Skill

[Random-xy]

Hi i am new here.
I have few questions to ask. Well, i am interested how to improve my vintage playing skill, and the problem is that in my area there are no vintage tournaments, and i have to go to the other state, so i have to pay for transport and it has no sense to go because i am noob. So my question is what decks are the best to improve skill with and can i ever do it by playing casual?

thnx, and sorry if my english is too bad 

[Polynomial P]

Improving skill with respect to vintage is a very hard thing to improve and its a relatively slow process. If you have access to good players, or at least 1 good vintage player, ask to play against them all the time. Playtest constantly and when you make a questionable play, stop, and ask them what they would have done. When I started playing vintage, i playtested against vroman all the time and got my face bashed in for several months before i got "better". Also, work as much as you can against good decks. Dont play fake vintage where you test Sui black vs goblins. Test against GAT, Stax, and combo.

Also, you should go to as many tournaments as you can. You probably wont do well at them initially, but you can watch other players matches and see how they play. Any little bit of experience will help you in the long run and you hopefully meet other people that are good at vintage and learn alot from them.

[Grand Inquisitor]

I'll be happy to give some basic advice on how to develop your T1 game; it is kinda dicey to talk about play skill and different archetypes since even long time players can have different experiences and everyone has their favorites.

As an aside, you may find useful the discussion started by Zherbus in this thread: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=32718.0

As for getting some basic competence down in type 1, this is what I'd recommend first - goldfish (playing against no opponent and winning as fast as possible) the current ritual based combo deck.  It sounds strange, and people may be surprised to hear it coming from me, but this is key for a number of reasons.

1) These decks abuse fast mana
2) These decks abuse tutors
3) These decks abuse yawgmoth's will

Regardless of the metagame, these components tend to be the cornerstone to pro-active strategies in T1.  Sometimes the fast mana is moxen instead of rituals (Slaver) or the decks use Yawgwill as a secondary plan (GAT vs Gifts), but become familiar with them and you'll always have a deck to play.

Here's a decent list to try: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=34676.0

Obviously there's lots of reactive strategies in T1 as well, and almost everything is a hybrid of sort often using Force of Will and Duress to buy time.  However, you won't gain a good sense of how to use these cards by goldfishing or double fisting (a one person/two deck playtesting method championed by the kung-fu gripping PhantomTapeWorm).  Since you don't have any local T1, I recommend two alternatives.  First, get on MWS:

http://www.magicworkstation.com/

but watch out for:

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=32407.0

MWS has many limitations.  However, for the isolated yet cyber-ready T1 player, it's perfectly reasonable.  It's how I got back into T1 after a long break.  The trick here is to figure out who to listen to.  There's lots of bad players, bad decks, and bad rules advice on MWS, time and experience (and even more, this site) will help you get through it.

The second option is playing non-T1 formats.  I know this sounds useless, but you can improve game play a lot just through playing magic in general.  It will make you more aware of rules, new mechanics, basic synergies of the game, and how to read other players and board states.  Many friends have told me they became much better at T1 after drafting or playing other constructed formats (I'm still holding out).

2c

[LotusHead]

Build netdecks using as many proxies as needed.  Then force your friends to play with those.  It's fun, and lets you discover the many in and outs of Vintage.

[Random-xy]

Thnx guys. But i am not sure that i can find "good player" in my area, it seems that i have to learn only by playing and playing against friends  (they have tps, gat, flash etc)

[Madpeep]

I would agree that the best way to improve in Vintage is to play against better opponents.  It's important to go to as many tournaments as you can even though you will probably lose.  Talk to your opponents before, during, and after every round.  After you're done playing, show them your deck and ask to look at theirs.  Talk about different card choices each of you have made, why you've each chosen to play the deck you did, talk about the current metagame, impact new sets will have on the format, etc.  Not only will you meet alot of people this way, but in my experience, people will in return, look out for you.  Maybe it's because I'm in New England and we have a very unique tourney scene over here, but in my experience, people like to see new players coming into the format and are more than willing to help you along.

[LotusHead]

Thnx guys. But i am not sure that i can find "good player" in my area, it seems that i have to learn only by playing and playing against friends  (they have tps, gat, flash etc)

force your bad player friends to play with good deck, and your friend's skill will possibly increase.

Team Vacaville has only 3 regular members at the moment, but two of them are 15 year olds, and they are now not bad players. (one even won a Sapphire at age 12).

if you raise the vintage standards of play, the playskill will rise.

Most of us TMD'r's are fairly casual players (ie, we're not dicks), but we all do our best to play by the rules (ie, know the rules), and figure out the best options/strategies of deckbuilding/piloting possible.

You just need a working set of decks to start with.

(to give you an idea, check out Austin's "Salvage the Warrens" list from the last Adventure's tourney.  Austin is 15 and he sucked 3 years ago.  Now he assembled a graveyard recursion deck that has 3 maindeck outs on graveyard hate).  I FORCED the local kiddies to play T1 by providing "quality" T1 decks with proxies (and I tried to make the proxies look nice so they would take them seriously).

if you have no "scene", you have to create one.

That being said, I can't build T2 decks worth a damn.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

It’s very important to know the different decks. Learn how the work and what disrupts them, what role there playing, and what role you need to play against them. I’d also like to echo “playing good decks” not just sui vs goblins.

Honestly, MWS is not a terrible place to develop some skills, although there are better. I’ve learned many a valuable less in MSW. Sometimes it’s hard to find a decent player, but when you find one, ask if they’ll play up to g4 or even g5. Don’t be afraid to ask questions.

This is important. I’d say the #1 mistake you can make in not practicing post SB. this is 2/3 of the game, don’t ignore it, and don’t go with out testing the majority of the game. I've seen to many would be "good players" do this.

[Liam-K]

As for getting some basic competence down in type 1, this is what I'd recommend first - goldfish (playing against no opponent and winning as fast as possible) the current ritual based combo deck.

DeathLong was the first list I picked up since WRG Zoo after my long absence (think planeshift).  I had a lot of time on my hands and goldfished the crap out of that deck, not bothering to finish if I had to pass my fourth turn.  When I decided to try something less awful against real people on MWS my choice of Meandeck Gifts quickly found itself with maindeck Tendrils demonstrating the deck's ability to go off very quickly, back when those few who didn't consider the deck bad preferred Burning Wish and Gifts->Tinker/Recoup/Time Walk/Something.  It took a little more time to get a hang on role assignment and start winning a lot, but knowing how to push your hand as far as it can go and understanding the escape velocity nature of broken plays in Vintage put me waaaay ahead in learning a real deck.  (then grim tutor got legalized and I had a field day)

Like GI said, goldfish ritual combo, every game will pay off.  If you know which spells your opponent will tend to counter in a real game, giving your goldfish a force of will that you need to get past is a useful variation of this exercise.  Ritual based storm decks teach you the skills unique to type 1: how to compress the game, analyze broad decision trees of substantial length including variables or open ended choices (eventually, in a tournament-acceptable timeframe), the instinct to ignore your opponent and win in spite of him whenever possible, keeping an accurate estimate of the current strength of your graveyard under Yawgwill, and (not least importantly) how to deal with going from completely broken to completely fizzled in one big anticlimax.  The more tutors in the deck you choose the better: they complicate decision trees and make you work.  As much as I appreciate the recommendation of my Gush based list, some time 1 on 1 with Pitch Long might be better despite its lower metagame relevance... Long decks heavily reward creative thinking and the willingness to go into contortions, whereas Gush lists tend to reward an understanding of tempo, which requires an opponent to acquire.  Continuing to play Long variants once you have regular opponents will probably frustrate you as they have bad matchups in the current meta, but my then you can switch decks and shift your attention to tempo and the roles of control and aggro; how to choose which is correct and how to shift the paradigm.  Keep goldfishing Long on MWS when you have 10 minutes and nothing to do though.



Even more importantly, go to Wizards' site and read the entire comprehensive rules, especially anything concerning the stack and almost as importantly triggered abilities, and know all the nomenclature so subtle possibilities become apparent.  It sucks to learn something is possible by having it demonstrated in a tournament game by your opponent, and some things relevant in competitive vintage are so far below the radar as to be misunderstood everywhere else.