[Article] SCG Daily: The Keys to Making Top 8 In a Vintage Tournament

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/9778.html

Pure Magic would be a world where there were no card pool constraints on a person's deck choice, where there were no time limits, where everyone has perfect information as to the decks in the metagame and where no one made play mistakes. Unfortunately, Vintage, as defined by the rules of Magic and the banned and restricted list, doesn't exist. What exists is a particular variant of Vintage called Tournament Vintage. It is essential to tournament success that you focus upon the actual features of Vintage tournaments, not just the features of the format as defined by the rules. In this article I am going reveal all of my secrets - all of the tidbits of knowledge I've picked up from my experience in Vintage tournaments.

[everythingitouchdies]

Once again Steve, great article.

Keep them coming, I am filtering this stuff to a whole new breed of type 1 players.

EITD

[Shock Wave]

There's really nothing most good players don't already know in here, but this is a good read for the the new guys.

[BigMac]

Perhaps as an idea for an article is when to scoop with what deck. You give examples with slow decks which is fine but i tend to never scoop as i mostly playcombo. If i win game 1 and game 2 takes forever i know i can still win game 3 in 1 turn. (or at least within the 5 turn limit) Next to that type 1 is the game of drawing 1 card for the win is possible game.

Soperhaps youcould shed some light on playsituations when to scoop and when not.

I liked the article as it gives more insight into the world of magic, especially the world of magic on the tournament floor.

[crazedpenguinman]

I liked the article but I disagree on the part about scoping. Inj most of the su\ituations you describedm scooping was appropriate. However, when the game is not winnable I do not think scooping is alsways the best plan, several times I have prolonged game 1 round 1 because of my inability to write out decklists without making mistakes and have received a game loss on an unwinnable game instead of loosing round 1 0-2. just my point of view that, if you are bad with decklists, than prolong game 1 even if its not going anywhere, you also get the advantage to see more of your opponents deck.

[Cab]

That was a very helpful article as I will be going to my first Vintage tournament in a few weeks and I now know more about the format and how to play it. Thanks.

[Smmenen]

Perhaps as an idea for an article is when to scoop with what deck. You give examples with slow decks which is fine but i tend to never scoop as i mostly playcombo. If i win game 1 and game 2 takes forever i know i can still win game 3 in 1 turn. (or at least within the 5 turn limit) Next to that type 1 is the game of drawing 1 card for the win is possible game.

Soperhaps youcould shed some light on playsituations when to scoop and when not.

I liked the article as it gives more insight into the world of magic, especially the world of magic on the tournament floor.

I think it would be a brilliant article but one that is very hard to write simply becuase it is so dependent.

I'm not sure if i mentioned this in the article, but scooping is also a psychological tool.  You don't want your opponent to get confident by beating you.  Scooping helps keep them from getting confident by actually trouncing you.

[Jacob Orlove]

I liked the article but I disagree on the part about scoping. Inj most of the su\ituations you describedm scooping was appropriate. However, when the game is not winnable I do not think scooping is alsways the best plan, several times I have prolonged game 1 round 1 because of my inability to write out decklists without making mistakes and have received a game loss on an unwinnable game instead of loosing round 1 0-2. just my point of view that, if you are bad with decklists, than prolong game 1 even if its not going anywhere, you also get the advantage to see more of your opponents deck.

That's horrible logic. Poor time management to counter your poor decklist skills means you were asking to randomly lose games. Just print your decklist out before the event.

Edit @ methu: "a game loss on an unwinnable game instead of loosing round 1 0-2." clearly shows that he's talking about misregistering his own deck, which is right up there with failure to desideboard in terms of 100% avoidable game losses.

[Methuselahn]

I agree with you Jacob, but I believe the crazypenguinguy is strictly referring to his opponent when he says decklist. So I agree for different reasons. I believe he is referring to playing out the game to see the opponent's deck contents.  However, if you have done your homework before going to a tourny, you should be able to get the gist of the opposing deck most of the time, in a fairly short amount of time.  This should make his point moot.

Crazypengiunman:  writing out your opponent's decklist for notes in between games does more harm than good.

edit @ Jacob: ok, you're right.  That is horrible.  I assumed those kind of mistakes were unfathomable.

[jpmeyer]

I'm pretty sure that writing out your opponent's deck, espescially if you are doing it while resolving Cranial Extraction or something like it, will get you a warning for stalling or slow play.

[Jacob Orlove]

I'm pretty sure that writing out your opponent's deck, espescially if you are doing it while resolving Cranial Extraction or something like it, will get you a warning for stalling or slow play.

You can write stuff like that, but only when you don't have priority. When you do, you have to be pretty quick about what you write (eg, you can write their hand w/duress, but not their deck with extraction).

[elias]

thanks for the article. I've never been in a magic tourney before. But I've been in one Mageknight tourney. The pressure IS indeed different.

Another thing I'd like to put in is writing your life total as well as your opponent's and making notes on how they took damage. it may be an obvious thing, but I just wanted to point it out.