Sorry for the double post, I seem to have been kicked off the clan.

Thanks,
Steve

I would like to be added. I just bought into vintage today on mtgo

Username: smnowako

Thanks,
Steve

Invited -Z

Awesome! Love that guy

I believe he played against it once and won.

I think its a necessity if shops are a part of the metagame and your goal is to win a tournament. I am willing to abandon my beliefs about 0 Force storm and how terrible it is against shops when and if we start seeing Tendrils based decks doing well consistently without Force. TPS, not Reid Duke's deck which is misnamed I think, was a deck that ran Duress and Force of Will. It also ran 4 basics and between 2 and 3 bounce spells. It was made to be better against workshop decks of it's time then its counterparts (grim long or pitch long). Conventional wisdom was to play basics, force, and bounce if you wanted to beat shops. Cutting Force is flying in the face of this proven method, which is where my resistance comes. I think some of the problem is that Shops have gotten better, and TPS style decks have not.  It's not like storm is naturally good against a deck that limits the numbers of spells you can play a turn. While they have gotten more spheres and lodestones, ritual decks have gotten opal and Burning Wish. The shop decks now are just more consistent then they were before.

I think playing remora is bad for what it's worth. In the past there has been some ANT decks that ran him in the side to some success but that's all I can remember. Remora is probably at an all time low in playability with the rise of creature decks.

Yea I disagree that it's as simple as play tight. The problem is that every turn they can cut you off much needed mana sources by spheres, wastes, tangle wires, or whatever. Previous to Lodestone you had more time since if they played something like a Smokestack, that was a turn where you could get ahead (or back to parity) on mana and hopefully cast a mass bounce spell to steal the game. Nowadays, save these 5 color lists I've been seeing,  they have Lodestone, which is another sphere and a fast clock. They continue to cut you off mana and present a clock. You simply do not have time. Force of will allows you to counter a threat which hopefully allows you to get to a place where you have time to mass bounce. Not being able to counter spells means they get to do what they want to all most entirely unmolested. I'm not seeing how that is a plan, with or without  Bob.

The reason we added Force of Will to your list, and cut Duress a few years back, was to have game against shop decks. I honestly don't think that traditional ritual decks (excluding Oath versions), have been well positioned since Lodestone Golem. Golem is the defining card that made TPS/ Bob Tendrils unplayable, in my opinion.

Yea, I'm basically under the assumption that isn't a realistic goal for storm without Force. The whole strategy of shops involves limiting your mana. If you have no way to fight against that you are basically hoping that the shop player makes a mistake in playing their cards or keeps a bad hand. Neither of these seem like a realistic goal to win the match.

Playing a storm deck without force of will seems like a mistake. Not sure how you guys are planning to ever beat Lodestone Golem.

Really the only reason I ever consider playing Surgical or Extirpate is if I am really tight on sb slots. Lets say my sb is full of shop and fish hate and I only have 4 leylines for dredge with one slot remaining for blue decks or an additional dredge hate. In that case I might consider Surgical since it's okay against both. But really my experience has been more in line with what Brassman suggests with the card, it's underwhelming. In the scenario I just stated I think I would be more inclined to just choose playing a Nihil Spellbomb or Relic of Progenitus since they are both better gy hate than Surgical/Extirpate and are passably good against blue decks because of the cantrip.

If you have sb space, better cards exist for fighting graveyards and disrupting blue decks/ gathering information.

I will be there. For realz

Thanks nick!

Well I am excited for this! Hopefully this will be the start of many vintage tournaments for me in 2014

Yea, I tested Desire in the board tonight for a little before switching it to the main for the reasons you stated. I'm not its biggest fan in this deck currently. It was useful in one game out of about 20 I played with it. I like the idea of adding LED, though I really wouldn't want to skimp on the number of blue cards. I'm already -1 blue card from your 3 misstep list since I added a 12th land.

I might try the Gifts Ungiven in the main as Soly suggested.

@smmenen
What do you think of Mind's Desire in this deck?

I have found the Draw 7s to be underwhelming so was thinking of cutting either the Windfall in the maindeck and moving it to the sb for Desire or cutting the Diminishing Returns from the sb and adding Mind's Desire there.

Soly,
I'll donate a Bloodstained Mire. Tell me where and when it needs to be shipped to.

Thanks,
Steve

Edit: Sorry skimmed over the part that said pm you. Doing that now!

The free update was a nice surprise to find in my inbox, thanks guys! I got to play the deck yesterday and it is the most fun I've had playing vintage since TPS was viable. The deck seemed very powerful. I like how you have multiple paths to victories. The only thing I don't really like about the deck currently is the mana base, though I'm not sure how you get around that with needing to reliably cast 4 different colors. Thanks again for the article, the play by play analysis in the tournament reports section was the most helpful for me. I'm looking forward to playing this in a tournament later the month.

I need to check on some things but I might consider this too.

@Smmenen

I plan on picking up this deck soon to start testing. Do you find it hard to play against decks with Flusterstorm? Would you consider playing a Flusterstorm over a Misdirection?

@smmenen
Thanks for the article! I enjoyed the tournament reports, with decision making commentary, immensely. It's fun to read and compare how I would have played the games, learning from your notes.

I think what I was most surprised about was your general boarding against Shops. I understand that ritual is not a great card against workshops, but my first inclination would be that siding out all your rituals makes your Tendrils kill basically unplayable. Perhaps this doesn't matter if you are only concerned with Oathing into Maniac.

Welcome Matt! I'm always down to play some vintage if you ever have interest, let me know.

Cool, I'm pretty sure I'm in (for the first time in a long time). I'm excited!

This was a fun read! I hope he makes some improvements on the deck, it seems sweet.

Probably a lot of people with build budget decks just to mess around with, while others have the tier decks. This is pretty similar to how other formats play out on MTGO. For example, RUG in legacy costs a ton of money, so I currently have Burn (a budget deck), and Mavrick, a cheaper but competitive deck built. As I play more I hope to accumulate more of the staples, like Force of Will or whatever. I have no reason to think Vintage will be different for at least some people.

I have no idea how much Power will cost online, but if it is comparable to Force (100 each), it will take some time for people to accumulate/buy all of it.

How many ppl do these events usually get? What do the prizes usually end up looking like?

AJ,
Thank you for the write up! I was glad to see you do well. Clearly you will do well if you put your mind to it. Your top 8/win run with Landstill was ridiculous when you played a lot.

Hopefully I see you around at some tournament some time soon.

Steve

@ Will
I don't have much to add other than I am sorry that it happened. I personally wouldn't jump to assumptions since I have accidently filled out match slips wrong before. Luckily, me or my opponenet have caught it everytime before handing it in, but it is entirely possible it was a honest mistake.

@ PMass
Any reason you don't opt for a storm kill with your Gush deck? Any time you miss having it?

I hope that Demars and Menendian top 8 since they are the ones who usually have the most exciting new decks. I wouldn't mind one of the Lancaster PA players winning though Good luck to everyone who competes!

Having not read more of it in the past day or so, mostly the early history of the game and chapter 1. I started playing around Masques block and have had a love for Type 1 (at the time) every since, so I am fairly familiar with the format since then but it was definitely cool to see actual lists of decks before there was a 4 card limit, early deck lists with the 4 card limit, then how they began to look more familiar (The Deck).

I also really loved the images of the test cards, like Ancestral. I thought that was pretty cool that you had those images in the article, I had never seen them.

I'm about 60 pages in and am loving it. Very easy to just keep reading from chapter to chapter. Amount of research that went into it so far seems staggering. Thanks again!