The Invitational is Now Back to Paper - Vintage?

[Smmenen]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/bd263

Could there be a Vintage segment for the Invitational this year?  Seems likely.  It's been years since Vintage has been featured on the Invitationals and the Invitational is about Magic's broadest possibilities.   The last paper invitational had the 5-color debacle and Vintage was always regarded as one of the most fun formats.   I think there is a good chance we'll see three rounds of Vintage this year.  Ironically, it will have less impact on the Vintage metagame than it ever has in the past. 

[Moxlotus]

It's possible.  If so, it'd have to be unlimited proxy I'd wager.

If there was a vintage format, here would be my prediction for deck breakdown

1-2 Fishies
0-1 Ichorid
2-3 Stax
3-4 Slaver
The rest an even split between PitchLong and decks with 3+ Gifts in them.

However, I doubt there will be any Vintage played.  Probably Legacy though.

[zeus-online]

Last time they played vintage at the invitational...wasn't that some completely awkward decks featuring cards as blastoderm? And barely even any recogniced archetypes (although finkel played keeper if i remember correctly)..Its true that vintage has evolved from back then, but i wonder if the players will still be playing piles...

/Zeus

[Moxlotus]

Last time they played vintage at the invitational...wasn't that some completely awkward decks featuring cards as blastoderm? And barely even any recogniced archetypes (although finkel played keeper if i remember correctly)..Its true that vintage has evolved from back then, but i wonder if the players will still be playing piles...

/Zeus

Sigurd Eskelon got 2nd in the Vintage section with an Academy deck featuring 4 Time Spiral, Capsize, and Candelabra
Mike Long took first featuring a Black/blue deck with hippies, hymns, duress, and blue power and other random stuff
Lots of sligh
a few keeper
a mono blue shop deck w/ suchi, juggs, and 4 copy artifact, force, drain, etc.


Maybe that wasn't the very last Vintage invitational, but that series of plays did exist sometime according to an old Duelist I have.

[LotusHead]

I read the MTG article twice now, and failed to spot the Vintage connection.  Anyone care to spell it out for me?

Back when the Invitational was played with real cards, as opposed to on MTGO, Vintage was generally one of the formats. Hopefully, the tradition is restored!
-Godder

I am far away from Sanctioned options, but still I want to see Wizards.Co support Vintage.

[Hi-Val]

This is good because it herald's a return of MaRo's formats; he would do things like make new draft cards with old ones but with different costs. Is Morphling still a bomb at 4WWW? Will you play a 3U Necropotence? They'd take overcosted stuff and see if they could aggressively cost it too.

With the return to actual physical cards, there's the possibility for Vintage again, LotusHead. Also, pros have crazy access to power cards and stuff, especially for something like the invitational. I know it hasn't been said here but just putting it out there that it would be pretty insulting to think that the pros couldn't build, learn and play Vintage decks easily.

[UR]

I know it hasn't been said here but just putting it out there that it would be pretty insulting to think that the pros couldn't build, learn and play Vintage decks easily.

I've seen some of the Dutch pro's play Vintage and it was amazing how good they were with deck they'd never seen before. And this is the age of the internet, it really isn't very hard to come up with a winning list... anybody can do it so yeah... QFT.

[Jacob Orlove]

Last time they played vintage at the invitational...wasn't that some completely awkward decks featuring cards as blastoderm? And barely even any recogniced archetypes (although finkel played keeper if i remember correctly)..Its true that vintage has evolved from back then, but i wonder if the players will still be playing piles...

/Zeus

Sigurd Eskelon got 2nd in the Vintage section with an Academy deck featuring 4 Time Spiral, Capsize, and Candelabra
Mike Long took first featuring a Black/blue deck with hippies, hymns, duress, and blue power and other random stuff
Lots of sligh
a few keeper
a mono blue shop deck w/ suchi, juggs, and 4 copy artifact, force, drain, etc.


Maybe that wasn't the very last Vintage invitational, but that series of plays did exist sometime according to an old Duelist I have.

Yeah, I have that Duelist. There were later ones, though. My favorite saw most of the players with 4-Necro 4-Consult Trix. The Beyond Dominia regulars made fun of them, until they realized that Trix was infy broken (many months later). It was bizarre, though, because the pros couldn't even agree on a manabase, just that the deck beat everything in the format at that time.

[Machinus]

This is the only good thing to come out of the butchering of the modo datbase. Kibler's technical loss was a load of bull.

[mrieff]

I would bet that they'll do Legacy before Vintage

Both because of card availability and Wizards's superior support for Legacy in organized play such as GPs

[Vegeta2711]

I would bet that they'll do Legacy before Vintage

Both because of card availability and Wizards's superior support for Legacy in organized play such as GPs

Actually that's probably a better reason about why they'd do Vintage. The invitationals used to be all about the wacky insane formats or at least standardized formats with a twist, that's what made them fun!

[silvernail]

It'd be great to see them run vintage again, but i dont know if they will do normal formats or all wacky ones. Hard to say with Maro.

[freakish777]

It'd be great to see them run both Legacy and Vintage.  Why choose?

[MarkPharaoh]

Don't be so greedy

[forests failed you]

I remember when Sideboard Magazine was around, during old old extended (dual lands and FOWs) that Sideboard Magazine did a pro tournament that was a four player team event. 
Seat a . Standard
seat b. Block constructed
seat c.  Extended
seat d.  Vintage

I wish they had an event like that .  It would be a really good opportunity for Vintage's best and the PTs best to interact. 

By the way RIW won that event, with the most insane team EVER.

Mark Herberholtz
Aaron Brieder
Peter Jesual
Pat Chapin

[seer]

I remember Olle Rades winning Vintage deck (well -- they had to use 5 cards from every expansion in their deck so they were a little constrained). He ended up beating Mike Long in the finals with a super broken Propserity deck running 4 Mana Crypts, 4 Mana Vaults, and 4 Hurkyl's Recall.

[forests failed you]

Wow, four Mana Crypt seems 'fair.'

Seriously, I think it would be really cool to have an event where Vintage's best got to play along side the best constructed players.  It would be a good learning experience for everybody involved, as well as good exposure for players on both sides to become more familiar with other formats.

[seer]

Here is the decklist, it is actually quite incredible considering how bad so many of the other "best" vintage decklists were at the time (hello, weisman.dec with fireball/abeyance as the win condition???). Also, remember he had to use 5 cards from each expansion or something along those lines.

Turbo-Mulligan
Mana
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Mana Vault
4 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Library of Alexandria
4 City of Brass
1 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island

Instants
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Force of Will
4 Hurkyl's Recall
4 Mystical Tutor

Sorceries
1 Balance
1 Braingeyser
1 Demonic Tutor
3 Prosperity
1 Recall
1 Regrowth
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune

Artifact
4 Barbed Sextant
4 Black Vise
1 Mirror Universe
1 Snake Basket (FTW!)

SB
1 The Abyss
1 Amnesia
1 Death Speakers
1 Dust to Dust
1 Freewind Falcon
2 Hymn to Tourach
1 Icatian Infantry
1 Moat
1 Preacher
1 Sea Sprite
2 Serrated Arrows
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Vodalian Soldiers

[Mr. Nightmare]

Here is the decklist, it is actually quite incredible considering how bad so many of the other "best" vintage decklists were at the time (hello, weisman.dec with fireball/abeyance as the win condition???). Also, remember he had to use 5 cards from each expansion or something along those lines.

Imagine how much better that deck would have been if people had discovered how good Merchant Scroll is.  It would have made Brainstorm playable.

[seer]

Wasn't merchant scroll restricted at this time?

[Smmenen]

Scroll has never been restricted.

[asi]

Most people, probably including Wizards of the Coast, didn't even know Homelands existed. All the great format-warping cards of Homelands were discovered later, even Merchant Scroll wasn't considered that good at that time.

A vintage-event would make me really pay interest in the Invitational event again. I didn't watch (or care) about the past ones (except the cards the invitationalists made) because they played really obscure formats and I never had time or motivation to "get" what they did there. But Vintage would be nice, because you seldom see constructed-pros play T1 and because Vintage is a real format with interesting applications. Also, I'd like to see how Wizards sees the whole "Eternal"-part of the game.