Back when I was still playing during Kamigawa era I was working on an infi-mana/life/damage land deck that used ZOrb, Fastbond and Crucible, which is by no means new tech but it incorporated Bazaar as recursive uncounterable draw under the above engine and its' kill was either Barbarian Ring damage after tapping itself for infinite red mana or milling with Cephalid Coliseum. The Coliseum acted like Bazaar for me if I needed it and I was able to play a toolbox of lands to address any issues that might be faced. Cabal Pit addresses any pro Red creature threat except Shrouded creatures, Waste/Strip is obvious, and City of Brass becomes painless or you can run something like Archaeological Dig if you're worried about the damage. Fetchlands become a quick way to empty your library of all lands, there's tons of tricks you can use.

I played it as U/g with FoW/Drain to protect combo pieces/stop their win cons and since I was self milling I used flashback spells, especially Deep Analysis to enable me to draw into the combo, but with these new cards you don't even have to bother with that. Play a traditional blue control deck with enough slots for Zorb/Bond/Crucible engine, Bazaar and/or Living Wish with Bazaar/Barb Ring/Coliseum in the side and then Selective Memory/Treasure Hunt. When I look at Selective Memory I see a blue version of Doomsday to which after you cast it Treasure Hunt becomes a two mana Stroke of Genius and then win with an uncounterable land kill. You just have to slow roll the deck with draw, bounce and counters to protect the engine, which is no different than most other combo decks.

Problem cards for this idea are of course Null Rod and Graveyard hate. You also don't need Valakut at all, you can have Barb Ring as the sole red source in the deck.

I'm pretty sure this doesn't violate the anti-trading policy on boards, if it does I will be sure to delete the thread. I've been out of the game since Kamigawa block hit but up to that point I was very active in the Michigan t1 scene and have a very extensive collection of top cards, full power, playsets of every big unrestricted card, foil/foreign/beta/etc, all the best cards pimped out as best as I could attain at the time. I'd like to get rid of the collection as a whole, it'd basically allow someone to build nearly any deck in t1 minus the additions made to the format from Kamigawa to present, but I realize that this isn't the kind of deal you take down to the local cardshop and ask them about.

What I'd like is anyone who has experience dealing with this sort of thing who could give some pointers on who to contact that regularly deals with this type of transaction or could help out in some way. I could one at a time the cards on Ebay I imagine but I'd rather keep the collection together since I put alot of time into building it and it really has a larger appeal as a collection rather than individual cards.

Pre thanks for any help that can be given and again if this violates site policy I'll surely remove the thread, I don't intend to misuse the board in any way.

Playset of Bazaars $160
Playset of Workshops $200
UNL Mox Jet, Ruby, Sapphire, Pearl, 4 Beta Sinkholes $380
UNL Mox Sapphire $125
UNL Lotus, Ancestral $450

I could list what I got My Beta Mox Pearl and Sapphire for, but I don't want to  make anyone cry. All the above prices are within the last 18 months.

Pyschatog. Definitely heralded the era of the no brainer retard deck in Magic.

Here's the last deck I played. I played this at SCG Chicago to a 5-3 record.

4 Workshop
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Wasteland
3 Rishadan Port
1 Strip Mine
1 Academy
9 SoLoMoxCryptVault

4 Mycosynth Golem
4 Arcbound Crusher
4 Frogmite
4 Enforcer
1 Duplicant
1 Karn

3 Genesis Chamber
3 Chalice
3 Plating
4 SkullClamp
1 Jar
2 Cursed Totem

It's something I've played for about six months, in various different builds. I've taken it apart now, because I'm burned out on Workshop decks.

Why I play rogue decks is simple. I have every card that is worth a damn in this game. Thus I do not have to fight it out all crazy to win prize just so My cardpool expands. Most people are competing to get the cardpool I have. The luxury this provides is that I can build any deck I want, so why build a deck everyone else is playing? I like to play something that is instantly distinguishable as a deck I put together.

I aim to not only play rogue, but play competitive rogue, to play something that can beat top decks. My losses at SCG Chicago were to JACO with his UGb Oath, due to his timely FoW's on Duplicant, I lost to Tog because of multiple Rack and Ruins, and I lost to Gro due to 3 Hurkyll's Recall in 3 consecutive turns. So the deck did good, it just had some bad times which can happen. I beat Oath, SuiBlack(who cares), U/W Fish, Stax and 2 Land Belcher, so with the exception of Suicide I faced competitive decks all day.

I think netdecking is good to a certain extent. You learn how to play the game if you're playing the best decks around. However at the same time I think that the established archetypes are the 'schools' of T1, where you learn what's going on. Once you build up your cardpool and have a wide selection of cards that fall into the competitive/tech/experimental categories, and once you establish a working and theoretical understanding of the game, the decision to continue to netdeck inhibits your abilities as a deckbuilder and a player. When you don't have to sit down and really twist yourself up in order to get a deck how you want it, when you can copy a list and make a few changes to suit your metagame, when the deck you're playing isn't something that has come to be no different than you are, something is wrong with the whole thing. People don't focus on building decks anymore, they focus on playing them.

There are too few deckbuilders and visionaries in this game. Nobody takes risks, they want a deck which has been tested and ran by hundreds if not thousands of people. There is a certain advantage in that, the more people contribute to a deck the more ideas are going to circulate, the faster it will become streamlined and reach its' peak. But at that point most of the work is done for them, which is a well established goal of sorts in this day and age. Few people are willing to risk their entrance fee on their own ideas, and that's a shame.

Of course, this is hinged on the fact that someone has an idea of their own. Most don't and don't know where to get one. It's the way of the world. I enjoy what I play. I want to win with it, definitely. When I lose I don't give up on it and jump on someones' bandwagon, I figure out what I can do within the scope of what I'm playing. When I win it's great, when I lose it's fine, because win or lose I'm doing it on My terms.

I think the best approach to this format is get your power, get the stuff you need to compete, play whatever you need to in order to learn, get a grasp on the game, and at some point start working on your own ideas, based on what you know and what you can/will play. There's no point in not trying to make something work, alot of cards are broken as hell but are taboo or neglected because of their colour/type/etc. The defined netdeck metagame is a boon to anyone who can examine it and build a deck on their own that can compete within it. Taking advantage of that is the priority of the rogue player.

I had thought that the legendary supertype would offset the cost, he is cheap enough to get into play early enough for it to matter against control, against aggro he'd probably not matter or be removed, and against combo he'd only be good against something like Deathlong which is paying tons of life in order to win. I could see a cost of 1BB, but anything more than that makes the card nearly unplayable unless the legendary supertype was removed. 2BB for the same card sans legendary supertype would be fine.

I don't want it to be a beatstick, I want it to be something which can slip under counters, punish control and place an even greater premium on artifact mana, and give black a creature it can actually run. Thanks to Onslaught and Mirrodin block the black creaturebase is dumpster worthy, the colour has been relegated to discard and tutor effects with the occasional creature removal spell. That pretty much sucks.

For a long time I've thought that the City of Brass/Painland trait should exist on a creature.  The card below more than likely would be printed in red if it were made today, and the life loss changed to damage but I am a fan of the particular flavour of this card, and of black cards in general thus the design. I am also working on the structure of dark gods/evil demons that this guy would be a devotee of, so I made sure to reference his aim in the flavour text.

So, here it is:

Uhmas the Despoiler
1B
Legendary Creature-Cleric
1/2

Whenever a land is tapped for mana, that lands controller loses 1 life.

"I will not rest until the entire world speaks, breathes and bleeds the poison of my masters."

The mountain and forest look like variations of basic land art that already exists, I can't remember exact sets but they definitely look similiar to ones I've already seen. The swamp and island look awesome, especially the swamp. The best word I can use to describe those is classy. They are pretty sophisticated, coming as they are from a goofoff set.

I'll definitely pick as many of those up as possible.

Having your opponent need to read every card you play=tech. Ha.

It was definitely very cool meeting/playing you round 5, even if Fow on Duplicant is bad times for Me. This version of Oath is definitely more resilient, the double Blessing is a big deal as the lone Blessing as fallback isn't something that inspires alot of confidence in a removal/counter heavy format.  Duress also really, really sucked as it wasn't something I expected to deal with in that matchup, it's a very proactive solution to alot of tricks that can hose a 2 creature deck.

I still have that crimped beta swamp, if you're interested. I worked out that huge deal with Jeff Anand and forgot about it until we were back at our hotel.

What it really comes down to is running an EVENT, not just a tournament, which is something Zherbus alluded to. People don't want to drive all morning and play all afternoon for 5th Dawn packs. But if you have quality prize at solid prices, then you'll attract more people. What this does is forces TO's to work a little more to get the deals that will allow them to have their tournaments affordable and appealing. Case in point is a 1.5 tournament that I am putting together where the entry is 10 bucks, and as of this moment the prize structure looks like this:

1st-4xFoW or 4xTrop. Island (winner choice)
2nd-Whatever wasn't picked by winner
3rd-4xNull Rod

I wanted to have prizes that were applicable in the environment, unlike offering 5th Dawn packs to someone playing in a Vintage tournament, and especially since 1.5 is a new format and a fair amount of people who will be playing in it do not have these cards I wanted to make it appealing as a way to get quality and competitive cardstock, and since those cards are playable in Vintage I wanted to give the people winning a footstep or two into the mighty realm of T1. Maybe someone who has them already will win, but that's the nature of the game and I'd like to have as much of MY intention as possible sunk into the aim of providing not only a quality tournament but act as a cultivator towards bigger and better tournaments. I as the TO can help this out by putting in the time to find these cards at prices that let the tournament price out reasonable and appealing. This also helps to establish reputation, which I think is something definitely overlooked to some degree. Everyone wants to run a tournament, but really only a select amount of people are made for it. Those that are and who continually pay attention to the game and all the details involved in it will be the ones that attract the players and keep the field strong.

16, unfortunately. It had quite a few people cancel at the last minute, which dragged it down alot. We've got the player base to have upwards of 30-40, they just didn't make it out this time.

Or you could maindeck Engineered Plague, because calling one of the following:

Goblin, Pentavite-Slaver, Welder.dec
Spirit-Oath
Faeries, Wizard-Fish
Sliver-Dragon
Gorilla, Soldier-4cC, Tog

And so on and so forth, granted some of those are situational at best, but are at least viable. At the moment, I think to play monoblack is to play a very narrow, very unforgiving hate deck. The problem it faces is that the creature base of monoblack absolutely sucks, which makes your next best bet artifact creatures, which suffer from the fact that everyone is packing answers to artifacts in one form or another. Karn, Juggernauts and Solemn Simulacrum are decent choices, from the forays into nonsuicide monoblack I've made.

The first tournament legal deck I built was B/R creatureless, I remember pretty much the whole decklist:

4 Black Vise
4 Howling Mine
1 Underworld Dreams
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Fork
1 Abyss
1 Tabernacle At Pendrell Vale
1 Feldon's Cane

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Syphon Soul
4 Disintegrate
4 Sinkhole
4 Dark Ritual

4 Badlands
4 Strip Mine
1 Sol Ring
1 Maze of Ith
1 Library of Alexandria
5 Mountain
5 Swamp

I don't remember the sideboard, except for it having Flashfires because of COP Red or Greater Realm of Preservation, which was big in My area in 95.  I really wanted to work white into the deck, as I wanted to swap out Abyss and put Moat/Gravity Sphere in the deck, those were fun times.

I could see it more in a U/G comboish deck with Fastbond, Vernal Bloom/Heartbeat of Spring, Glacial Chasm and Skullclamp. The trick is being able to generate 2 mana off the land you are returning, so you cover the activation cost of both Meloku and Clamp. Draw cards until you hit Time Walk with an absurd amount of counter backup, make enough tokens for one lethal swing, and win.

I thought of Skullclamp as well, a few minutes after I posted. I think it's good, since I don't see Null Rod coming out to hose Clamp in this particular deck. This deck is also going to be frustrated at times due to the new legend rule when it plays the mirror, Akromas and Spirits are going to be blowing up all over the place, I'm curious if the lone Blessing will end up being enough, but then again this is a list for the current field.

6 the turn you Oath, with either Akroma or SotN
Play some random spell, draw or countermagic using the Orchard before your next turn.
Oath up the remaining creature during your next turn, swing for 12.

They are likely to die from Fow/Fetch damage sustained prior to the attack for 12. I imagine it'd get interesting if they manage to get rid of one of the tokens, stopping the 2nd Oath activation, or at least delaying it. Mirror matches are going to be rife with Cabal Therapy type effects in no time.

Yes, he is amazing in this. Granted, you have to run more basics, but he is amazing with Clamp, because of how you can manipulate the stack to search for lands first, then draw the cards. Again, in a version with more basics, like the B/G version I ran in 1.5 for awhile, Explorer is amazing.

Chalice shouldn't stop you if you side Multani's Presence, actually at that point it would accel you, albeit 1 card less than Clamp would but in the instance of you having cast Glimpse, and then drop Kobolds with a Chalice at 0 and Presence on the board, it duplicates the effect while saving your mana.

Carnival is RARELY problematic, I was forced to run it in 1.5 because of the lackluster mana accel that was available, and there were only a few times that it killed Me or I found that I was unable to win because of the lifeloss. My particular engine was Carnival/Genesis Chamber/Clamp with a slew of supporting cast members, and with the fact that in Vintage you're going to be able to play alot of spells (P9) that don't damage you and count towards Storm, you shouldn't worry that much about the loss of life.

The thing with Cradle is you save it for a burst of mana, and then if possible Rotate it into a new one. The capacity in the posted deck to tap a Cradle for 3-5 mana and then Rotate it into another Cradle, or Academy if the mana will be even greater is obscene. The major issue I see with mana is getting the BB for Tendrils, the absence of Ritual makes that sketchy.

How has Recycle worked for you? I wanted to try it before but it was out of range mana wise for a 1.5 deck.

Uba Mask (4)
Artifact
If a player would draw a card, that player removes that card from the game face up instead. Each player may play cards he or she removed from the game with Uba Mask this turn.

* You can't play cards you removed with Uba Mask on previous turns.

* Any cards you don't play just remain removed from the game when the turn ends.

Do cards that are actually cast during the turn go to the discard pile, or stay RFG?

I think Ric Flair is addressing the NE metagame because that's the one most relevant to him and in most cases, the most indicative of what the overall metagame would be if everyone owned power. Look at T2 forums, and there's a natural assumption that you own/can get the cards that are being discussed. This is a strange situation to push in a format where all the great cards are long out of print, but in the same manner it is natural to include discussion of the format in a way that assumes you have the cards. As has been noted, talking about Vintage without talking about power is a strange conversation, and another example is Fish in this metagame. It might be good, it might be great, but why would someone play it when they can play all the broken cards?

When decks are discussed, the one problem I've had is that too many rogue ideas are moved to newbie. I'm not talking about Suicide threads or WW threads either. However as I don't have moderator status, and I choose to play decks other than what are the mainstays of the format, I have to accept that people are going to be disbelieving and skeptical. No one has unlimited time to test, and there's enough information to absorb dealing with the known archetypes as it is, so the people dealing most directly with things are going to curtail deviations from that which aren't expressed in ways that make them serious contributions to the forums.

Has there been a crackdown on this from high above? No, which means that Steve approves of it on some level at the very least, maybe he totally approves of it. It makes no difference to Me, personally.

What I would like to see is people posting decks that are rogue/tech/whatever to advertise it. Especially since the focus has been on proxy vs nonproxy metagames, it should be noted by people who are building for nonproxy metagames somewhere in the beginning of the thread, if not in the title like is done with budget builds and the such.

The default metagame is always going to be fully powered, highly competitive decks or metagame decks that cash in on the weaknesses of powered decks. This implies proxies somewhere, unfortunate as it is. If you're building for a nonproxy metagame, make sure people know about it so you stand the best chance of being taken seriously in your choices, because the card choices of a nonproxy metagame are probably as alien to people in proxy metas as Vintage decks are to T2 players.

I also think too many people are trying to mold TMD into what they want. Take it for what it is, contribute as necessary, but leave your damn ego out of it.

I really can't say anything else on this subject without repeating Myself.

Sylvan Safekeeper can act as protection for any of your creatures, and it's in colour and can be fetched via Survival. The drawback is painful in a format of Wastelands, which made Me think of Crucible to augment it/act as mana accel in a pinch. You've decided to use Witness so that might be better than Crucible in this deck because of the flexible utility, but it's an option. Safekeeper certainly is rough to play around for spot based removal wielding decks, and isn't broken enough that it will be countered regularly.

Sculpting Steel is better, even with the pitch to FoWness that Copy Artifact has. Sculpting Steel can't be ReB'd, comes down off a Workshop, can be Tinkered for if necessary (not exactly optimal but it is an option) and it isn't affected by enchantment hate (minimal, but still a decreased weakness compared to Copy).

I've always liked Copy, and I really like Sculpting Steel. In a Workshop deck it gives you extra copies of anything you're playing, which can come at a reduced cost, copying something like Crusher, Jug, Trisk, Duplicant, Angel, Titan, DSC. It also for a very cheap price answers your opponents' fast artifact bombs. 1st turn Tinker Colossus looks great for your opponent until you go Workshop Sculpting Steel the Colossus.

It's definitely has alot of potential, moreso than the Copy, even with it being cheaper than Sculpting Steel. With the coloured mana requirements, I'd almost consider Sculpting Steel the cheaper of the 2. Basically I think that any deck that would consider Copy would be better off running Sculpting Steel.

I see what you're saying, for the most part. Here's My thoughts.

In a non proxy, sanctioned metagame you run into a couple of 'situations' which are represented by the guy with full power, all the major cards, and money to play anything. You also have the guy who has some amazing cards, no more than a handful, and a good assortment of playable stock that lets him play near the top tiers but not overwhelm his opponents' solely on his cardstock alone, and you finally have the guy with no cards, playing budget because that's all he has/can afford and who is trying to make his way slowly into the larger and more expensive cardpool.
I'm in Michigan, and most of the tournaments that have been run here since Vintage picked up in popularity are non proxy tournaments, whether sanctioned or not. There have been an assortment of proxy tournaments recently, mostly due to the unmistakeable success of them elsewhere but traditionally this has been a no proxy state. What this has done to the players here who don't have power is to make them play the game with some sense of abandon when faced with a power wielding opponent. Alot of times it engenders the 'massive hate deck' or the 23 counterspell deck, which in all honesty is not healthy for the metagame at all, but on the flipside are the people who realize that playing unpowered doesn't mean they've lost, and it motivates them to play sharper, think outside of the box more for unexplored tech, and if necessary play the hate, because let's face it: a powered deck is a hate deck towards the flat broke.

There does have to be some level of recognition on the part of each player, or the tournament scene can get dragged down. People sulking about not having power aren't contributing to making faster, more dynamic decks that capitalize on the negative aspects the benchmarks of power cards possess, and people gloating and lording over the populace with their binder of power aren't pushing the envelope, they are relying on the inherit brokeness of their cards to carry their weight, they aren't trying to make them even more broken.

This is a generalization, but it does exist, you see it everytime you play at a tournament. It isn't the be all end all, but it does exist. What has to happen in non proxy tournament areas if they are to be healthy tournament areas is that people need to stop apologizing for playing their deck. I see too many people give up automatically when they sit down against Me. I can build any deck you post, non proxied, I've got it all. People not in My boat pack it in, and I can't figure out why. I'm not apologizing for playing what I do, I spent the money, I'm playing the cards. When someone who has done the same sits down and plays against Me, and they go broken before I do, I accept it. It happens when you play broken cards, and the money on the table is worth respect. I get angry when the deck I'm playing doesn't perform, when I had no chance because of the draws I was getting, but I don't complain about the level of brokenness. At the same time I don't fault the people playing budget, and likewise I expect that I'm either going to win, or they are going to have planned accordingly for a matchup against a powered deck and be able to deal with what I have. Playing unpowered doesn't mean you can't be competitive. Playing rogue doesn't mean you can't be competitive.

So ultimately what has to happen on an individual basis first and a broader territorial basis second is that people have to get past the stigmas of both sides, powered and unpowered, and just play. In this day and age, when you have access to every decklist you could imagine online, it's not hard to find the angle, the slant in your metagame that no one saw and take advantage of it, and this is possible for both the powered and unpowered player. There's only 10,000+ cards, find a way through the gauntlet or bide your time and just develop your skills playing what you've got, build your cardpool, etc.

The proxy tournaments make the field level, but I think they limit the development of tech to the people who really have it in them to find it, rather than making the environment in which it forces people to think outside the box for themselves. Because of the negative synergy of increasing popularity in the format and the static amount of the older cardpool, proxy tournaments are and will no doubt continue to be a necessity for the format, which I don't have a problem with. I ultimately think the game should be played without proxies, and the goal of people playing in proxy tournaments who don't have power should be to win up to the point in which they're powered, and then step aside and let the next batch of unpowered people have their shot. It's unrealistic, due to the money that can be made off power, but it's a nice thought that I can ultimately accept will happen in only a few rare cases.

Finally, I think that the proxy tournaments are good for allowing people to develop the fundamentals of the format, it really is the best teaching tool in the world to play with the cards, even if you don't own them. So much about synergies and matchups and situational decisions would escape so many people were it not for these style of tournaments, and as it contributes to the skill level of the players of the format, thus pushing the envelope and hopefully making people appreciate both the benchmarks as well as the tech that is available.

Neither proxy or non proxy is bad, as long as an acceptance is made of the situation at large. This game is naturally fluid, so asking for rigidity is ludicrous, but accepting the facts of your local situation, or having the drive to do something different to accomodate your own vision of how things should be are the only options. The endless nitpicking and arguing serves to only waste the time you should be using to play the game and enjoy yourself.

You're right, though there is a compromise between the two. Alex Sellinger played a mono red Crusher deck as soon as it was legal, and it had both Welder and Chamber in it. His was a different build than the one posted, having Moonvessels and Workers as well as Chamber tokens, and he flew through his deck. He eventually splashed both blue and black, for will/demonic/walk/ancestral/tinker and it was more resilient, but also hurt more by nonbasic hate, which this archetype already gets killed on. You missed the point that he maindecks both Jar and Wheel, both amazing with Welder and his assessment of Welder as often the least potent threat but still a must counter is dead on.

The card I don't like in his build is Sword of Fire and Ice. Since Null Rod is such a problem, having another artifact that gets shut off when Rod is in play isn't good, and with Clamp/Plating your mana is already at a premium. I'd change them for Gorilla Shaman, not only is he Clamp fodder if you don't run into Rods but his ability to hose the manabase of control decks is key for you sliding in the last few points of damage, which is bigger in this deck since you don't have Disciple to act as a finisher, all your damage is done in the attack phase.

Black
Nether Void
Scent of Nightshade
Ragged Veins
Ghostly Visit (P3K)
Green
Elves of Deep Shadow
Eureka
Red
Blood Moon
Blue
Invoke Prejudice
Mistfolk
Artifact
Jester's Cap, Mask, Sombrero
Relic Barrier(legends)
Memory Jar
Forcefield
White
Death Ward(ice age)

Who supplied who?

Dragon is all over the place, I know at least 6 people that have the cards for it, Myself included, and maybe another 10 or so that have a good portion of the deck. I wouldn't say it's turned Dragon, just that it's always been there.

I'm definitely making that Compulsion tournament, that's awesome.

I've got them, and a couple other people do that I'm aware of, but there aren't alot of people who have a playset so you don't see them as often as other archetypes, like Dragon. There's definitely more Bazaars than Workshops running around. I might have an inside track into Workshops, so they might appear in bigger numbers soon, not too soon since I've already got too many bases to cover, but after things clear up a big we'll see.

A random guy who plays in our area sometimes, it was half like yours and half like test of endurance what the hellness. I know it was two colours, w/g and it might have had a little blue as well. So it was more like axle grease than parfait. You should have came out, the tournament needed another voice of 'this game is dumb sometimes' in it. You'll also want to know that the oath deck was old school weaver/morphling style, no colossus. No ancient hydra either.

I'm from Michigan, and we don't have these kind of tournaments every week. Yet as power becomes more accessible they are becoming more frequent, especially in the past 4-6 months. We're not at the point where we are shellshocked nor have a wide variety of choices/places to go for these tournaments, so for the most part people are taking it in stride. The issue that does exist is the porting over of the T2 shark into the T1 shark, which means that the players have the ethics of your average T2 player (read as none at all) and have the cardstock of a seasoned T1 player. People are happy to show up, to make a drive for a tournament, but they are not always happy with who they see when they get there. Over time this might snowball, but as of yet we don't have a steady power tournament scene here that affords people the 'luxury' of getting pissed off at every little situation.

On the prize structure I think it has gotten a little crazy, which is going to happen when there is no major corporate backing. Since the emphasis of the community is hinged on a 'network' structure I think more effort has to be made to coordinate the scheduling of these power tournaments so as they don't run along side each other nor are so close that it is impossible for people to afford to hit one tournament, maybe make some purchases and then have enough money just to pay entrance fee into the next one. Since this is a high dollar tournament scene we're talking about, people are bound to get cleaned out from one tournament, and then so and so shop 40 miles away is reduced to hosting a power tournament with the local 14 kids who always come in, rather than a larger crowd that isn't tapped out on gas, burnt out on cards and flat broke from the 18 hour triple power tournament up in Anytown, USA.

Having proxy rules encourages turnout, which is good. Scheduling all these tournaments so close together doesn't, as it doesn't let the tide of cash flow back in to the pockets of the average person attending. The supply is there, the demand is there, but the resources to get the crowds necessarily aren't. Valleys take time to refill after they empty.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who still thinks Mask is good.

I've been toying around with lists like this, though the ones I've put together were all mono blue Masknought with Tinker/Colossus as an extra combo. Initially I had Trinket Mage in as well to act as early beats as well as tutor for the Dreadnought or random P9 or Chalice. I then realized that this isn't Salvagers.dec and I could just run more draw spells and find the Dreadnought that way plus allow for better digging for counters. Between counters and b2b/crucible lock it's a pretty solid control element and unlike mono black Mask you're not left out in the cold after your all or nothing initial surge gets disrupted. For reference here's the list I have right now:

4 Mask
4 Dreadnought
1 Tinker
1 Colossus

4 FoW
4 Drain
4 Leak
2 Crucible
3 B2B

Ancestral
Walk
Mystical
4 Brainstorm
4 Impulse

4 Delta
Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
Lotus
Sapphire
Sol Ring
Mana Crypt
9 Island

SB
4 BeB
4 Energy Flux
4 Chalice
3 undefined slots(MisD, bounce, whatever)

Despite the fact that the kill are artifact creatures, Energy Flux is pretty good since it will shut down workshop decks and almost let you play at your leisure, dropping the Masknought or Tinker/Colossus when you'll be able to easily pay the upkeep cost for Flux.