I wanna share my fellow friend, testing partner and author of the e-book "so do you wear a cape? The history and mystery of Magic: The Gathering" (available in Septemer 2013) Titus Chalk's latest article about the game, published on Sabotage Times

You might want to visit the Facebook Page for "So do you wear a cape?" for news about the upcoming e-book

Thx, for your time

Vengeance is an Instant. Works like Loyal Retainers with the shuffle trigger on the stack.

Steve, with all given respect, counting Top 8 placements in tournaments with 9-13 participants is a bit off

So Burning Wish is now legal for 2 months. Did it put up any serious results as Steve and Shawn claimed it will do? Can't find anything of value.

It appears to me, that I wasn't too wrong about Burning Tendrils being a collection of hyperboles stuffed into 75 cards. Reminds me of Temporal Mastery...

Have to necro the thread for this masterpiece

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJFW7-hyWpE&feature=youtube_gdata_player

You are aware that it's in the mythic-slot? You can be thankful if it drops to 40$. I bet most of the Cross-Format chase rares pre-Alara will be scaled up being mythic in this set. Overall i cannot see this having real impact on the sec. market.

For the foil in the Land-Slot: Is there anything known about that? Is it Even possible that you find 2 foil mythics aka random distribution or have we a foil-Common Slot here?

QFT

Without any offense, the list seems a Look-alike of Stephen's and lacks a lot of explanation for Card choices which strengthen my Impression. Why orchard without oath sb? No demonic consultation? No Engine in the SB like diminishing returns? No LED? A Single flusterstorm over the 4th duress? 2 Tendrils?

Most important: There are no anti-hitler laws or such things in Germany.

however, there are anti-discrimination laws to protect ethnic minorities, freedom of religion (even covering Scientology, so imo very liberal), women (from gaps in wages etc. because of gender), sexual orientation etc. Which all make sense. Moreover we have laws that protect the democracy from depotism or the like. So making parody, movies, cartoons etc. is not a problem, covering a school building with nazi symbols/Posters or starting a racial hatred campaign however is because this has nothing to do with Freedom of speach anymore (at least the Way germans See it). Hope this explanation helped.

There are a quite some movies about hitler and the Regime successful in TV and cinemas and we are (finally) able to make parody about that. The hitler meme videos out of the Movie "Der Untergang" are well-known but really loose their joke if you actually understand everything and don't reduce it to the aggressive sound only.

While being at it: It really annoys me every Time i watch a US Late Night Show with all the guests claiming to speak a few words German and just try to spell Out Single words in aggressive-hilter-style (sarah chalke for example). There's no wonder a lot of the US People are confused if I speak german and i don't yell aggressive curse words all the Time lol.

We don't have Problems with curse words at all, like brits

Greeings from Germany

Solid roundup of the Expansion ... Not for vintage only. Echoed large parts of the community with additional content. A good one

These are the kind of statements that leave no more room for serious discussion. We had the same bold sentences in your (now locked) thread before and I don't want to reroll it here since Grand Inquisitor already mentioned the cards we discussed in the other thread

If there's one thing we definitely want to happen when we lock a thread, it's for people to go and try to continue the offending conversation in another thread.  If you can't post without sniping at another member, don't post at all.  Consider this a warning.

-Klep

Yeah, the amount of Vintage articles increased but imo the quality drop to the Rock bottom. Most of the reads only state and endlessly repeat the obvious, lost themselves in hilarious details (from an article 2 weeks ago: reason the shift from 1 flusterstorm to 1 spell pierce for about 2/3 of a page) or draw inadequate analogies to other formats / past metagames. I have to admit those Kind of articles reached my personal threshold of annoyance and sometimes reap critic.

In this case it feels like he wanted to write an article about modern but SCG's told him they are flooded with those and can only offer space for a vintage article lol

joke aside, after reading I think the article include #1 and 3# of my no-go's listed. He repeats stuff we have all read Time and Time again in similar matter with similar reasoning and his changes to Marc's deck are based on a Vintage metagame from the age of Mirrodin and Kamigawa where rack'n ruin was a legit way to wipe Trinisphere + threat unless they hardlock you the turn after.

Todays workshops Stack resistors (sometimes combined with a clock) which make R&R costing 4 or 5 mana facing a 4-Turn-clock. Back then you simply tried to reach 3 mana before your opponent got Trinisphere + crucible + strip mine/smokestack online which was a completely different story he doesn't even adress while suggesting R&R. These are the Kind of thoughts/reasoning I miss these days.

Maybe I should conside to addr "discuss a format (Decks, metagame or Ban-List) unless you really Play it" to my no-go-list, especially after having Brad Nelson heared discussing the Legacy Ban List back then at "The Magic Show" quoting obviously false Data and rumors (tournament performance and results of survival) as facts and drawing conclusions while never sleeved up a Legacy Deck himself before.

As said before in another thread: I rather read less about Vintage than a flood of words without content.

I do miss the time where chang staxx, meandeck Gifts, 8-discard-miracles grow, etc. appeared as decks with a New gameplan and followed a shitload of spot-on analysis of decision trees, metagame and Card interaction instead of being endlessly, needlessly told how good snapcasting a flusterstorm is.

What? Who is "we"? It isn't like you and the Voice in your head are the onces to decide what to Play in this Deck alone.

Your arguments negate each other: once you argue that you kill opponents before they can do anything that harms your winterwonderland-decklist and the other Case you describe how you want to outdraw/-Play them with draw7's in "Turn 10". Tell me why in this Case confidant isn't 200% better than FoF or a draw7?

You still promote burning Wish -> cruel Bargain?
4x LED in Vintage "wouldn't Cut it anymore"?
Confidant and Preordain are Bad because you always kill on Turn 1?

Imo your latest Post is trashtalking only, twisting each argument so it benefits your Point of view. Where are your several tournament wins you named? Against what decks?

I'm now 100% sure you have no idea about vintage Storm or the metagame. If you only opened this thread to Look for people kissing your *** or slap their critic with hilarious statements, I have nothing left to do here.

Yes, mind's Desire suffers from the same fragility as the draw7 why I would skip that too even it has 2 clear advantages in being One-sided and cheats mana cost of the revealed cards. (uncounterable isn't a Real Argument with flusterstorm, misstep Ritual or SB mindbreak obv.)

@desolutionist:

I have no clue why you advertise a List with 3 FoF explosive unless you want to Adress the insane amount of mana sources in that List that brick the Deck again and again as i tested it. Paying 1RBBB and 9-10 Life for 4 cards is a good setup 4 you Off Turn 2? Rather run Mind twist. No shattering Spree (random sorc Speed artifacts removal) or Empty the warrens in SB?

- 3 FoF
- 1 Gifts
- 3 Cabal Ritual
- 1 mana vault
- 1 Mountain
- 1 Wheel
- 1 twister (move to SB)
- 1 Lotus petal
- 1 Rebuild

+ 4 bob
+ 4 Preordain
+ 1 ponder
+ 1 hurkyls
+ 2 Thoughtseize
+ 1 flusterstorm

from your list

Your examples all include the assumption that the draw7 a) resolve and b) don't help your opponent more than you. To go Ritual, Ritual, jar scoops to misstep, Mindbreak, Force, flusterstorm and pierce without previous disruption which is (likely) negated once the draw7 resolves.

I doubt chrome mox is Good in vintage. Paired with the original artifact acceleration you can Play 2 Opal Moxen if you want more fastmana. Draw 7 are unplayable. You can't ramp to 5 mana and run into Mindbreak, spell pierce, flusterstorm or get a Ritual missteped for -1/-2 cards in disadvantage Open eyed as a strategy. If you invst 5+ mana and several Rituals you want ist to have some impact which wasn't auch a Problem back in the days there you only fought FoW and Drain. Creating a Storm Deck today without adressing Shops and those new, free/1cc counters as the First 2 steps imo leads to a dead end

First of all: if you want to run a stack-based Combo in todays vintage you have to find a Solution for Shops first.

Having to wish for any gamebreaker like tinker seems counterintuitive in a World Of spheres and Taxing Counter (Mindbreak and misstep not to forget) which imo make a lot of cards like Jar/desire pretty unplayable. It makes more sense to use Wish for Silver bullets and Game enders than as engine. Y.will, Show&Tell, Bribery, EtW, Tendrils, meltdown, grapeshot, etc. are such cards but tinker isn't situational like these like Jar and Desire weren't back in the days of original burning-desire.dec

Taking Bob tendrils as a base is indeed a good idea.

4x Force of wIll
4x Dark Confidant
4x Duress/thoughtseize (cuz ist can get Lodestone on the play!)
4x Flusterstorm
4x Burning Wish
4x Preordain
+ several mass-artifact-bounce-spells

...seem a possible starting point.

Since we lost merchant scroll, Brainstorm and ponder to relyable chain gushes, i guess playing with basically 5 regrowths is an option to fix that.

Snapcaster doesn't work with gush the way it's required.

Unrestricted Regrowth for Ancestral Recall or Gush? Yes please! The remove-clause isn't relevant imo, the colored cost not a real barrier because Gush based decks relied less on Off-Color moxen in the past and you can still chain gushes and T.Finds with Underground Sea + Tropical Island.

The return of the Tropical Storm or only a mild breeze?

Added Pic.
-MM

Ignoring that I already talked about my first tests with the card (to the Moment with several Deck-styles) and calling me out on that "seems good".

Both Talrand and nivmagus are ONLY affected by spells played AFTER they land on the battlefield. Both suffer if you can not follow up with instants/sorceries. That's left is the 1cc vs. 4cc topic with the dis-/advantages in the back of our head. I argued that the advantages are worth the 3 mana more while you seem to only Point to the mana cost as a factor which lead me to the example with impule vs. Thirst (better one with Steelshaper's Gift vs. Stoneforge Mystic while I want to show that the additional mana invested is justified, while you just Point to the mana cost)

I have no clue about you obsession with sphinx; it was your example to compare a 4 mana 4/4 drawback to a 1 mana 1/2 with a combo effect. Blame me on impule/thirst as a medicre example for the "how much mana is this effect worth"-discussion

Fixed.

I said that Talrand is the obvious better card in average situations even if ist costs 4 Times the mana of nivmagus as well as Lightning Bolt doing a better Job vs. shops. Mana vs. Effect is very relevant; if you replace ardent sphinx vs. Delver in your argument with Impulse vs. thirst 4 Knowledge some people might agree that the effect is worth the mana more investment. I do think that evasion, Protection from spot-removal and the fact that abilities resolve IS worth the 3 mana more. Keep your straw man at bay

At some Point in this thread ist started to Sound like nivmagus could fix the Shop-matchup and the Blue matchup all together which, I doubt, is the case. I dunno if playing Talrand requires you to live the dream more than the fiction that you have huge counterbattles/flusterstorms in every game After you played this through misstep etc. turn 1 or 2.

 I'm looking forward to hear some testing results in different shells

This card is a 1cc crossbreed between psychatog and Dryad which are both unplayable atm due to the Meta Shift towards creature solutions.

Most of the things said repeat my opener: Value in eating countered spells (instead of ensuring the spell resolves via spell pierce, etc. For the same 1cc) and eating flusterstorm copies (the only Storm Card this one should eat; opponent can easily see this coming; needs a flusterstorm Target cast instead of using the Counter to protect your spell).

my 1cc Solution to Lodestone remains Lightning bolt. Aside from the locked-under-spheres-szenario talrand and EtW do a better job abusing spells cast

Sorry but if people Talk about "Storm" in vintage it either contains gush or rituals. Since bob is reasonable with rituals and rituals feed nivmagus without restiction (opponent doesn't need to Play into your flusterstorm nor provoke a counterbattle) this testing seemed not outta place. Feeding gushes to nivmagus seems a complete waste instead of rituals. I won't discuss nivmagus vs. Talrand atm.

Nivmagus is near always carddisadvantage unless you "suprisingly" pump it while opponent mindlessly attacks with a Lodestone or confidant. You won't always living the dream to feed flusterstorm copies to him facing creatures. Wanna Feed him Will, Ancestral or Time walk or use their effects? We discuss the value of spell effects vs. 2 +1/+1 counters

@ Delver flipping: sure vintage players never heared of vampiric Tutor, mystical tutor, imperial seal, Preordain or sensei's divining top aside from chaining merchant scroll into mystical into Time Walk with 1-2 delver on the field. Yeah, Library-Control is alien to vintage ... Lol

I've tested with bob-Storm tbh with duress, flusterstorm and Rituals. Nothing too fancy but enough to test why all people Seem to think it's "amazing in Storm". Felt like I could have played phylactery lich and achieve the same in some matchups.

Waiting for him to eat 2 cards has the advantage to turn the tide against Workshop instead of 2 for 1 yourself. A consideration

Delver isn't carddisadvantage, has Evasion and multiple delver can Share a trigger aka don't suck in multiples ... Isn't that obvious?

Tested yesterday instead of theorycrafting:

Crap in storm. You want your spells to resolve. You can't chain spells without them resolving. Meta isn't 4 chaining spells atm otherwise dark ritual weren't dismissed in todays builds. Mindbreak and fluster obviously don't counter your Storm spell with this Guy on the table but your enabler.

Fails vs Shop unless you run crappy free spells because of the Need to remove 2 spells under spheres to block lodestone.

Enables oath

Misstep victim. Still much played in my meta :/

Fails Jace-test. Like Dryad.

Delver and goofy outclass this having less drawbacks





I'll pass on this one and Save my money

This is some interesting spoiler. While we discuss on TheSource that this one may be too costy for Legacy (binning mana and spells for it to grow) I think it may have some space in Vintage with a bit less creature removal floating around but with Flusterstom in the middle of the meta. Does exiling additional useless copies of flusterstorm or removing countered spells 4 value make this card a consideration? Discuss!

I agree that Decks that can use lots of colorless mana like bomberman Profit from ancient tomb but i fear the threshold of colorless mana sources are pretty much filled with moxen etc.

I guess in Legacy this Card is underused to Battle taxing effects like Thalia, daze, spell pierce or the tempo-Meta in general. Turn 3/4 batterskull hardcast, Turn 3 jace, Turn 3 jitte + equip etc. is something worth 2 explore

Please check the metagame-breakdown. It isn't, that Decks that failed T8, played unpowered or the like. That idea is off Reality. I'm still sure gush-Decks won both prelims ...

Steve,

Could ist be that you missed a Point about darkblast for game 2?

You can keep a Hand without bazaar but with your Rainbow land for whispmare, Chan of vapor etc., remove an Opponents Bob/jailer/delver/lavamancer and still start dredging in your Second drawstep like you would with bazaar.

You can basically mulligan for your rainbow lands instead of your Bazaar.

Never had any intention to attack you nick, Sorry if you feel like that.

First of all I want to credit JACO and the eternal-central-team for gathering and preseting the following data of the 2 prelims of GenCon-Vintage. I want to Start with the 10am prelim

http://www.eternal-central.com/?p=2987

1. RUG Delver
2. URG planeswalker
3. Bomberman
4. Bomberman
5. UBR Strix
6. Bant Fish
7. Staxx
8. Griselbrand Oath

0 Confidants
0 Bazaar
4 Workshops
4 Gush
14 Jace

4pm prelim
http://www.eternal-central.com/?p=3004

1. Doomsday
2. Confidant Control
3. Staxx
4. MUD
5. RUG Delver
6. Griselbrand oath
7. UR Landstill
8. Cobra Gush

8 gush
2 confidant + 1 SB
8 Shop
4 Standstill
16 Jace

In advance of the vintage Champ final we have more gush, Jaces and Standstills as draw engines in Top performing decks than confidants. So considering non-Bob/Bazaar/Shop-decks trash isn't correct nor claiming gush or Standstill aren't viable draw engines.

Nick, if I understand you right, I should be thankful for every written word about vintage no matter the content or if it's the truth? Second, it's my duty to prove an article wrong (with numbers) instead of the writer supporting his thesis by results (more than just 1 T8)? Do I really Need to pick up and present numbers that gush is a) unrestricted and b) well presented in vintage (won both prelims)?

I'm just kinda "shocked" Brian wrote an unusual article full of phrases and claims, imo.

If I make bold and proud claims, I should expect some harsh critic. I can take some Hits with a smile, don't Take all this too personally and will of course, looking forward to read his future articles.

I would Leave it that way