Scholar's Weekly Vintage Results Thread

[HungryHungryHeifer]

            Op-Match    PL-Duel   Op-Duel
Rank    Name    Points    Win%    Win%   Win%
  1   Louis Gentile    10   60.4167   58.3333   58.0808
  2   Jesse Martin    10   50.0000   63.6364   46.7803
  3   Arik Pogrebinsky     9   54.1667   77.7778   49.3056
  4   Andy Farias     6   60.4167   50.0000   57.5758
  5   Eric Dupuis     6   58.3333   55.5556   57.7441
  6   Chris Roberts     6   50.0000   45.4545   47.9167
  7   Heather Carpenter     4   56.2500   33.3333   57.8283
  8   Jenny Joukhadar     4   38.8889   44.4444   41.4141
  9   Josh Cutler     3   58.3333   45.4545   49.9369
 10   Roland Cheng     0   75.0000   20.0000   65.0000

Thank you to everyone who played.  We're back to Scholar's next week.  A big thank you to Stillpoint for giving us a place to play!  I'm looking forward to running Legacy events with Stillpoint starting in March!

Eric, I had to register on here so I could correct your misspelling of my name! Carpentier. Tisk tisk tisk. Really though, I actually appreciate the push to get me on here, I had been meaning to join anyway and just was lazy.

[sundering jerk]

ELD was on vacation with his family and Matt McSomethin was nowhere to be found so I ran the tourney in their absences. As always their were 14 people, we're always short of 16 for rankings so please bring more friends! 

First place was Barry (Sorry, edit) with Ichorid                           $39.2
2nd place wasNick V with WG zoo                                           $39.2
3rd place was Jennifer J. with something good                          $22.34
4th Place was JTL with (IDK I think it might have been Tezz)      $11.17

All and all, despite ELD not being their it was a smooth tourny with no problems. The top two split but played it out for pride with Ichorid winning again. PLEASE somebody needs to sideboard more against this silly machine, last time I played in this 4 round tourney I played against this boring deck rounds 1 and 2. (Grumble, hate that deck)

This was fun, I'm thinking of holding a tourney myself to get rid of my power this summer. Does anyone have tournament software I can barrow?

Thank you to everyone who played.  We're back to Scholar's next week. 


Louis Gentile (Sundering Nice Guy)

P.S. JTL pM me if you want those trops!

[slighguy]

Hey Sundering. u wrote P Everson, my names Barry... this tournament was fun. we need to have more people so we can get sanctioning! much to my dissmay, i will not be playing Ichorid at this coming weeks tournament unless my cards dont show up in the mail.  so i think that will make your sideboarding a little easier.

[the_only_girl]

I can't wait for Mondayyy 
Buuuut I hope less people play Tez Key this week because there were like 10 people playin it last week! holy crap.

BTW, ELD, are you really lowering the proxy number to 0 (eventually)? Because I'm completely broke and I love to play, but would not be able to go at all if it weren't for proxies I think you'd get a lot more people if you keep allowing them. At least don't lower it to 0, maybe to 10 or 15? (It's unlimited right now right?)

[ELD]

Scholar's will definitely remain INFINITE Proxies.  The post about proxies was in regards to starting up Legacy at Stillpoint in Fall River (which begins March 15th).  We need 17 for Vintage Ranking System, and we're consistently getting close every week.  I said at the beginning of the year that it was a goal to hit 17 at least once, and if we can slightly improve on this kind of turn out, we might be able to hit 17 frequently.  The January Leader had 12 points, and a 17+ turn out yields the following points:

Total Points          1st   2nd   3rd   4th   5th   6th   7th   8th   9th-16th
        15                4       3      2      2      1     1       1      1         0

That means players playing every week will be in great shape for the rankings!

[the_only_girl]

Oh ok, awesome. Thanks ELD! Heard you were on vacation or something last week, hope it was fun See ya Monday

[trigunshin]

I'll be showing up this week, so that's +1 to your normal attendance    College break and all, though I don't have any real Cali tech to bring back.

[ELD]

Got there!  We had 18 this week, which made for our first time reaching the threshold for the Vintage Ranking System.  Thank you to everyone who showed - this kind of thing shows just how great the New England Vintage Community is.  Of course, with a full field, the prize pool is stacked.  18 players means $144 in store credit, since Dave gives us an incredible bonus of 33% on top of the entry fees.  The prizes paid out as follows:

Prizes   18
1st   57.6
2nd   43.2
3rd   28.8
4th   14.4

The final standings after 5 very competitive rounds of swiss: 

            Op-Match    PL-Duel    Op-Duel   Matches
Rank    Name    Points    Win%    Win%    Win%   P/W/D/B
  1   Eric Dupuis    13   61.3333   66.6667   60.7925   5/4/1/0
  2   Barry Everson    12   53.3333   75.0000   48.0000   5/4/0/0
  3   Pat Crane    12   48.0000   75.0000   46.1935   5/4/0/0
  4   Bill Rosa    10   68.0000   58.3333   60.7692   5/3/1/0
  5   Jesse Martin     9   56.0000   53.8462   55.2914   5/3/0/0
  6   Heather Carpentier     9   52.6667   63.6364   48.9744   5/3/0/0
  7   Nick Vallas     9   52.0000   61.5385   51.0490   5/3/0/0
  8   Jenny Joukhadar     9   44.0000   63.6364   44.3333   5/3/0/0
  9   Matt Orphanello     6   58.6667   45.4545   53.9744   5/2/0/0
 10   Chris Reed     6   55.8333   40.0000   55.4924   4/1/0/1
 11   Chris Roberts     6   51.3333   41.6667   51.0606   5/2/0/0
 12   John Longo     6   50.6667   46.1538   50.4709   5/2/0/0
 13   Louis Gentile     6   49.3333   40.0000   50.2914   5/2/0/0
 14   Micah Greenbaum     6   47.9167   50.0000   46.6667   4/2/0/0
 15   Clark Van Vilet     3   62.5000   30.0000   64.2172   4/1/0/0
 16   Matt MacCaulley     3   52.0833   33.3333   52.2222   4/1/0/0
 17   Wayne Morrin     3   48.0000   18.1818   48.9207   5/1/0/0
 18   Bill Copes     0   59.2593   25.0000   55.7540   3/0/0/0

There was no lock on the top positions until the dust settled - 6 people had a shot at a enough points for first place.  This was the most fun Scholar's in recent memory, with excellent competition, the regulars showing up in full force, and old faces showing up which got us over the 17+ we've been hoping to hit.  We were missing a few regulars this week, so here's hoping we start hitting 17+ often!

Since the turn outs have been so great, it's getting even more important that we start on time.  We're going to try and start at 7 next week.  If you're going to be late, please call me or Dave.  We really don't want to start losing people if the tournaments start late and then run longer than they can stay.  We appreciate everyone making the effort to get there on time so we can start at 7.

Thanks again to everyone who made this happen!

[Bill Copes]

I think this was the worst I've ever done in a tournament and have never bombed so badly in my few years of vintage, but had a great time regardless.  I'll definitely be back next week!

[The Atog Lord]

To everyone who went, ELD, and Dave: Congratulations on finally hitting the 17 player mark.

These are excellent, fun tournaments. They're a good time for all, and recapture the more casual spirit of tournaments of days past. The field is always heavy with good players, and the lack of proxy limits means that everyone is free to experiment with whatever deck he may wish to try. For new players, it is a great way to wet the feet without diving into a more expensive full day event. For a seasoned veteran, it's a fun way to spend an evening while testing out some new ideas.

I'll be staying with Mo Ya the next few weeks, but I wish these continued success and look forward to joining in again when I'm home. Congratulations again.

[waywreth]

Much like Bill noted, it was a fun event, even with my poor performance (it's a bad sign when it's game 3 and the person your playing says, oh you ARE playing Force of Will).  Look forward to seeing such large crowds in the future.

PS - Damn you Ichorid!

[nataz]

any chance we'll start seeing decklists now that you are hitting 17+?

[waywreth]

any chance we'll start seeing decklists now that you are hitting 17+?

You'll have to ask the person who played the list to post what they played due to the fact that decklists aren't required.  While many of the people that attend have accounts on the manadrain, not everyone does.

[Eastman]

Congrats on hitting 17 - part of the goal of the rankings was increasing turnout, and this is a great example of that happening.  To me the local weekly tourney is where great players grow up, that's certainly the root of my interest in this format and I think many others.  So great work all and good luck keeping it going!!

As far as the tournament itself, I dropped in on one of these when I was in the area a few months back, and I have to say it was a really, really fun time.  I was very impressed with the quality of my opponents.  So I'm sure winning tonight was no easy task: congrats Eric.

[ELD]

While many of the people that attend have accounts on the manadrain, not everyone does.

I do encourage everyone who attends to get a TMD account, and we do have a few new members as a result of Monday Night Vintage already.  

any chance we'll start seeing decklists now that you are hitting 17+?

There are a lot of downsides for decklists for our Monday Night Vintage event.  

1)  Time.  People are already making a commitment to support the format and the community by attending.  Forcing extra time out of them, as well as the delays it could cause as people make last minute changes are both downsides.  These events are a laidback, fun but competitive testing ground with excellent prize support.  Decklists would be a tedious addition and take a great deal of fun out of it as we'd be spending more time on paperwork, and less on playing and discussing things like Austrian Economics    

2) Trying crazy new things.  Every wacky idea that gets tested isn't worth discussing online.  I thought Pearled Unicorn was a great answer to Goblin Piledriver - no need for that to make it onto the interweb where everyone can tell me it was a bad idea.  For people who get out there and play every week, the test is how the ideas perform.  We get a huge volume of games in real tournament setting to separate good ideas from bad.  There's no need to discuss ideas that don't work in tournament play, unless the player wants to put the idea forward and ask the community to get the idea over the hump themselves.  

3) Surprise factor.  When a player does hit a legitimate breakthrough, they should have the chance to unveil it at a Mox tournament for a huge payday.  If the word is leaked on a weekly basis, it deprives the people who are taking risks from their ability to really cash in on new ideas.  Scholar's is the ultimate way to test new ideas, as it's a friendly group and a great cross section of decks and playstyles.  It's infinitely more useful to get in rounds during a real tournament setting, than to goldfish, MWS or sit around and play the same person.  We want to keep the incentive for players to innovate.  On the flip side, once a player decides what to play as we approach larger events, there's no need for the whole world to know the exact details of a persons fine-tuned list.  

[ELD]

As far as the tournament itself, I dropped in on one of these when I was in the area a few months back, and I have to say it was a really, really fun time.  I was very impressed with the quality of my opponents.  So I'm sure winning tonight was no easy task: congrats Eric.

At Monday Night Vintage, any round can be against someone who frequently Top 8's larger events.  I remember one week, we had the Top 3 finishers of the previous TMD Open in the room!  Many of the people who consistently Top 8 Mox Events got to that point by playing at Scholar's over the years.  I'm certain that our new crop of players will make that jump as they continue to improve.  It was a tough win, especially while running the tournament.  I made at least 2 mistakes, one which cost me a game, due to the difficulty of juggling my rolls as TO, Judge, Player, and Trader.  Everyone I played did exceptionally well also, so myself and my opponents made up 6 of the Top 9 slots (1,2,4,6,7,9).  I am going to continue to look for ways to improve on the methods we use to make these events runs as smoothly as possible. 

Round 1 Nick Vallas GW Null Rod - Nick Split in the finals last week, and I faced him in a finals before my vacation.  I always enjoy my matches vs him - every creature in his deck is a problem. 

Game 1 He wastes my only land and I fail to find anything off my brainstorm.  I had Tinker, Mox and double force, so I just need some mana and I'm good to go.  It was an amazingly strong hand vs him, and I thoughtseized some creatures to keep the clock reduced to just a Mishra's Factory.  Eventually I die to a resolved Goyf as well.

Game 2 I manage to assemble my combo before he can disrupt me enough.  Yawgoth's Will seals the deal despite Gaddock Teeg. 

Game 3 I answer 1st turn Land Go with with Lotus, Island Pass.  He drops a Null Rod on turn 2, so I crack Lotus for Thirst, Ancestral, then FoW the Null Rod.  Drawing 6 cards is good!  I drop Mana Vault, and use it to play Vault+Key and take infinite turns.  I get to 4 lands eventually so I can untap Mana Vault and he scoops knowing I can just hardcast Colossus when I draw it eventually. 

Round 2 Barry Everson Ichorid Barry also split in the finals last week, and consistently does well with his Dredge list - which is the best I have seen. 

Game 1 I tell Barry I have a streak going of beating Dredge game 1.  He intends to end it.  I open with tons of fast mana, Trinket Mage into Relic of Progenitus.  This buys me some time, and I get some counters which become relevant as his dredges fail to find enough pressure.  Trinket Mage means things get tricky with Bridge from Belows.  He Cabal Therapies me, I use counters, he eventually forces the 3rd one through and sees Demonic Tutor.  He has to hit the last Therapy to force the discard, or I'll just DT for the win.  He finally reveals the 4th Cabal Therapy, but has the misfortune of hitting Narcomoeba as well.  This gives me priority to use Relic before he can therapy me. 

Game 2 I don't even get a turn.  He opens with LED and Bazaar.  The UUU doesn't have a Fatestitcher to go with it, yet.  After he dredges twice Fatestitcher makes things worse, then Cephalid Sage prompts a scoopage. 

Game 3 I open with Tormods, which is followed by another eventually.  I'm able to assemble a win before he can find a way around both crypts. 

Round 3 Bill Rosa UB Aggro Bills lists are always unorthodox.  He's a fan of SS style builds, so I expect to see Confidant and Erayo. 

Game 1 takes forever.  It's my library vs his Flipped Erayo.  I have a DSC (which I almost switched out for an Inkwell), but he has Maze of Ith.  He's sitting at 1 due to colossus beats, and confidant flips (bob soaked up that lethal final point of damage before he found Maze).  I get Gorilla Shaman, which is going to be lethal, but he finds Factory.  He lands Umezawa's Jitte, equips it on factory, and sends him on a suicide mission.  My Shaman dies, and he gains the life to let him Vampiric Tutor for the win.  I should have made sure I had an instant to burn into Erayo to keep my Mana Drain useful.  I really thought I was going to win this game, and I still feel that scooping would have been the wrong play.  The game did go forever though, so there would be no way of making it to G3 and we'd have to play very quickly for a G2 win. 

Game 2 I manage to win before time is called in the 7 minutes we had via Tezzeret making an army of 5/5's

Round 4 Matt Orphanello Mirror Match

Game 1 Matt blows me out with a turn 1 DSC that I can't quite answer in time

Game 2 &3 I manage to assemble the combo and Thoughtseize/REBs are way too efficient.  I draw very well, and make the best use I can of the cards. 

Round 5 Heather Carpentier Tezzeret with Welders - similar to what I was playing before my current list.  Heather is still learning the deck, so having a chance to win the whole thing after 5 rounds is a great accomplishment.  At this point, the final standings are very complex:

Only Bill and I can hit 13 points with a final round win.
If we both lose, then 4 different players have a chance at 12 points. 

I decide to root for Barry and do my best to win my match up to keep things simple

Game 1 I get to face a turn one TinkerColossus.  Seems good.  I drop Lotus, Gorilla Shaman and Thirst for Knowledge.  I dig and dig, to try and fight back.  I eat 11 to the face.  I'm able to Time Walk.  Then I can Yawgmoth's Will, replay Lotus, and Time Walk.  The whole thing ends with me getting a Darksteel Colossus myself.  She gets a Goblin Welder, but I have Echoing Truth to bounce the DSC's in response.  I eventually land Library, and pull away.  Thoughtseize keeps her from doing anything broken, but my life gets really low.  I keep her Voltaic Key on the board, as I'm terribly low on life, and even take a point of mana burn down to 2 to make sure I can have a mana sink if I drain something on her turn.  I eventually get Relic of Progenitus, which allows me to drop my Time Vault and keep it safe from her Goblin Welder.  Tezzeret then joins it for the win.

Game 2 We have very little time left, so my first priority is not losing this game.  My opening hand has Thoughtseize and FoW, along with a good mix of mana and spells.  It's the perfect hand for this situation.  I've got Drain, and Tez, and it really looks like she has REB.  I figure she doesn't have anything gamebreaking, or she would have played it.  I run out Tez to draw the REB, so when she passes back my Drain will have a chance of actually resolving on one of her threats.  We hit time after a bit, and I'm in favorable board position.  In turns, I let a Tutor resolve thinking she's drawing dead to turns.  I'm correct and the best she can do is take the rest of the turns.  Winning the match 1-0-1

[nataz]

There are a lot of downsides for decklists for our Monday Night Vintage event. 

1)  Time.  People are already making a commitment to support the format and the community by attending.  Forcing extra time out of them, as well as the delays it could cause as people make last minute changes are both downsides.  These events are a laidback, fun but competitive testing ground with excellent prize support.  Decklists would be a tedious addition and take a great deal of fun out of it as we'd be spending more time on paperwork, and less on playing and discussing things like Austrian Economics      

2) Trying crazy new things.  Every wacky idea that gets tested isn't worth discussing online.  I thought Pearled Unicorn was a great answer to Goblin Piledriver - no need for that to make it onto the interweb where everyone can tell me it was a bad idea.  For people who get out there and play every week, the test is how the ideas perform.  We get a huge volume of games in real tournament setting to separate good ideas from bad.  There's no need to discuss ideas that don't work in tournament play, unless the player wants to put the idea forward and ask the community to get the idea over the hump themselves. 

3) Surprise factor.  When a player does hit a legitimate breakthrough, they should have the chance to unveil it at a Mox tournament for a huge payday.  If the word is leaked on a weekly basis, it deprives the people who are taking risks from their ability to really cash in on new ideas.  Scholar's is the ultimate way to test new ideas, as it's a friendly group and a great cross section of decks and playstyles.  It's infinitely more useful to get in rounds during a real tournament setting, than to goldfish, MWS or sit around and play the same person.  We want to keep the incentive for players to innovate.  On the flip side, once a player decides what to play as we approach larger events, there's no need for the whole world to know the exact details of a persons fine-tuned list. 

!!!

1) It's not like you have to do deck checks, but simply collecting lists doesn't seem that hard.
2) Just because something is posted online doesn't mean it has to be discussed ad infin.

Still, I could abide by the first two points, but the third

3) Surprise factor.  When a player does hit a legitimate breakthrough, they should have the chance to unveil it at a Waterbury or a SCGP9 for a huge payday.  If the word is leaked on a monthly basis, it deprives the people who are taking risks from their ability to really cash in on new ideas.

That kind of thinking is a slippery slope. With that logic, why not withold decklists at myriad or any of the other monthly events so that tec can be kept secret until a larger more profitable event like waterbury. If Jer or Jeff brings some kind of new concoction to NH this weekend, should they and Dan be expected to withhold their decklist?

I understand the wish for secrets, but honestly if you play your deck in a public event, don't you waive that right? If the 16 other people can see your deck, or even play matches against you deck, I'm of the opinion that you ceded your need for secrecy to the need for tournament testing.

Don't take this the wrong way. What you are doing in supporting local events is great, but the withholding of any decklist for any public event is counter productive to what you are trying to achieve in the long run. Less information out into the community is always going to be a loss in the long run. I won't insult you by breaking it down point by point, but to see you take a position against decklists is quite frankly disappointing.
 

[Phele]

Don't take this the wrong way. What you are doing in supporting local events is great, but the withholding of any decklist for any public event is counter productive to what you are trying to achieve in the long run. Less information out into the community is always going to be a loss in the long run. I won't insult you by breaking it down point by point, but to see you take a position against decklists is quite frankly disappointing.

qft

for people not knowing the participants and living far away, it is not really worthful to just know, which person came in on which place. This is probably very interesting for your local Vintage scene. But for people coming from let's say France, Italy or Germany it would be much more fruitful to connect at least some deck concepts (if you don't want to post complete lists) with these names. So there would be a reason to maybe get in contact with these guys, to interact about the concepts and develop them further. Isn't it that, what these forums are about? Anyway, thanks for your efforts and your nice report!

[Bill Copes]

Don't take this the wrong way. What you are doing in supporting local events is great, but the withholding of any decklist for any public event is counter productive to what you are trying to achieve in the long run. Less information out into the community is always going to be a loss in the long run. I won't insult you by breaking it down point by point, but to see you take a position against decklists is quite frankly disappointing.

People have the option to post their list here, if they choose.  ELD isn't keeping any secrets from anybody -- for these events, it's up to the player to choose whether or not to discuss their list publicly.

[FadeToBlack]

Game 1 I tell Barry I have a streak going of beating Dredge game 1. 

I remember you telling me that you thought I was playing with Tarmogoyfs at Pandeominum and then opened the game with a Relic against my Dredge deck. Your such a master 

[trigunshin]

My (Patrick/3rd place's) list is similar to what its been for a long time.  GUb running witnesses, goyfs, timevault and a bunch of other generic stuff.  The list I used to t8 in Cali is a little further down (Superstars Jan $1k); I've updated the deck to cut birds and run on Thirst / Gifts instead of Intuition / AK but the concept is the same.  It puts the fear of "basic forest" in people very well.

[marriedwithchildren]

I understand the time involved in getting decklists and posting them to the web.  I also understand trying to respect someones secret tech deck.  But It would be cool if you could like aske the T4 for decklists after the fact for us curious drainers! 

[sundering jerk]

Don't take this the wrong way. What you are doing in supporting local events is great, but the withholding of any decklist for any public event is counter productive to what you are trying to achieve in the long run. Less information out into the community is always going to be a loss in the long run. I won't insult you by breaking it down point by point, but to see you take a position against decklists is quite frankly disappointing.
 

Your attitude is disappointing!
 It's hard enough for everyone to get there on time with work or school ending at 5 and then having to drive an hour. But it would be just one more hassle for everyone and especially ELD. If you would like to come every Monday and volunteer your time to collect and type up deck lists, and wait till midnight to see who wins , then feel free and quit complaining. This is supposed to be a casual Monday it's not worth the typing.


We don't put in large amounts of work so that crybabys like you can benefit from my work collecting data on new ideas.


P.S. will you please post the deck list you plan to be playing at the TMD, I think it would be good for the community.

Verbal Warning for violation of Rule 2, Inflammatory Posting.  -DA

[slighguy]

If People want lists...Ill Post my list...

Barry Everson-2nd place.

// ICHORID //

Creatures -

4-Golgari Grave Troll
4-Golgari Thug
4-Stinkweed Imp
3-Ichorid
4-Narcomoeba
3-Fatestitcher
2-Cephalid Sage
1-Revielark ( TO FREAKIN GOOD)
1-Flame-Kin Zealot

Spells//

3-Dread Return
1-Ancestral Recall
4-BreakThrough
4-Cabal Therapy
4-Bridge From Below
1-Lions Eye Diamond
1-Black Lotus
1-Mox Sapphire
1-Lotus Petal

Land//

4-Bazaar Of Baghdad
4-City Of Brass
2-Gemstone Mine
4-Cephalid Coluseum


thats the main deck, and the sideboard hasnt changed in months.

4-chain of vapor
4-pithing needle
4-contagion
and 3 ancient tomb.....which is the only slot i would mess with...any ideas? LOL

well, thats my list...

[nataz]

Why tomb? I'm surprised you only have the 4 chains to deal with leyline. I've recently fallen in love with needle because of relic, but a lot of people still go for the lines in game 2 and only 4 chains does not seem like enough. So what about something like e-charm? You get leyline removal and a fatesticher effect all in one card.

[LotusHead]

We don't put in large amounts of work so that crybabys like you can benefit from my work collecting data on new ideas.


P.S. will you please post the deck list you plan to be playing at the TMD, I think it would be good for the community.

Verbal Warning for violation of Rule 2, Inflammatory Posting.  -DA

Many viewers of TMD like decklists.
If the tourney is worth reporting (and I strongly appreciate TMD for allowing small potatoes tourneys to be posted), it's worth reporting the top 4/top 8 decklists.

Sometimes it doesn't happen, because the TO or Judge or whoever doesn't care/forgets/something happens.  But many of these tournies are attended by someone who has a TMD account.

I'm not saying that requiring decklists is neccessary for a tourney nto be legit, just that taking 10 minutes to make decklists, and having someone post them is beneficial to the Vintage Community at large.

If decklists aren't required, I'm good. But lots of us Vintage Fans like even small decklists.

Posted by: trigunshin 
My (Patrick/3rd place's) list is similar to what its been for a long time.  GUb running witnesses, goyfs, timevault and a bunch of other generic stuff.  The list I used to t8 in Cali is a little further down (Superstars Jan $1k); I've updated the deck to cut birds and run on Thirst / Gifts instead of Intuition / AK but the concept is the same.  It puts the fear of "basic forest" in people very well.

Team Vacaville used to always have Sex.Dec proxied up for playtesting and fun. (something developed on MWS after the PTW version).
It always died to Chalice for 2, and unfortunatly, I have been playing Shops for a long long time and the deck never SEEMED viable, but shops are still relatively rare in our NorCal meta (less than 10%), but who wouldn't want to sleeve up Eternal Witnesses?

[ELD]

As to all the discussion on decklists, this event does not require them, so that really does settle the issue.  Feel free to ask anyone for decklists from anyone though, preferably via PM.  Several people who play at Scholar's are being introduced to TMD for the first time, and many would be happy to discuss their decks in a thread dedicated to it. 

[Nefarias]

As a fairly frequent player in these, I can say that if this tourney required lists it would definitely detract from the experience. As has been stated, many people are coming from work to these, with little time in between. My group often gets there right at 7:00 and just wants to play. Sometimes I haven't touched my deck since the last event and want to make a few last-minute changes to test. I'm really glad to see that Eric is sticking to his guns and not requiring lists despite the demand for them.

That said, if anyone requests my list, or if we frequently reach 17+ and I Top, I will gladly share my list, and I encourage others to do the same.

[MagicIsCardboardCrack]

My group often gets there right at 7:00 and just wants to play.

As driver of said group, I must say that this event would lose 5 people a week if we were required to write decklists and be there for 6:45pm. I for one leave work at 5p, then have to fight through Providence 95/195 traffic. After that I have to grab 4 other carpoolers in the Fall River area all between the time of about 5:45-6:15 (They all return home around the same time). THEN drive from Fall River to Bridgewater. And then on top of that, we all shove fast food down as fast as we can along the way, because we all JUST came from work and haven't eaten yet; and if we don't eat along the way we will not be able to leave and go eat, until the tournament is over around 11p-12a. :end rant:

[marriedwithchildren]

Most ALL of us understand the time thing.  But to ask your top 4 if they might be able to jot down their list to help track/discuss in the forums would be SWEET!  Since most of them are TMDer's maybe they'd help out track and discuss their progress.  like you said "We get a huge volume of games in real tournament setting to separate good ideas from bad."  Some of us don't have the time to come up with a new tech or playtest for hours just to determine that perfect combination of mana/card drawers/counterspells.  let alone have the oppertunity to test against a varried meta.  It would just be cool is all.  Anyone who is getting rude and almost demanding lists is out of line.  Having fun is the key, when it's no longer fun you'll lose people at the tourney and no-one would want that.  Good luck in all your future events!