Help Vintage in my city.

[hauntedechos]

Greetings Vintage community;

I'm not totaly sure where the best place is for this post, so please move as needed.  I'll try to be quick here and too the point:

I live in a smaller city (Cobourg, Ontario) whose Vintage community is small.  I have tried to help it grow by working with a store owner, and organizing tournaments and promotion.  For the time being, Vintage players have to travel to Toronto, to 401 convienence to attend tournaments.  However, this is not possible for many people who would like to take part in proper tournaments.  We have contacted a level 1 judge who will begin judging our events and the store owner said he is going to contact DCI as well.

As such I have also started to try and contact Vintage players who are well known.  I have finished a rough draft of one interview so far ( you know who you are, and thank you very much -post your aknowledgement if you like or think it will help my chances here) and hope to have more.  I hope for this to attract a broad range of players and creators.  The idea is to show that the world's Vintage community, will band together and take the time to notice a local game shop.  With the banded hope to expand the numbers of Vintage players.  I would like to reach players who are seen in Top 8's consistently, as well as writers for Starcitygames.com and finally builders of recognized decks, both past and present.

If you would join in my efforts to help try and expand this area's Vintage community, please post or PM me your e-mail addy that you would preferr to be contacted through.  As well please leave where your Vintage contributions and or stats can be viewed.  Each player will recieve the rough draft, in which they are encouraged to add anything they feel has not been asked of them, or general facts or ideas of importance.  All e-mails will remain private and NOT given out.

As a last thought, anyone can read the Control Players Bible, or articles on SCG.  But it's my hope that these people can pick up a copy of thier local shops magazine and read personal interviews with players and teams that they read on and see the stats.  That they will be thinking "HOLY CRAP!! Brassman cares about our scene!" or "WTF! Steve is breaking down our meta and tellin us whats a good choice to destroy the field with?!!".  I know that's the feeling I got when One of our Vintage community responded to me.

Thanks in advance Vintage community

-Michael

[wethepeople]

It'd probably be best if you included where exactly you are, then people won't completely dismiss the idea when they decide that it's not worth working to figure out.

[God_Campbell]

I am thinking Barrie Ontario....your not from the Bay are you?

[hauntedechos]

Sorry everyone.  It's actually Cobourg Ontario.  About 1Hr East of Toronto Ontario.  The store is called Fantastic Visions. 

[hauntedechos]

Well, I guess thats it then isn't it?  Granted that I forgot to mention that the store was in Cobourg Ontario at first, and that the store's name was Fantastic Vision.  I didn't, however, think that NO ONE from the Vintage scene would respond.  No deck creators, Top 8 finishers, or writers at all.  Aside frim the afore mentioned Vintage player, no one cared to put thier hand up for a chance for further exposure ( albeit for a simple towns Magazine ) and chance to hopefully help things out.

I'm not going to make any money on this.  In fact the only thing I get out of this is, direct conversation via e-mail or PM's and a sence of accomplishment.  This is not some sort of scam aimed at trying to embarass or paint a Vintage member in some sort of personal light.  I mearly wanted to bring the world of Vintage to a small towns doorstep and show them why Vintage is the format to get involved in.  That the sence of comradery and support of players in the format is what makes it great in addition to the largest cardpool.

I have secured an interview with Edward Greenwood (creator of Forgotten Realms and friend of Richard Garfield, who contacted and employed Ed as a concept consultant for Antiquities set.) in addition to a Vintage player, who's identity I keep secret out of respect.  Now, at the time of my TMD post on this issue, I thought that if a busy creator / writer will take the time to answer 20 or so questions in depth, surely a few Vintage members would too.  I'm not trying to name drop, I'm trying to show that this is a serious task and one out of passion for this game and format.  Further, that a man who doesn't know me, or alot about M:TG, would share his (albeit limited) interactions within our game.

Anyways, if anyone changes thier mind, I'm still putting this together.  I have enough material for 2 issues now.  Please take the time to answer 20 something questions, and gain further exposure, show your care or support or for any reason you would take part.

If anyone has some suggestions on how to make this fly, please post or PM me.  The other thought I had was to open a thread on something Vintage and invite response posts to be used as a consortium interview of sorts.  would anyone be interested in that at all?  please get back to me.

BTW
I'm 30 with 2 kids and work in construction.  I am NOT some silly tween - teen kid with too much time on his hands.  So I understand living a full time life and fitting Magic into a busy life within reason.

Thanks again
Mike.

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

I'm not a big name in Vintage, but I'll help you with the interview/questions if you want. My contributions to the Vintage Scene are all Local, with the exception of GenCon 2005. Send me a PM if you need the help.

[hauntedechos]

Right on Clown of Tresserhorn!

I now have two people who are lesser known, and two that are highly visable Vintage players in Tournament stats.  The reason I reply and report on the status is to show that there are people out there who want to help.  To that end I say thank you very much.  I also want to show that this is a broad look at our community, not just focus on the Vintage players that we are amazed by. 

I have an interview going now with a gentleman who is doing the same thing I am.  Thats great material, because it's relevent to my shop and scene.  I also have two visible Vintage gamers signed up. This is the opposite end of the spectrum, but mixes things up for the readers and makes it a more complete look at our environment.

Thanks to all who have shown support.  To all thoes that are still aprehensive, look at whats happening already, and jump in!  There is nothing to loose and you get another chance to let players know what your thoughts are..in print!  I would really like to have another deck builder to write on.  Deck builders are like hen's teeth.....err..I mean hard to find.

Thanks again to all that have helped.

if you would rather e-mail me rather than PM / post, I can be reached at michaelsamson13@gmail.com
and as I keep saying, your info will always be kept private.

[hauntedechos]

I'd like to thank the Vintage players who have helped with this project of mine so far.  I'm incredibly gratefull to Team GWS and Team Meandeck and of course Team Arsenal for the members that have helped out.

For the lesser known people who are also doing great things in thier community, I thank you for your input as well.  It allows me to bring things down to a local scene level for my town (Cobourg, Ontario, Canada) to appreciate and get rialed up about.

Special thanks to Brassman for your comments on the importance of a thriving local environment.  Also special thanks to Jacob Orlove for helping me get the ball rolling here and sugestions as to who I could ask for help in this.

As always I encourage any Vintage player who is doing great things to PM me or e-mail me or even post on this thread.

I was asked if I was going to post the interviews monthly here on TMD, assuming that the people interviewed have no objections to it, I'm interested t know how many of you out there would be interested in reading these things.  Please post or PM me if your into it or not.

thanks as always
Michael

[RaleighNCTourneys]

I'd love to see your monthly articles posted on TMD

[hauntedechos]

Good news;

@ Cody Vinci:  Jacob has said  "If you wanted to compile them, they'd probably make for a nice article or two in our new article submission forum", so if I can clean them up nice, I'll go ahead and do that.

cheers
Michael