Probably one of my favorite bands now is one that nobody has heard of.  Look up "Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers" on Myspace or on their website http://www.stephenkellogg.com.  They have all of their albums free to stream from the website, and they are absolutely amazing.

I can't really decide on just one, it changes kinda often.  Usually I'll stay within these few, and sometimes go outside of them

-"Tribute" by Tenacious D
-"Space Oddity" by David Bowie
-"Thirteen" by Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers

I haven't seen many of the movies out right now, but the newest Potter was good (not as good as PoA in my opinion, but thats just my opinion), and Walk the Line was AMAZING.  I cannot stress to you how great the film was for me.  If you have not seen it, I definitely recommend it to you.  All of those actors played the part of a lifetime.

I blame MTV...

No, seriously I do.  It really seems like whatever they say goes, and it really sickens me that the shows they air showcase the cultural decadence of America in such a positive light.  Every teenage girl who watches that crap takes it way too seriously, and any impresionable youth is just fuel to their fire.

I really, really dislike MTV

Definately Ghostbusters, followed by Revenge of the Nerds.

For some reason, I never really think of the Star Wars films as 80's movies.  Those and Indiana Jones are ridiculously awesome, too.

I kinda like Kyle Gass from Tenacious D's side project, Trainwreck.  They're kind of like a new interpretation of southern rock like C,S,&N or Creedence Clearwater Revival.  Check them out if you haven't heard any of their stuff.

LOL, I never actually saw that profile before.  Anyway, even though in engineering its like -15% female, in Biomed it somehow changes to like +60%.  So I'm not doing too badly here.  Definitely going somewhere else for post-grad stuff though.

Second year undergrad at Drexel University, studying Biomedical Engineering.  Probably going on to Dental School after that, so I'll be here for a while.  Frowns.

Not exactly classic, but I really liked TurboNevyn before the Gro-a-tog gush restriction.  It was just so fun to win with crap like sickening dreams...

But Tenacious D told me Dio was too old to rock...

I'm just joshing you.  Dio rocks so much harder than Ozzy ever has.  Though not really a fan per say of many of these bands, its still ridiculously troubling that things that incredibly beef headed could happen at a metal concert.  Not that everyone is required to love all the performing bands, but these guys are kings in the metal scene.  WTF is going on in the world today?

I was for a time thinking of collecting Yawgmoth cards since I had 3 or so Will and 2-3 Bargain, but I have since moved on to other better obsessions.  Like Obstinate Familiars.  I have a page of them in my binder including SC, Foil, and regular ones.  Nobody really ever has Obstinate familiars though (if anyone here does, I'll buy them for 50 cents each), so I started collecting Icy Manipulators.  I have an A, a signed A, 5 foil deckmasters, 4 ice age, a few mirrodin, and some 9th ones.  I don't know why, but I just kinda like that guy.

I'm a big fan of most of the star wars comics by Dark Horse (Tales of the Jedi and Dark Empire specifically), but they don't really have epic storylines or a plethora of memorable characters.  After those however, I really like pretty much everything done by Marvel.  Age of Apocalypse and the Onslaught series were ridiculously awesome, and the continued longevity of the entire company just makes me happy.

Well I guess I need to answer the topic at hand... My favorite characters are Apocalypse from the marvel brand, and Exar Kun from the Star Wars Dark Horse comics.

I saw those a while ago.  Its good stuff though, so take a look if you haven't seen them yet.

Great article. 

That being said, I have to try to find some way to make a Gro variant somewhat playable in my eye.

I have a feeling the wait will be worth it though.  SCG is soooo grood.  I mean good.  And great.  Great and good.

Guitarist - Chuck Berry (hasn't been mentioned!?!) or Hendrix
Volcalist - Jim Morrison

Song - Stairway to Heaven

Best Old - Pink Floyd
Best New - Tenacious D

Best album - The Who's "Tommy" or Pink Floyd's "The Wall"

Props to Ronnie James Dio though.  Good call on that.

I went with a group of my friends to see it again on Saturday morning, and it reminded me of Yoda's worst line in this movie.  "Not if anything to say about it I have!" 

Huh?

Just sort of makes me angrier about his backward talking in the prequels.

As for that question about the original trilogy, I'm only 18 right now, but grew up loving the originals.  I read most of those books that were published under the Star Wars license (Tim Zahn's Thrawn trilogy is still the best imo), and much of what was changed through the prequel trilogy made me sad.  I almost kicked the television when i got a chance to look at the ending to the original trilogy DVD release (Hayden Christiansen digitally replaced the old Vader actor at the end of ROTJ).  There were just so many good casting choices in the originals that I think they are still so much better than the prequel trilogy.  Revenge of the Sith was an exception to this as I think it may have been better than ROTJ imo.

Worrying this much about naming decks just seems kind of silly to me.  I mean you could call Parfait "Tax/Rack.dec" or "The Lord Jesus Christ", but its still not going to change the fact that it fucking sucks balls.

I think that anything Yoda has said in the past two movies should go on there.  "Around the survivors a perimeter create"?  Nobody would talk like that.  When he did it for subtle things it was awesome, but this has just been awkward as hell.

I don't really know that any form of combo should be classified as having "Training wheels".  About 99% of all combo is ridiculously hard to play in a long tournament, and all are pretty intimidating to try to learn at the start. 

Using your definition though, I may have to say that TPS would fit in here, simply because I think it protects the combo, and itself better in the long run.  Doomsday may have more disruption in its game, but TPS has more versatility in many situations.  Plus you don't have to rack your brain on trying to find the right stack for your doomsday with a TPS deck.

I agree with Mike on this one.  Blessing still appears to be the superior spell in the deck.  Supposing that you do overturn blessing, that only puts its ability on the stack.  Supposing that you have two available mana (and I'm guessing you most likely will since you played an Oath), you can just put the salvagers' ability on the stack on top of the blessing.  This gives you one piece guaranteed, and if you have the mana to do it, you can get both and still have your deck to work with.

I'm not a rules expert or anything, so if I misunderstand the way that blessing interacts with the stack I appologize.

I have found that every form of mana acceleration you can fit in here should belong in here.  If you try goldfishing the deck a few times, you realize that with playing one land or an artifact for 3-4 turns, and having no responses to anyting your opponent can and will do, you stand no chance.  At least with the artifact accelerants you can shoot for an early win with a belcher.

Creatures are overrated.  Trying to play/recur your dragons will deem pretty far fetched, and it very much is.  They are there pretty much only so you have a few nigh-uncounterable ways to fetch your plains.  Maybe once in 50 games or so, you'll actually get to the point where you can recur your dragons, but thats pretty mucha moot point.  The uncounterability of them is why they should be played.  If you don't like them, don't play them.  Its that simple.

This is one of my lists I crafted towards the end of last year, right after Oath hit it big at SCG.  I haven't had much time to keep it up to date due to scholastic obligations, and its not exactly a budget list.

//NAME: Parfait
        1 Strip Mine
        4 Wasteland
        5 Plains
        2 Plateau
        1 Lotus Petal
        2 Mountain
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Sol Ring
        1 Mana Vault
        1 Mana Crypt
        1 Chrome Mox
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Mox Diamond
        2 Crucible of Worlds
        3 Blood Moon
        1 Humility
        2 Goblin Charbelcher
        2 Eternal Dragon
        1 Balance
        1 Enlightened Tutor
        4 Swords to Plowshares
        2 Abeyance
        2 Orim's Chant
        4 Isochron Scepter
        3 Tithe
        2 Land Tax
        3 Scroll Rack
        2 Aura of Silence
        3 Argivian Find
SB:  2 Disenchant
SB:  3 Chalice of the Void
SB:  3 Cursed Totem
SB:  2 Rule of Law
SB:  1 Orim's Chant
SB:  2 Abeyance
SB:  2 Aura of Silence


The deck obviously has all of the problems I pointed out before.  Replacing the power from the deck can probably be obtained with a trade of 2 expensive ($$) mana producers with one land, and one mirage block diamond.  Without a lotus, argivian finds aren't nearly as good, but I would still include them because of artifact destruction.  As mentioned earlier, tax is pretty bad at the moment, as it relies too much on your opponent, so I have more tithe in the deck because of its interaction with scepter and its gaurantee of a land fetch.

I had originally figured that the swords would completely destroy Oath, but then i realized that they had countermagic.  Most of the sideboard is there for combo matchups (chalice, rule of law, abeyance, orims chant), and the totems are for any welder matchups.

Like I said before, I haven't had much of a chance to modify it, but the blood moons have seriously lost their appeal.  The red can probably be removed altogether and replaced with black for duress and the like, although that would reduce the efectiveness of the belchers.  I would also try to put another humility in there, and possibly a wrath of god or something of the like.

The deck is slow in most cases, but can be very fast with a artifact mana and charbelcher start.  If you want to play the deck, make sure to test a lot, and be sure that its what you want to do.

Parfait was once upon a time the only deck I dreamed of crafting for my forays into the world of Vintage.  I read all the literature on the deck, learned of its origins, and playtested it constantly.  As time went on, there was the unfortunate problem of non-colored creatures being used in the attack step.  This killed all your hope of staying alive with story circle, but Parfait was not out yet in my mind.  Soon, more and more artifacts made the core of every good vintage deck.  The collateral damage to this was that now your biggest advantage (a surplus of dead cards in your opponent's deck) had fallen apart, and Parfait was "hated out" without anyone trying.  

That being said, I still have a soft spot for the deck, and continually have a version of it saved on apprentice for random occasions I have nothing better to do.  My impressions are that Belcher is probably the best win condition you could hope for in a deck running Land Tax/Tithe, but Eternal Dragon is also a very valuable part of the deck.  He gets plains out of your deck same as tax/tithe, but cannot be countered outside of stifle.  Worst case scenario, he becomes a 5/5 flying beater in the very, very late game (which unfortunately will never happen in the current state of the format).  I have also found Isochron Scepter to be a valuable tool in any deck of Parfait's style.  Unfortunately, this gives more cards which can be hit with artifact destruction.  

The deck, relying so much on belcher for its win, needs to run as many artifact producers of mana as it can.  I'm not saying go out any buy moxen, but things such as Mana Vault, mox diamond, grim monolith, and the mirage diamonds can be helpful to your cause.  This thins out the lands in the deck, as well as letting you get more out of tax/tithe/scroll rack.  

As for the rack issue, it is definately at least 2 or 3 spots in the deck.  Rack lets you use those lands you've been drawing, by trading them for busness cards from the top of your deck.  They get shuffled right away by tax/tithe/dragon, so its not like you'll be drawing them again for the next three turns.

Back to the land base, usually around 17-20 mana sources (including artifacts) are all you will need due to tax/tithe.  Wastelands and a strip mine are good to be added in on top of the other mana producers to add a marginal amount of disruption to your deck.

My sideboard generally consisted of things like abeyance/orims chant (I generally had 2-4 of one maindeck and more of the other in the side), REB if using red at all, tormod's crypt, and random other goodness like jester's cap.  At one point I considered fountain watch/leonin abunas to protect my artifacts and enchantments, but found them pretty aweful with a humility on the board.  Humility being your only source of staying-alive-itude was the card to win out over the others.

The largest problem with Parfait however, and one which cannot be overlooked, is that it is a control deck with absolutely no disruption.  Your list has duress, which as stated earlier should be a four of in the deck.  Many used Chalice of the Void to try to overcome this to marginal success, and even Crucible of Worlds has lost much of its power since many more basic lands have been introduced to the format.

In conclusion, although it is a hero in my eyes, Parfait is an underpowered, unresponsive deck in the most broken format in Magic.  As far as casual play goes, I applaud you for using a somewhat established archetype, but if you ever consider playing competitively, I would recommend looking to a different archetype.  I hope my comments helped a little, and feel free to PM me if you want more info on the deck, or one of my lists.

I feel that since many of those who win these large card prizes at the big tournaments immediately sell them, this can easily be considered being a professional in the basic sense of the word.  They are making a considerable abount of money from the prizes, and even more from writing their articles.  Although this is unlikely to be enough to actually forge some kind of living off, I think it can be considered being a professonal.

Another angle to look at this is, do these people take the game seriously?  I know they respect it beyond measure, but do they treat it as a job and a duty?  If this is the case, I feel that anyone fitting these requirements can consider themselves to have an aura of professionalism about them.  This is undoubtedly the first step towards having professional Vintage players.

As for your question of prices of classic staple cards (power, drains, MWS, etc.), these prices will probably contiue to climb with the interest levels of the players, but as long as proxies are allowed as they are now, it will keep the prices in check from inflation too much.  While this is a moot point for many, because spending over $100 on a piece of cardboard may as well be a million, proxies are the only thing keeping prices at the level they are at.  If you remove the allowance of proxies in tournaments, prices would most likely increase without bounds at first, and probably plumit to nothingness once most people can no longer afford to play in the tournies.

Just my immediate thoughts...

I had no idea that Vintage players could pay bills by playing magic...


Anyway, ritual and most combo components have been around much longer than trinisphere, and very few times has combo really been a dominant deck.  The challenge to play combo correctly when faced with any reactive cards is something that will always keep combo down infinitely more than trinisphere could ever have.  Yes it helped against combo, but duress and FOW have been helping more against it, and for a much longer time.  It may be that in a few months we will lose many combo staples, but right now I don't see 3sphere having that much influence on this issue.

How have your matchups against Slaver been playing out?  From the looks of it, it seems it would be a winable, but uphill battle the whole way.  I could be totally wrong, but if you can't compete with both slaver AND workshop at least 50-50 it doesn't really make sense to play a deck in this metagame.

I was honestly about to post the same topic, but you beat me to it.

This is unbelievable to say the least.  I finally have a P9 that isn't 7 hours away from where I live, and I'm stoked.  I need to get to work with persuading my friends to come along too, but I am already looking forward to good times.  We are all in debt to SCG and those who make these tournaments possible for their devotion to Vintage.

Props to all of you here.

I've fished this out probably over 50 times so far, and I have to say that it is my new deck of choice.  Even though from those 50+ games, I only went off correctly in the first few turns a handful of them, I am very optimistic.  This is an awesome deck for anybody who is excited and wants to try to get better.  Yes it obviously has its issues, like play difficulty, but with some practice anyone can get a hang of the basic nuances of the deck.

         Of the games I didn't go off correctly with this deck, probably 80% were my fault for not knowing the deck well enough yet.  This is a huge breakthrough for closet combo fans on a budget, and I look forward to seeing more results of the deck.