't see that being relevant at all. Maybe for belcher? Regrowth is tempting. Part of me wants to see it and part thinks it would be a terrible mistake. I think that one should be left, just for the sake of caution. Ponder should come back. BS, Flash, and Gush are probably safe without scroll, but with regards to the latter two if they get taken off and then dominate again, there would be a lynching at wizards.

This hasn't been mentioned yet, but I think that Enlightened Tutor could safely come off the list. Any thoughts on this, or am I just stupid?

Regarding Pryoclasm/Massacre/Slaughter Pact, I think the latter is a pretty good idea. It doesn't do a ton of damage to you off Ad Nauseam and if you need to kill multiple things, aren't you way way behind? I've not tested the deck myself (I'd like to but I haven't yet had time) but if you need to kill say, a Cannonist, a Meddling Mage, and an Aven Mind-Sensor to go off, or even two of the three, aren't you already basically dead? 

Congratulations on your finish. Could you perchance point me in the direction of the Wizards Coverage you mention in the finals? The only vintage match I see covered was your round four match against Owen.

We The Mana Drain wouldn't have roused 3100 votes, no. But as Low points out at the end, Vintage also describes casual players that just want to use Sol Ring and Demonic Tutor. I'm surprised we finished where we did, but the vote count seems plausible. 

Back in the day I played dragon, so I think it's cool that people are discussing it as playable again. Your list seems kind of weird to me though.

Duskmantle: Really? I understand your reasoning for it, but it just seems really sub par, especially as a 3 of. I think If I was playing this and ever saw more than 1 I'd be fairly unpleased. As a win condition on infinite mana, isn't 1x Oona just better?

No Bazaar: This screams wrong to me. While 4 may or may not be the right number right now with graveyard hate a-go-go, I'm fairly certain 0 is the wrong number. It's just such a powerful card. It makes Deep Analysis better, it makes the deck much more explosive, and it cant be countered like Read the Runes.

Mana Drain: Drain never really struck me as a dragon card. I guess the list you present has a lot more colorless requirement than most dragon decks, so if a build like your turns out to be good, drain might be amazing. I just don't see either happening.

Cunning Wish v. Intuition: Intuition was always, at least to me, the best card in dragon. It lets you find whatever you need to win. It basically reads "Eot, set up your combo, get your last combo piece, or get ready to draw a lot of cards." If Mulldrifer takes the place of Deep Analysis then Intuition does get weaker, but I still think it is better at getting the deck to win than cunning wish is. Though, a single or maybe 2 of cunning wish allows access to Stroke of Genius to win the game or to get sideboard cards game 1. The Wish, I think, is a cool idea, but I don't think replacing Intuition entirely is correct.

White Splash: I had to look up what Clear did, actually. The white splash here seems to be the most innovative thing in your list. I like Clear, and Pull From Eternity is an interesting way to combat Extirpate on Dragon. That said, wouldn't Chain of Vapor just be better than Clear. It's much more versatile, and while it doesn't cycle it isn't on a splash color and it handles more than just Leyline and Oath. On that note, do these need to be maindeck? I understand that you have a wishboard, but the only deck that maindecks Leyline is Ichorid. Seeing as we don't know what the metagame will look like yet, you could be right about this, but I just don't think you need 4 maindeck answers for Leyline that don't answer other non-oath threats.

6 animate spells: This is just a minor nitpick. Back in the day dragon ran 7 or 8 animate spells. Now that the Mulldrifter plan seems to be the new tech, animates get more functionality. I'm not saying that I'd go above the old standard of 8, but 6 seems low.

Ancestral Recall in the board: I don't know that I can get behind this, even in a 4 wish version of the deck. It's just to good of a to not be able to raw-dog it.

Also, how do you get dragon into the yard reliably? 3 RtR and Wish-> Entomb seems like not enough to quickly be able to go off if you have to. Again, i would stress the inclusion of some number of Bazaars, likely 3 or 4, and some number of Intuition to be able to set up your combo. If you're worried about bazaar not producing mana, you can always borrow a page from Dawn of the Dead's playbook and run Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth or Riftstone Portal.

That's just my 2 cents on the deck. I haven't done any testing with it yet, but I hope to in the near future. Keep up the good work.

~Mike

The Michiganders will be in attendance as far as I know. Don't screw it up for us by playing Price of Glory Twaun.

Hey Mr. Michaels. When will the next of these lovely tournaments be held? I Assume the 28th of June, but you know what happens when one assumes.

Next B/R is in 3 months, so September 1st. But it will likely be until next year before any of this is possibly reversed.

I almost fell out of my chair when I saw Ponder on the list as well as Brainstorm. The other three (Merchant Scroll, Flash, Gush) are understandable, but Ponder and Brainstorm? The format just got a lot more dependent on the opening hand, or so it would seem. Guess I'm back to playing shops.

Side note: What's up with no un-restrictions? At least take Dream Halls off the list. Or give us FoF after you gut the format.

I shall do everything in my power to get the Michigan crew into attending.

I'm not certain if Team Masquerade will be making the trip, that is up to our fearless leader. However I do hope to make it down. With luck I'll be there to represent the great state of Michigan. At worst, I get to hang out and stomp Twan again.

-Mike

Workshop Combo? Sounds interesting. Would it be possible to get Jeff Carpenter's Shop Combo deck posted?

As I said, I found the deck to be absolutely amazing. Very rarely was I below 5 cards in hand, and when I was it didn't take long to build back up, so Library may be a possible consideration, but I don't think it is any better than whatever it would displace. My only real gripe with the deck was that the artifact count felt low when playing thirsts. Perhaps a thirst could be cut for the Library or Frantic Search or even a 2nd Skeletal Scrying which I found to be amazing all day.

As far as the games go, I didn't mean to make them sound like blowouts, I was just typing what I remembered of them. Game 1 was a blowout for sure. Game 2 I don't remember card for card, but I remember never feeling threatened and I won fairly easily. Game 3 was, as I said epic, and probably one of the best games of magic I've played ever. No doubt that it was close. Tinker for titan would have gotten the same result as tinker for crucible though: kill an island, then have it back in your hand via the H. Recall played off the topdecked land. If I sounded cocky about the game I didn't mean to. You are an amazing player and it was a tightly played match.

John Blystone was a cool opponent and I shall now and forever remember his name.

We were not aware that needle didn't work on phid, thanks for the heads up. The printed wording seems functional and we didn't think to oracle it.

Again, sorry Nam if I misrepresented the games, and hearing them from your side would be very interesting as well.

Mike

P.S.
There is a Time Walk missing from my list.

Dude, Twan, playing a poop deck like that is, dare I say, your Price of Glory. Good seeing everyone again and the Tourny was a blast. I didn't take notes, but I suppose I can post a mini-report for those who care.

Round 1: Nam w/ 5c Stax

Game one he wins the die roll (I didn't get my Rock Lobster/Paper Tiger/Scissors Lizzard until later, and once I did I never lost with it.) and ellects to play. He opens with wasteland, mox, mox, lotus (I call cheatz!) and 3sphere. I have no force and feel compleely desimatied. He drops a smokestack a few turns later and I scoop. However, the only cards he saw of my deck were islands and an AK so (at least according to our banter) he boarded as though I was playing oath.
Game two I'm on the play Nam applies no pressure at all. After a few turns i play a few moxes, rebuild, replay them, chain them back to my hand, replay them, and tendrils for exactly 20.
Game three is epic. He opens with a gemstone mine, then a city and plays a 2sphere. I have basics and a few moxes and am just biding my time. He plays a keg, I force, and he REBs, and trhen he kills my moxes. The next turn he strips me down to 2 land. I play a ruby and pass. He proceeds to tinker for crucible and strip an island. At this point his only mana sources are City and his Mine with 1 counter on it. I have Hyrcles Recall in hand and if I topdeck a land I can recall him and if he doesn't draw a mana source he can't replay the Crucible and I'll have time to get back in the game. I topdeck a Flooded Strand and he does in fact miss the land drop, and opts to play his 2sphere again. By the time he gets mana to do much more I have drains back online and counter the crucible and then a second one. I soon combo him out.
All told, this was my 2nd match with the deck ever, and the win against shops was a good omen.
1-0

Round 2: Twan w/ 5c poop stax
Game one he plays cards like supression field and price of glory. We joke at each other through the game and have a generally good time. Eventually I H. Recall him to get his Orb of Dreams off the field and do broken Will things.
Game two he plays an early mana crypt and it does something like 14 damage to him. At some point I tinker up the big man and he scoops after drawing orb of dreams.
2-0

Round 3 Kyle Paster w/ Flash
Game 1 is akward. He plays an early virulent sliver and I can't find a black mana to tutor for a way to win. I get slowly poisoned Napolian style.
Game 2 I play control all game. A sliver is swining but I'm in no real hurry. He tries to flash me out and I have quadruple counter up. I only need 3 of them to make sure he dies to a pact trigger on his next upkeep.
Game 3 I keep a bad hand because it has leyline. I'm almost in the game for a while, then he chain of vapors the leyline and has 2 pacts for my 2 drains.
2-1
 
Round 4 John Blystone w/ U/R Phid
Game 1 he gets a phid going and I feel as though I need to go for it before I get burried by the phid. I play some draw at his EoT, then Will on my turn. He forces and I force back... and that's it! In his full grip he had but one counter and my Will gets there.
Game 2 I needle phid to shut off his draw(edit: Doesn't actually work. Whoops. Sorry John). We both whittle each others resources down, then I refill with an Intuition for AKs. He can't keep up with the card advantage, and I eventually cast Will for the kill.
3-1

Round 5 Francis Hart w/ Shop Agro.
We are both locks for the T8, so we draw. We play for fun and he beats me 2-1.
3-1-1

Top 8 Coffee Cup with Shop Agro
Game 1 he plays some moxes and some disruption but doesn't apply much pressure. I drain a few guys and get a boatload of mana. Each time I burn a bit, but the mana turns into cards that put me way ahead. I eventually Rebuild and go off.
Game 2 is very similar to game 1. He has red blasts this game, and counters a few of my bounce spells, but at one point he taps out, and I H. Recall him and then cast a massive will. I had to get some extra storm due to him gaining 8 life off Jitte, but it wasn't an issue.

It was a great tourny and all of my opponents were great players and people. Sorry to my round 4 opponent for forgetting your name. All in all, I love this deck and will likely be playing it for some time in the shop heavy field of Sandusky. I hope to see everyone next month: this means you Yang Time and Guhstin!

It's odd to see you talk about having fun, mate. Maybe I'm having some kind of impact on your thinking. 

In regards to the deck (and you know how much I know about slaver), your land seems off. I understand that you need black for early Duresses, and the brokenness of the tutors and Will is well documented, but are 4 Underground Sea's really needed. It seems like you could go down to 3 Seas, and then either play a 3rd Volcanic Island for added ability to play red out of the board (Mostly looking at Shattering Spree here) or play a 4th Island/6th Fetch for greater resilance to Wasteland.

Perhaps the Lightning Axe slot would be better filled with Lightning Bolt so that it an call the opponent in a pinch. If the main concern is killing ginormous dryads and/or togs, perhaps Cruel/Imperial Edict would be better in that slot, or maybe even Sudden Shock.

I picked up this deck and found Daze to be very good in the Mana Leak slot. The land loss isn't that horrible, and i found myself in numerous games going turn 1 duress, and then dazing their other turn 1 play. The slot is probobly still open, but I did find Daze to be useful and pretty darn good.

I wouldn't worry about it to much. I mean... what kind of noob plays Bazaar Stax in today's meta anyways?

I just want to say that I compleetly agree with both of those statements. I stoped playing Vintage when I started college last fall, and only got back into it like a month ago. Stax was the only deck that I have the cards for ($100+ card excluded) so it was the deck I decided to play. On the way down Paul and I were talking about me playing Ichorid, but I said something along the lines of "Ehh, I came to play, and a retarted 3 year old can play Ichorid" so I setteled on a Stax list that Paul and I had been working on for a while. So, I was expecting WAY more combo than I saw, and sence Stax has at least average game against combo I thought it wouldn't be to bad. My sideboard was thrown together at the last minute to be able to beat ichorid mostly, but it worked out quite well for me overall, though if i had it to do over, the Orb of Dreams would be something else, not sure what though.

I was so intimidated for the majority of the tournament it wasn't even funny. Playing against the people I've read about winning power after power after power is scarry for a relative noob like myself. It was alot of fun though, and everyone was uber cool, especially JR in the final game. I still fell like a bit of a dick for celebrating like I did though, and I would like to appoligise once more to JR and to anyone else that was around.

It was a great time, and I hope to be able to play in a tourny with them again.

-Mike

This is Mike Smar, I just want to make a quick correction. My list didn't have mana vault in it, and i played 2 Solemn Simulacrum.