It was a real good event again Nick.  I had a great time playing and hanging out with everyone.  I also agree that the BBQ should happen more often. 

My fault, I was told you were owner or part owner of mr. nice guys games.  Previous post is edited.

In other news, my work and school schedule is going through a major overhaul which will hopefully actually allow me to make your event on 2/20.  Currently I work every weekend and can't make trips anywhere.  Hopefully I will be there.

If you look at my previous posts about the prize support of Mikes events, I was one of the few that either had no problem with the support, or defended his prize support.  The reason I keep posting about the prize support is because I want ALL TO's to MAKE MONEY on these local and regional events.  If the TO's keep making money, they will continue to hold events, and more events means more reason for people to play competative vintage, which means vintage will hopefully grow.  That will help the HEALTH of vintage more than anything else I can think of.  Standard is so popular because there is an event every Friday or Saturday night.  I want vintage to be that way as well.

There is no reason you should be taking a loss on the prize support of the vintage events you run.  If you continue to take loss after loss at your events, I am positive that you will stop running the events.  I want you to make money, so that you have more incentive to make your next tourny even better than your last.

Your comment that philly players cited your prize support as a counterpoint to Mikes prize support actually makes the last paragraph of my first post true.  You were willing to take a loss in prize support to get players to come to your event while Mike nor Nick have that option.  


Also your prize support isnt actually fair because you are losing out on the deal.  Prize support should be fair to the players and the TO.

@ Ritnecrowin. 
 
Wow, does your post piss me off.  Yes, the way you calculated it, he brought in $570 more than what he paid out in prizes.  That barely seems worth it to me.  The event started at 11 am and registration started at 10.  The TO had to arrive at at least 9 am to set up and solve any potential problems.  What about travel time to the site?  Lets say a half hour.  The event ended about 7pm, another hour to give out all prizes and pack everything up, and another half hour to get home.  8:30 am to 8:30 pm. is 12 hours at work.  He also had to organize the event, advertise, and provide reinbursment for his assistant and the judge, both of who were also there for about 8 hours each.  Lets say minimum wage($7.50/hr) for the for the judge and assistant.  $7.5*16 hours=$120 compensation.  Now he only has $450 over what he brought in.  Divide that by the 12 hours he spends at the tournament and he makes $37.50 an hour.

Seems a bit much right?  Dont forget that he spent time on organizing the event and advertizing.  He is also working on a Saturday, which usually commands at least time and a half.  $37.50/hr seems reasonable to me.  Now, he did add $240 to the prize support, so his profit is actually only $17.50/hr.  Would you spend that much time and effort for $17.50/hr on your Saturday?

Why do you even care about this?  You werent at the event, so it didnt even affect you anyway.  Your group says you are a tournament organizer, so the only reason I can think that you would care is to show that Nick is making too much money, and at your next event you can advertize a payout that is better than his, hopefully taking players from Nick's events

You guys dont seem to realize that this does not give you free brainstorms, this actually gives you a sorcery that says 2UU: draw 3 cards and put two back on top of your library, netting you 0 card advantage, and every turn after that, draw 3 cards and put 2 cards back on top of your library, netting you +1 card advantage at no aditional mana.

Now, I dont know if this will be good in blue decks, but to evaluate the card you definately have to look at it correctly.  I believe that if you can play it consistently on turn 4 and protect it from opposing creatures, it will be an absolute gamebreaker.  The only way vintage decks deal with this card once resolved are bounce spells and creatures.  If fish is a big enough player in the metagame, this might die to easily, otherwise, it should stick for a few turns at least.

I re-read this article, and the forums but I am still confused about one thing.  Most seem to agree that cashing out the mox or lotus prize is standard operating procedure for the winners.  If no one is interested in owning and playing with their power, then who is actually buying all these cards?

The TO's at some tournaments obviously buy back the power, which is really good for them, also, one player will buy out the other if they split.  Collectors definately pick up power, but they are most likely looking for very high quality cards, which is not usually given away at most tournaments.  If you check ebay, there are dozens of pieces of power being bought and sold every week.  Why are people buying these cards if they arent using them?

I find it really interesting that the restricted list is made of all cards that have been printed in Urza's block or before, except newly printed blue cards, and burning wish.  Burning Wish has been considered for unrestriction on tons of threads, and with the new exile rules, will probably be even more likely to come off now.  This just leaves us with new blue cards.  What does this tell us about the mechanics of magic and general balance of the colors? 

It seems to me that blue is just the more powerful color because card advantage is the most important part of magic.  Look at all the new restricted blue cards.  Besides ponder and minds desire, they all give card advantage at instant speed.  Minds Desire gives card parity and mana advantage through free spells, and ponder seems out of place.

The reason that other colors dont have as many cards on the b/r list is because Wizards have figured out how to basically balance power level in most formats and it is obvious when a red burn spell or green creature or white wrath effect are overpowered.  Even the new blue cards on the vintage b/r list arent broken in smaller formats.  They arent as broken because the card pool is not so strong that a 1-2 card advantage spell doesnt deliver as much power per card.

If wizards were to print a red spell that says 2R deal 9 damage, it would be on the restricted list. 

My point of this is that the vintage card pool makes blue draw spells broken.  Wizards is just finally realizing this.

This past blue bell event was the 3d one Ive played with ad nauseam.  The list still hasnt changed except for 2 sideboard slaughter pact instead of tinker/robot.  This past event was loaded with workshop decks, something I wasnt expecting and wasnt prepared for.  I am fine with facing 1 workshop deck at a tourny, but any more and I have problems.  This has led me to finally going up to 12 lands main deck and at least 1 more in the sideboard, perhaps 2.  Because I am going to 12 lands, I will be adding a mox diamond in place of a chrome mox.  I still like every card in the deck and am having trouble finding something to cut for the 12th land.  The first thing that comes to mind is cabal ritual, but cabal can be huge against the workshop decks.  I think Im gonna just pull out random cards until I find one I dont miss.

I had a really fun tournament but I did only end up 3-3.  I made tons of mistakes round 3 against Vinny Forino playing his G/W/b fish deck.  Both games I had rather unimpressive turn 1 plays that were going to lead to really strong turn 2-3s.  Game 1 I didnt know what he was playing and just lost a good game to a more skilled player.  Game 2 I play fetch for basic swamp, imperial seal for black lotus, go.  He plays turn 1 chalice at 0, strip mine, and strips my swamp.  I have no other mana sources in hand or play.  GG.  If he hadnt had the strip mine for my only swamp, I still would have gone off turn 3.  This was my first time playing against him and it was a really enjoyable match.

The other great match was round 6.  I was playing against Eric with tezz and I won game one, he won game 2, and game 3 was really exciting.  We were both definately out of top and and just wanted to have a good time.  It was decided that we would draw our opening 7 and keep without looking.  I was on the play so I picked up my hand, saw a dark rit, ponder, u-sea, voltaic key, mox jet, dark confidant, and something.  This is a great hand for me and Im extatic.  I go land, ponder and see mana crypt, duress, and TIME VAULT.  Awsome, I got a turn 2 win right here.  I order the ponder crypt, vault, duress, draw and play the duress, and we both finally get to see Erics hand.  His hand was nuts as well!!!.  We look and he has something like mox, mox, land, thirst, inkwell, mana drain, and Ancestral.  I take the obvious choice of ancestral and pass the turn.  He goes mox, mox, land, thirst, discards inkwell, and passes.  Well, I though I would have an easy turn 2 win off the back of duress and 4 colorless mana.  Here it goes.  I draw vault, play dark ritual, he lets it resolve, I play time vault and he looks at it for a sec, his eyes start popping out of his head and he mutters "Uh, Ok".  I instantly and excitedly flip down the key, but as my hand is moving he is saying, wait,wait, I have a response.  He sees the key, but is still thinking about responding to the vault.  This sounds like cheating but it absolutely was not!!!!!  It was hilarious because he was so incredibly shocked by seeing vault come down that it took him a few seconds to process the information.  I was also way too eager and played out the key without letting him make a clear decision.  It doesnt matter anyway, he either had to have the force or I just win.  He had the force and I go on the lose the game.  The best part was just watching his eyes bug out, and I could almost see his whole thought process just freeze for a few seconds.

Is anyone else even playing ad nauseam at tournaments?  Am I the only one who considers fast storm decks good right now? 

48 people was nothing for this event.  There should have been at least 60.  The community voted on the event to happen in June.  Everyone knew about this event for months but still couldnt find time to support Mike like he has been supporting the vintage community for at least the past 3 years that I have known him.

Firestorm doesnt work that way.  You have to have a legal target for each of cards discarded.

He has always used the previous list when announcements are made. 

    The deck you just posted cant be classified as a suicide deck at all.  It is just a tendrils control deck with confidants.  The deck posted on this forum looks nothing like your deck. Why would you consider this a suicide deck?  Where is the suicide of it?  I cant believe you have been arguing for mind twist in the deck posted based on testing with your own deck, which is nothing like the deck posted by Kaiser!!!!  You even named the deck differently, calling it Suicide Tendrils!!  That should have clued you in that you are playing a deck based on winning with tendrils of agony.  Suicide Black decks win through beating with efficient creatures.  The way your deck is set up, your plan should probably be to just combo out with will every game.
    You say you should have a beater or 2 out by the time you mind twist.  You only have 4 confidants in the deck !  I have no idea why you are playing the twist even in your posted deck.  You already have 8 duress effects and 3 null rods to disrupt the opp.  Once you duress on turns 1-2 why would you even need to mind twist?  Their hand should be crap anyway.  Great, you twisted away lands and other useless cards.  This still leaves you open to any topdeck.  I believe that you would be better served to add in another bazaar and another null rod instead of the twists. 
     Yes, the decks posted by Kaiser only have Dark Confidants as their card draw.  How am I supposed to know that the deck you are talking about has necro, bazaar, and nights whisper as card draw.  Guess I should have read your list straight from your mind.
      No one deck has all those card draws in them.  Here, I will make it a little easier for you.

Tezz plays:
Tutors
TFK
Intu/AK
Recall
Brainstorm
Ponder
Top
Confidant
Will
Remora

Stax plays:
Welder
Bazaar
Top

TPS plays:
Ancestral
Gifts
FOF
Tutors
Yawgs will
Brainstorm
Ponder
Necro
draw7s

All these cards are relevant topdecks.  They are all played in the major decks you will be facing.  You believe that you play mind twist and oops game over.  Thats only true if you have a way to actually kill them and they have no mana available.  Otherwise, they just draw out of it and win.  If you let any deck in vintage 2 turns unmolested, they will win.  You have to follow up the twist with something or its a waste of time.

Realistically, how many cards do you want to hit with mind twist?  You say twist isnt really a good combo with rituals.  If you arent using rituals to power out mind twists, what the hell are you doing?  What, tapping 3 lands and a mox to get rid of 3 random cards?  If you are that late in the game you had better have a rock solid plan for winning the next turn.  There is no point in the game that twist would be better than a hymn to tourach.

You will not be able to put your opponent into a top deck situation with mind twist without putting yourself into the same situation.  And once you are in a top deck situation with an opponent, they will win because they have much more card draw than you.  With mind twist you get rid of their hand and then have no pressure to put on them.  Then they just topdeck a tutor, TFK, Intuition, AK, Recall, Brainstorm, ponder, senis top, bazaar, goblin welder, dark confidant, yawgs will, or other possibilities and are right back in the game.  Meanwhile, all you could topdeck to get cards back would be a confidant.  Good luck winning topdeck wars.

I would always prefer the power of 1-2 precision duress effects + a creature threat than randomly getting rid of draw spell, land, mox, and leaving a bomb in the opponents hand.

Another thing that is bad about mind twist (and hymn and thoughtseize) is that it is misdirectable.  Misdirect is being played more and more.  If you are ever hit with misdirect its game over.

No way is mind twist good enough.  Turn 1 rit, duress, hymn is so much better than rit, twist.  Turn 2 rit, hymn, vamp/2 drop is insane compared to turn 2 rit, twist.  Twist was played because the only hand disruption was twist.  Once hymn was available it became 4 hymn/2-3 twist.  As soon as we got duress it became 4 duress/4 hymn.  Now we have the option of duress, hymn and thoughtseize.  Mind twist is worse than all of those options.  Even if you go first turn rit, rit, twist you only gain +1 card advantage.  I would much rather go turn 1 rit, rit, duress, hymn, confidant/shade/null rod/demonic/vamp.

Impulse only gets better if you have the option to shuffle your library after you use it.  If it doesnt cost you anything to add the four fetches, you should.  More options are always better.

Definitely run a lotus petal in the list,  it is a good replacement for mox jet.

I believe people are running too many answers for darksteel and inkwell right now.  I always assume my robot will be bounced unless I have like double counterspell backup.  They are easily bounced with hurkyls, and everyone expects you to play tinker-robot, so they always have bounce available.  With titan, you blow up lands, stunt their development, hit for 7-14 points of damage, then still go off with your main win con because of all the effort your opponent has to go through to deal with the titan.  Even if the opp has 2 goyfs on board, you just wait and build up to go off with your main win con while they struggle to find lands.

I agree that darksteel and inkwell are better in the abstract, but I believe titan is now ahead of the metagame curve.

When you say thread based, do you mean decks that have been talked about recently on forums?

I actually like titan now against the fish decks.  They all have hurklys recall to deal with inkwell so its not much of an advantage now.  Titan kills their mana base, and if they bounce it, kills more land.  By that time I usually have enough artifact or ritual mana available to just recast the titan.

I just played the list I posted above at the Dan Herd Memorial Tournament.  I went 3-3 with the deck.  Here are the problems and good things I have.

Good Maindeck Cards:
Timevault/Key just steals games away from people. It gives me 4 threats people have to fight: key/vault, confidants/mini tendrils,  ad nauseam/tendrils, and yawgs will.  People (fish especially) sideboard for key/vault and I can usually just take out for more threats.
Dark Confidants still a house.

Maindeck Problems:
Academy was popping up much too often, I couldnt get enough black sometimes.  Might switch to Underground sea.  It did let me go off turn 1 though because of a double chrome mox hand.  I will really have to track this.
I saw the basic Island like 75% of my games and it screwed me over.  I think this is just bad luck on my part, but that plus the academy felt like my mana base was off.
I feel like I need another duress effect.  I will be testing 2 cabal therapys instead of thoughtseize and something else, maybe a chain of vapor.

Here is the sideboard I used and what I used them for:
4 Phyrexian Negator (anything with Remora)
1 Tinker (fish)
1 Sundering Titan (fish)
1 Timetwister (anything not playing blue/dredge)
1 Echoing Truth (good against lots of decks)
1 Hurkyls Recall (Shops)
1 Basic Swamp (Shops)
2 Tormods Crypts (Dredge)
3 Yixlid Jailers  (Dredge)

Sideboard Problems:
Had Tinker-robot against fish decks and it cost me game 3 of 2 different matches.  Absolutely horrible and I will not be playing it ever again.  It just does not belong in this deck.  I believe I will be adding slaughter pacts against fish instead.

I played against 3 fish decks and did not have enough hate for them.  I will be adding more fish hate.

I played against 3 fish decks, 1 red/green beats deck, 1 weird black stax type deck, and 1 remora/tezz list.
I beat 1 fish, red/green beats, and stax.  The tinker/titan cost me game 3 against the other 2 fish decks, and I mulled into oblivion against remora/tezz.  I was expecting to play against more tezz, ichorid, and stax decks, so of course i play my worst matchup of R/G beats and my second worst matchup of fish 4 times.  Happens I guess.

I got 3 turn 1 wins and should have had a 4th, except I flipped up a titan and lost in the final game of round 6.  I really like the flexability of the deck and all the lines of play available to me.  I also like how customizable the deck is. Even playing 4 bad matchups and mulling into oblivion against my 1 good matchup, I still could have gone 4-2 or 5-1 if I just didnt have tinker-titan in the deck.  I cant stress this enough, tinker-robot is terrible; never, ever, ever, play it.

P.S.  The event itself was excellent.  Thanks Nick for making the Dan Herd Memorial event a great experience.

If you are an average vintage player, or a good player with limited experience, what deck would you play at tournaments with around 30 players.  The other players are just about all better than average players with more experience than you.  Dredge has been hated out of the metagame, so it is not an option to play.  Are there any decks that give a less experienced player an edge?  The metagame is pretty diverse, but fish, shops, and tez are the big players.

I think dropping moxen depends on if you see chalice game one, and if you are on the play or draw.  If you are on the draw, I can definately see siding out a few moxen.  I also agree that cabal ritual is a great card to have against stax.  It generates tons of mana at a cost that usually isnt hit by chalice of the void.

I always thought that if you were playing TPS, you were playing it because it beats drain based decks like tezz, and is flexible enough to beat fish and workshop decks after boarding.  If it is not beating the drain decks without sideboard help, why would you want to play it in the first place?  What are TPS's good matchups then?  Is it just like extended Rock, where it is about 50/50 against everything and just comes down to playskill?

@Marske. If you look up the results for the Philly Open 3, you will see the first place deck had remora and dark confidant in a tezz shell.  A few weeks later, at the Blue Bell event there were at least 3 people who included remora into their tezz lists.  Meditate/remora as a deck may not be too popular, but the card remora is seeing much more play now.

I play ad nauseam now, and I really like negators and dark confidants against remora.  Game 1 I either combo out turn 1 or 2 if they dont play remora.  If they do, I just hold onto all my cards and try to build up to go off all in 1 turn.  After boarding, I try to land an early negator and then just stop playing spells.  I dont have enough experience playing TPS to know if negators would work for it, I just know that negator is a beating against remora.

What does your mana base look like?

that seems to be really scary for fish decks.  Hope it doesnt catch on.

what are the main cards you counter will spell snare?

I dont understand your statement about not having full artifact exceleration.  My list runs 11 artifacts that produce mana by themselves and key/vault.  Thats 13 artifacts that allow for tolarian academy, more than enough.  I already have 3 basics in the list.  Earlier this week I went from 2 islands 2 swamp 2 u seas to 1 island 2 swamps and 3 u seas.  I was drawing the island a little too often.  If I take out the academy, what should I put in? What hate is out there that targets academy but not the other non basic lands?  I only have 3 cards in the deck that produce just blue mana.  1 basic island, 1 mox sapphire, and 1 academy.  There are 16 sources of black mana that can be played on turn 1 plus all the rituals that produce just black.  I do realize this deck loves black mana more than anything else, but I believe the balance is correct, and academy is too powerful to not include.

Key/vault with confidant is still a good win condition because of the 3 chain of vapors I play.  The only time it would be a problem is if all my tendrils were somehow removed from game or in graveyard along with yawg will.  Even if that happens, I should still be able to kill my opp before I die because my average cmc is only 1.26 and confidant will be doing 2 points a turn to the opponent.  If they are at 20 life and I am at 17 I should be taking 13 points of damage by the time I deal them 20 points.  1.26(average cost of 1 card in my deck)*10(turns it takes to kill them)=12.6 damage over 10 turns.

I am definately not sure about key/vault, but the interaction with confidant isnt a reason I would remove it.

I have heard a few others say 1 mox diamond in the list as well.  I dont really see the advantage of it.  You have to run 12 lands then and the only situation where a diamond would be better seems to be a hand with 2 lands and 1 diamond compared to a hand with 1 land and 2 chrome mox.  Any other situation they seem equal.  Hmm, as I am writing this, I cant seem to think of a situation where the chrome mox is better than the diamond.  I guess I would just rather have 11 lands over 12.

I played ad nauseam at the last blue bell event and went 2-3.  I had some absolutely horrible luck in round 3 that put me on tilt, but overall the deck was not well tuned for that tournament.  Since then I have been playing with the list and playing with another ad nauseam player.  This is the list I am most happy with now

Land
2 swamp
1 island
3 underground sea
1 tolarian academy
4 polluted delta

Mana excel
Black lotus
mox jet
mox sapph
4 dark ritual
4 chrome mox
3 cabal ritual
1 mana crypt
1 lotus petal
1 sol ring
1 mana vault

Card draw
4 dark confidant
1 ancestral recall
1 brainstorm
1 ponder

Tutors
1 demonic tutor
1 demonic consultation
1 vampiric tutor
1 mystical tutor
1 imperial seal

Proactive disruption
4 duress
1 thoughtseize

Reactive disruption/storm enablers
1 hurkys recall
3 chain of vapor

Win conditon
4 ad nauseam
3 tendrils of agony

alternate win conditon
1 time vault
1 votaic key

Broken Card
1 Yawgmoths will

     This list has been testing very well for me.  11 land is one less than usual, and I have been thinking of going to 12, but so far so good.  The dark confidants are absolutely amazing in this deck.  They give the deck so many options and versitility. The best turn 1 play besides ad nauseam/win is dark rit/duress/dark confidant.  That turn 1 gives me a win every time I play it. (yes, every time I have opened with that sequence I have won) Confidants are also really good against the new remora decks coming out, especially the tezz/remora hybrid that just won the NJ open.
       
      I do not play any pact of negation in this deck.  I had pacts in the first deck, they just dont do enough to be included.  Every card in this deck can fill more than 1 role.  Except pact of negation.  All it does is protect when you cast nauseam.  The times that you have the pact and nauseam and the opponent has a counterspell are so low that the pact is just a luck card in the deck.  I also do not play with necropotence or timetwister.  Both of these cards are inferior to Ad nauseam.  I decided to focus this deck more on protecting and casting ad nauseam than any other goal

     The average mana cost of this deck is 1.26  If I were to put in potence and timetwister, the average mana cost would be higher than I would want.  I would have to take out confidants for them, and confidants just do more and are cheaper.  I do like the idea of twister against dredge though, it had never occured to me before.  It may go in the sideboard for that matchup.

    The other big difference in this deck is time vault/voltaic key.  These were the last two cards added to the deck.  I am still testing them. The biggest thing is that I cant think of any other cards that I would rather have in the deck.  Potence and twister have too high a mana cost, and nothing else seems better than a 4 mana I win combo.  I also like the fact that I can kill with tendrils game one, then just drop the combo game two before they even expect it.

     Dark confidants fill a huge role in this deck.  Because I dont play potence or any other draw7s, it seems like my deck is a little bomb light.  It is not.  Dark confidants are a huge threat in the deck.  People have duressed me and have seen hands with 1 land in play 1 land in hand, dark confidant, ad nauseam, and no other mana excel.  They take the nauseam even though I only have 1 way of casting the nauseam next turn if I topdeck black lotus.  This lets me resolve the confidant and ride him to victory.  Like I said, confidant is good against remora, it is also good against fish and most workshop decks.  In this deck, confidant is as much of a bomb as twister would be.

      The deck is only U/B.  I am not splashing green for the xantid swarms.  Swarms come in against tezz and remora.  You already beat Tezz with the main deck, you dont need to sideboard, and swarms arent enough to change the remora matchup siginfiantly.  3 colors also hurt your workshop and fish matchups.

       I have actually though about splashing red for Burning wish and Wheel of fortune.  I actually like wheel better than timetwister because the cards in your graveyard can fuel a huge yawg will.  If I did splash for Burning wish I would also definately play timetwister in the sideboard.  At that point I would cut the Key/vault and probably an ad nauseam as well.  I would have to cut the nauseam to keep my cmc low.  This configuration would give me 3 nauseam, 1 wheel of fortune and buring wish/timetwister as bombs instead of just 4 ad nauseam.  I doubt the red spash will end up making it for the reasons listed against potence and twister above, but it is worthing exploring. 

      I am very happy with the deck as it stands, I like the vault/key combo because it represents another huge threat in the deck.  The mana base and mana excelerants are working perfectly.  I might drop a chrome mox but I doubt it.  Confidants stay, I doubt anyone could present an argument against them that would convince me.  3 chain of vapors is correct.  I played 1-2 chains and the deck just isn't the same.

If academy taps for UU then you have 2 mox on the table.  You also probably have another land on the table, so thats 5 mana total. If the academy was underground sea, you would have 2 mox and 2 lands for 4 mana total.  No ad nauseam now.  Even if you have exceleration like dark ritual, academy still helps because now you have mana floating after you nauseam.  Academy is also useful if you have a hand with chrome mox, but dont want to imprint a card with it.  You just play it for free and tap academy for U.

Mike, cool prizes again.  I didnt care either way about the 1st place time vault.  The EV of vintage tournies is so over the top above any other magic event that asking for more feels greedy.  Running my own buisness and doing the books for another, 50% prize payout is fine with me.  I attend every event of yours that I can.  Im not trying to dredge this up or anything, just stating my opinion.

Anyway, have you considered making the side event swiss format?  It seems that a lot of people will be playing in the side event, and it would be a bit more fun.  I know there are definately problems with this.  The tourny would go longer, and something would have to be worked out with the top 4-8.  The easiest for top 8 would probably just be swiss+1.  If you do make it swiss, its like having another tournament on the same day.  I dont know how possible this would be with time constraints and other factors, or if anyone else even agrees with me.

Like I said before, Ill be playing in your events just about every time they are held.  Thanks again.