TMD OPEN 7: 10/15/05->10/16/05, Waterbury,CT

[iamfishman]

Guess its time for another announcement:

PROXIES
As far as proxies go, each player will be entitled to 10 proixes included in the basic admission cost.  In addition, players may pay $1 per proxy for the ability to play additional ones with the maximum number of total proxies being 15.  Prior to the start of the tournament, when you bring up your decklist, a waterbury associate(not someone playing in the event) will check to see that you have the cards that are proxied indicated on your decklist.  At this time, you will present your deck to show the indicated number of proxies and pay at that time for additional ones past 10.  There are some who would be tempted to cheat this system.  Let it be said that each round there will be at least one random deck check(now possible with increased help).  Any player who is found to have more proxies than indicated on his decklist and/or paid for will receive a disqualification from the event without prize.  This may sound severe, but keep in mind that this is simply to prevent deception and people from abusing a privilege intended to benefit Waterbury and newer players(who may need slightly more proxies).  As long as you are on the up-and-up, you have nothing to worry about.

Tomorrow: TBD Prizes

[Smmenen]

two match losses is the same thing as a DQ.  Why not just make it a DQ?

[rvs]

Because now they can still play, instead of being ejected.

For some people that might make a difference, although I agree with you.

[Smmenen]

Well in 8 rounds:

If it happens in round one and you lost, you are'nt going to play rounds two and three.

If it happens in round two, you might play the final four rounds.

If it happens in round 3, are you going to play rounds six and seven?

If it happens in around 4 or later, that's basically the rest of the tournament. 

It also extends further than that.  It could make the difference in an opponent's a) tiebreakers and b) win percentages.

What if someone who is in contention suddenly gets stuck with this?  Then the opponents will get two free wins.

I think it is a bad idea just for that reason alone. 

[iamfishman]

I think you misunderstood a little bit Steve.

Of the two match losses, one will count toward the round that is currently being played(since this infraction would only be noticed during a deck check or just while I, or another associate not playing in the event, is walking around).

Also,...I think it we can handle the problem you brought up basically by saying that if this infraction is detected in round 6, 7 or 8, it will simply mean a DQ at that point.  This will make the person be dropped from the tournament, and thus will not have a pairing in subsequent rounds against anyone, giving them a free win.

Also, I should mention...in addition to the 2 match loss penalty, the player will be forced to replace proxies down to 10(or what he paid for) with off-color basic lands.

[Jacob Orlove]

If you're still cutting to top 16, two losses is not the same as a DQ.

[Ivantheterrible]

Also, I should mention...in addition to the 2 match loss penalty, the player will be forced to replace proxies down to 10(or what he paid for) with off-color basic lands.

Iv'e never understood this. It just seems like a rather flawed idea. I understand that there is a push to punish cheaters but there must be some other way. I cant come up with any logical reason for this. You have been presented with a now illigal deck so the punishment is to turn it into a different kind of illigal deck. You have the player's decklist and you know that at the begining of the day 
at least the had all the real cards in there, so they still should. Just give them the remainder of the round and the following round since they had losses and then have someone go to them and check the list before the next round they play in. That way they will have a legal deck again. If you think they might cheat again you can even have somebody check after each round.

Also if you do deside to do off color basics then i would have to jump on the DQ bandwagon with Steve. The reason being that i know for a fact i would be pretty pissed if i had to play sombody with a shit ton of off color basics. Sure I'll win but at that point unless i am playing down i am probably no longer in contention, and the only reason why i stay in a type 1 tourny is to get more results with the deck and certain matchups. Its not going to help me at all if he has anything over just a off color land of 2.

So ray i would ask that you reconsider basic lands as its illogical and downright obnoxious for opponets.

[Jacob Orlove]

Don't the penalty guidelines specify on-color basic lands, anyway?

[Komatteru]

I agree that DQ would be better.  Suppose I play a dude with proxies he didn't pay for in round 2 or 3.  This dude is going to be 1-2 or 2-2 when he plays his next match, and if he cheated a lot, he's likely to lose his next match b/c of all the wasted cards in his deck.  This will cost me in terms of tiebreakers.  If he were DQed at that point, he'd be 1-1 (or 2-1) after getting the match loss, and be done with the tournament.  By giving the dude losses and letting him play some more, you're killing my tiebreakers b/c my opponent is a cheater.  While there's nothing that can be done if my opponent is just terrible and loses all of his next rounds (killing my breakers), and that's the way it goes, this is clearly something that should not be allowed to happen.

I also think a DQ reflects the seriousness of the offense, which is most important.  You can get 2 match losses for screwing up your deck reg sheet two times, and that's clearly not as big of an offense as trying to cheat the honor system.

Don't the penalty guidelines specify on-color basic lands, anyway?

They specify basics of that player's choice.

[ctthespian]

BTW, Ray, here is what you should do on day two:

1996 Vintage.  Vintage with every set UP TO BUT NOT including Alliances.  How fucking fun would that be?  People could play The Deck or Suicide Black with Juzams or fucking Zoo! 

Steve: I have a sweet book on that format, which actually includes combo decklists! It's a ton of fun to play.

Oh, and I have no problem with doing the judge thing full time and just not playing on Day 1, if there's a Day 2.

Even if I can't make Day 1 I'd try to make day 2 for this.  Since friends and I are currently playing this format as Dark and Back at our local store I have also completed my "Restriced List Through the Ages" which includes all the B&R changes since 1993.  Also we decided to use all current rulings and errata on cards. (though we've still yet to decide on Paris/Mulligan and Draw or Go rules.)

[iamfishman]

Okay, okay...I can't argue with good logic...

DQ it is.

[iamfishman]

Prizes updated!

Of particular note is the change from Day 1 Magic Trivia to Magic Scattegories.

Picture this, you are working with a team of you and two others.  I give you the following categories and the following letters all chosen at random:

                                                     L                                          P                                     C
Last name of magic artist:
Card from Ice Age:
Set Name:
Blue Instant:
Keyword ability:

What can you come up with that fits each Category/Letter combination.  1 pt is given for each answer that is unique from all other teams answers, so the most obvious answer is not always best.  Also, doubles, like Bazaar of Baghdad(double B), are worth two points.

Take 2 minutes...then scroll down to see what I came up with(don't cheat).


























                                                     L                                          P                                     C
Last name of magic artist:            April Lee                                                                    Carl Critchlow?
Card from Ice Age:                     Lapiz Luli Tailsaman                  Pale Bears                      Cold Snap
Set Name:                                 Legions                                 Prophecy                        Chronicles
Blue Instant:                                                                         Prophetic Bolt                  Capsize
Keyword ability:                                                                                                           Cycling

Tomorrows announcment: September 94 Tourney

[Matt]

Card from Ice Age: Legions of Lim-Dul, Pale Bears, C_____
Set Name: Legends, portal: Second Age, Chronicles
Blue Instant: L_______, Power Sink, C_____
Keyword ability: Landwalk, Phasing, Cycling

[BurningIce]

Here's mine.

L
?
Leshrac's Sigil
Legends
Liquify
Landwalking

P
Poole (Mark)
Pygmy Allosaurus
Prophecy
Pulse of the Grid
Protection from X

C
Chippy
Chaos Lord
Champions of Kamigawa
Clairvoyance
Cycling

[iamfishman]

September 94 Tournament

What would it be like if you were able to take a time-machine back to September 1994, knowing all that you know now about tempo, card advantage, etc.

A "Dark and Back" Tournament is going to take place at 4:00 pm on Day 2.  The rules are simple: Build a deck with only cards from Dark, Legends, Revised, ABU, Antiquities, or Arabian Nights.  For this tournament, since it is all about fun decks, up to 25 proxies may be used.  And yes, you can use more current versions of the cards, as long as they were from those sets.

Also, we are going to truely pretend it is Septemeber 1994. Although, we will still be using current rules(the stack, comabt damage, etc.) since to revert to pre 5the edition rules would be too confusing, we will use the B&R list from Sept. 1994.

As such, here are the following Banned and Restricted lists for that time frame.

Restricted:
Ali From Cairo
Ancestral Recall
Berserk
Black Lotus
Braingeyser
Candleabra of Tawmos
Channel
Chaos Orb!!!
Copy Artifact
Demonic Tutor
Falling Star!!!
Feldon's Cane
Ivory Tower
Library of Alexandria
Mind Twist
Mirror Universe
Mishra's Workshop
Mox Emerald
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Mox Ruby
Mox Sapphire
Recall
Regrowth
Sol Ring
Sword of the Ages(SOOOOOOOOOO POWERFUL)
Time Walk
Timetwister
Underworld Dreams
Wheel of Fortune

Banned
Divine Intervention
Sharharazard
Time Vault

Of interests that they are not restricted in this time frame:
Balance
Black Vise
Fastbond
Fork
Mana Vault
Strip Mine

If you are nostalgic for the days when decks were all about Bolts, Kird Apes, Nether Void, Racks, Vises, Juzams, Sinkholes, ETC come for this one and have a blast.  I have already built two decks for it, since we play it at my local store, even though I won't be playing at the Waterbury event.  It is sooooooooooo much fun.

The prize will be based on the number of entrants, but will likely be something cool from one of those sets(LOA, Bazaar, Workshop, Drain, Chains, Etc) provided we get enough people.

Tomorrow: Win Crazy Carl's Type 4 Stack!

[Jacob Orlove]

Oh man, that might even be better than pre-alliances. Count me in.

[BurningIce]

Wow, would I ever love to play in that event... I wonder if there's a way I could get there?

[kl0wn]

I want to say that this will be a huge combo fest, but I'm not sure there's enough draw in the format to abuse the 4 Mana Vault, 4 Mana Crypt, 4 Hurkyl's Recall engine or 4 Fastbond.

We've only got one of each: Demonic Tutor, Braingeyser, Ancestral, Timetwister and Wheel of Fortune for draw and search. That's it. Nothing else. I don't think it's enough to make consistent combo.

Am I missing something? I'm really interested in other people's opinions about this.

[Revvik]

Unrestricted Balance is kind of a shivering thought, in all honesty.  Its power wasn't fully realized back then, but nowadays I think we know better.

4 Strip Mine, 4 Balance, 52 irrelevant cards?  What do you DO with something like that?
Re: combo - kl0wn, there wasn't even Tolarian Academy.  The only combo possible back then would have dealt with Channel, but that's even restricted. 
I'm not even sure a competent form of large artifact Aggro could be built - sure, you have Juggernauts and Su-Chi and COLOSSUS OF SARDIA, but where's the disruption, and again, the draw?  Four Strip Mine wouldn't be enough, would it?  Ankh of Mishra?  The Rack / Vise might help as well.

I would think that in order to get Workshops to pull their weight, you'd abuse the 4 Mana Vaults and have stuff castable off that:
4 Juggernaut
4 Su-Chi
and the suboptimals like Phyrexian War Bea... shit, no Alliances.
At least Artifact Mutation and Rack & Ruin are out of the picture, but Energy Flux can still hit.

I don't even want to imagine How To Build A Mana Drain Deck, 1994 Edition, but I'm pretty sure this would be a tournament of Mana Drains versus Kird Apes.

[Komatteru]

I don't even want to imagine How To Build A Mana Drain Deck, 1994 Edition, but I'm pretty sure this would be a tournament of Mana Drains versus Kird Apes.

Go look up Weissman's original The Deck.  That was played in 1994-5.  I'm sure you can find it somewhere.  It's slow as fuck but at the time was way ahead of everything else in the field conceptually.  However, I think it might have some issues with 4 Balance.dec.

[ctthespian]

I don't even want to imagine How To Build A Mana Drain Deck, 1994 Edition, but I'm pretty sure this would be a tournament of Mana Drains versus Kird Apes.

Go look up Weissman's original The Deck.  That was played in 1994-5.  I'm sure you can find it somewhere.  It's slow as fuck but at the time was way ahead of everything else in the field conceptually.  However, I think it might have some issues with 4 Balance.dec.

4 balances = Maysonett's Rack/Balance Deck.
Don't forget:  4 Vises
Grannville's Explosion Deck (Designed to beat Wiseman)
I'm sure you can find decklists on the Net somewhere.

However the real question is can we improve upon these knowing what we know now about magic?

[Revvik]

I don't even want to imagine How To Build A Mana Drain Deck, 1994 Edition, but I'm pretty sure this would be a tournament of Mana Drains versus Kird Apes.

Go look up Weissman's original The Deck.  That was played in 1994-5.  I'm sure you can find it somewhere.  It's slow as fuck but at the time was way ahead of everything else in the field conceptually.  However, I think it might have some issues with 4 Balance.dec.

I actually have an old copy of this book that explains how all the old players built their decks around that time.  It is actually very humorous, seeing Juggernauts get played off Drain mana and etc.

[Smmenen]

Ray, I think you should stick with my original idea - Vintage of 1995/6 pre- alliances, not 1994.  I think 4 Vise and 4 Balance is silly and Hymn and Pump Knights + Necro would provide a strong black weenie deck to fight The Deck, Burn, Land Destruction, and Zoo variants. 
I think part of the fun is to try and build control decks in a pre-FoW era.  If you use this format you ruin that becuase of 4 Vise.  Well, you doon't ruin it, but you force every control deck to run white and therefore 4 Disenchants to fight Vise. 

Don't forget as well: you can disenchant a Chaos Orb and kill it before it can flip. 

[ctthespian]

Ray, I think you should stick with my original idea - Vintage of 1995/6 pre- alliances, not 1994.  I think 4 Vise and 4 Balance is silly and Hymn and Pump Knights + Necro would provide a strong black weenie deck to fight The Deck, Burn, Land Destruction, and Zoo variants. 
I think part of the fun is to try and build control decks in a pre-FoW era.  If you use this format you ruin that becuase of 4 Vise.  Well, you doon't ruin it, but you force every control deck to run white and therefore 4 Disenchants to fight Vise. 

Don't forget as well: you can disenchant a Chaos Orb and kill it before it can flip. 

My UW millstone build can kick the crap out of my vise deck about half the time.  With Moat, STP, Balance, Wrath, etc creatures aren't a problem and Vises could always be countered by accelerating just a bit.  Besides, hurkyll's and shatter are other options to combat vise so white isn't the only answer to that "dreaded" card.

-Keith

[Smmenen]

Ray, I think you should stick with my original idea - Vintage of 1995/6 pre- alliances, not 1994.  I think 4 Vise and 4 Balance is silly and Hymn and Pump Knights + Necro would provide a strong black weenie deck to fight The Deck, Burn, Land Destruction, and Zoo variants. 
I think part of the fun is to try and build control decks in a pre-FoW era.  If you use this format you ruin that becuase of 4 Vise.  Well, you doon't ruin it, but you force every control deck to run white and therefore 4 Disenchants to fight Vise. 

Don't forget as well: you can disenchant a Chaos Orb and kill it before it can flip. 

My UW millstone build can kick the crap out of my vise deck about half the time.  With Moat, STP, Balance, Wrath, etc creatures aren't a problem and Vises could always be countered by accelerating just a bit.  Besides, hurkyll's and shatter are other options to combat vise so white isn't the only answer to that "dreaded" card.

-Keith

Yeah, well that's one more reason to permit Ice Age and FE - Necro + Pump knights to fight silly millstone decks . 

When I played UW control, I always had Feldon's Canes in my SB and plenty of Disenchants and Dust to Dusts. 

Man.  At the time during that era all of my focus was on perfecting my multi-color control deck.  But now with what we know, I would love to try and experiment with cool ideas.  It's only too bad that BOTH Abyss and Nether Void can't be in play at the same time . 

How hot would Old Man of the Sea be against some Zoo decks and pump knights?

[Jacob Orlove]

I would think that in order to get Workshops to pull their weight,

Workshop. As in, singular. Because it's restricted.

I don't even want to imagine How To Build A Mana Drain Deck, 1994 Edition, but I'm pretty sure this would be a tournament of Mana Drains versus Kird Apes.

Go look up Weissman's original The Deck.  That was played in 1994-5.  I'm sure you can find it somewhere.  It's slow as fuck but at the time was way ahead of everything else in the field conceptually.  However, I think it might have some issues with 4 Balance.dec.

I actually have an old copy of this book that explains how all the old players built their decks around that time.  It is actually very humorous, seeing Juggernauts get played off Drain mana and etc.

Yeah, I have the same book. It has some funny decklists, but they're mostly from post-Ice Age (although Necro hadn't been discovered yet).

There was one combo list from a deck development history section that was legal for exactly this time period. Prepare to be amazed:

4 Fork
2 Fireball
1 Wheel of Fortune

3 Fastbond
2 Storm Seeker
1 Regrowth
1 Channel
1 Stream of Life

2 Mana Drain
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Braingeyser
1 Copy Artifact
1 Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mind Twist

4 Howling Mine
1 Chaos Orb
1 Mirror Universe

2 Bazaar of Baghdad

1 Badlands
3 City of Brass
4 Taiga
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine
7 Solomox

Actual rules question: is Mana Crypt even legal? I thought it was released in '95.

[BurningIce]

You're right, Jacob.  The book containing the offer to get it, Final Sacrifice, came out January 1995.  Phew... 4 Mana Crypts would have been tough to find.

[kl0wn]

Yep, no Mana Crypt means combo sucks (more) ass. Balance all the way then. Oh man, I've wanted to play with 4 Balances ever since I built the deck in Shandalar. Hawtness.

Wait a second...this tournament will give me the opportunity to run the very first competitive deck I ever made (before they restricted Strip Mine and Vise). With some minor tweaks, of course. Okay, I'm psyched.

[Matt]

It's only too bad that BOTH Abyss and Nether Void can't be in play at the same time Sad. 

Have you been reading my team boards?

If we allowed FE we would gain the incredible combo of Power Artifact, Basalt Monolith, Initiates of the Ebon Hand, Drain Life! Far too strong!

[iamfishman]

Wow...I must say, I'm glad to see so much entusiasm for this format.  I expect for this tournament to be real fund and a true testament to how far type 1 and school of thought on magic has come in the last decade.

I must say, Klown, that I also assumed combo would be broken, but with out any mana crypts, it seems like things are plenty fine in that respect.  As for 4 vises and 4 strip mines, they may be degenerate but

1.) With everyone being able to proxy full power(which we couldn't back in the day) people might very commonly dump a good part of their hand on many turn 1s.

2.) We will try the format at this Waterbury.  If need be, we will make an adjustment(either to what sets are allowed or to the B&R list to compenstate) for next time.

Can't wait until day 2.