Scholar's Weekly Vintage Results Thread

[TopSecret]

Nick has been working on his GW deck for a while now.

He played it at the TMD open...I'm pretty sure Steve posted his decklist.

Knight of the Reliquary is a serious beating

Thank you for pointing that out.

I just looked it up in the TMD Open results,
and it looks hell'a badass and uses Sylvan Safekeeper.
'Much respect.

[MagicIsCardboardCrack]

Micah is calling his deck Bomb's away or something to that effect

Bomberman, lol.

[HungryHungryHeifer]

A tournament report written by a girl who never wins. You know you are interested in reading!

Round 1. Chris Roberts - The Pimpest Storm
I play this match up so often that I can’t really help but not remember the nitty-gritty details of everything that goes on, so I’ll keep it simple.
Game 1 I had nothing going on. He manages to go off on his combo and kills me, of course.
Game 2 was slightly more memorable to me. I ended up using demonic tutor to get a thorn of amethyst in play. After a bit of gorilla shaman/trinket mage beat down and damage taking from things like grim tutor, Chris is at 11. I top deck tinker and use it to get darksteel since I am too awesome to play inkwell leviathan. Pass the turn. Chris tries to go off, but my thorn makes it challenging. Even after he played bargain he still could not get there, so he killed himself by drawing.
Now, since I am such a slow player, and Chris’s deck requires taking a lot of time to think, clearly we weren’t going to have enough time to play through game three. We shuffle ‘em up and both draw our 7 cards leaving them face-down on the table just as Eric calls time. We then were informed that since neither of us were active player at the time, there would be no 5 turns.
Round 1 draw.


Round 2. Robbie Connolly - Goblins
Here is the reason I decided to write this. I love this ridiculous story. Game 1 I was on the play and I was pretty content with my hand. First turn I play underground sea, mox, mox, lotus. Sac for blue, play trinket mage, get diving top, play it. Meanwhile Robbie and Nick V. are joking around, saying he is going to first turn lotus, goblin, null rod. In my head I tell myself “Psh, Robbie doesn’t play null rod, whatever.” We go to his turn, he draws, looks at Nick and they share a laugh. He plays a lotus. He plays goblin lackey. He plays null rod! WTF? Yeah, he top decked it. To add insult to injury, he wastes my underground sea. My next few draws looked like; mox, mox, mana crypt, tormod’s crypt. Goblin beat down clearly ensued.
Game 2. I mulled until I had a hand with vault, key, yawg will, tolarian academy, and I think mana drain. I knew it was bad to keep it since I had no land, but I was hoping I’d draw some, or at least some moxen so my academy wasn’t useless. Nope. I got nothing. I lose 0-2.

Round 3. Demonic Attorney - Tezzeret
I’ll sum up game 1+2 at the same time. I wasn’t really drawing anything too great, and whenever I did actually try to play something somewhat relevant, Chris had an answer to it. 0-2 again. He at least inspired me to post on here. That's enough of a win I guess.

Round 4. Bye

[MagicIsCardboardCrack]

...so I’ll keep it simple.
Game 1 I had nothing going on. He manages to go off on his combo and kills me, of course.

A little tooo generic, no? I mean getting off his combo could be anything from tez/key, tendrils, painter/grindstone, illusion/donate (lol)...etc, etc. Granted later you mention Grim Tutor/Bargain, so people could assume. I'm just saying maybe specify what combo, or put what your opponent is playing next to their name. This would also help later in your report when you mention how "[his] deck requires taking a lot of time to think" Just trying to improve your report skills, not that mine are great at all.

[HungryHungryHeifer]

put what your opponent is playing next to their name.

Fixed. Maybe next week I'll do better. As in, I will take notes in anticiption of trying to recall what happened. Oh, and also as in play better and win.

[ELD]

Rank    Name   Points
  1   Eric Dupuis    10
  2   Rich Shay    10
  3   Bill Rosa     9
  4   Scott Bluementhal     9
  5   Jesse Martin     7
  6   Katrina Brown     6
  7   Nick Vallas     6
  8   Matt Macauley     6
  9   Chris Roberts     6
 10   Andy Farias     4
 11   Robbie Connolley     3
 12   Heather Carpentier     3
 13   Micah Greenbaum     0

Thank you for everyone who showed.  See you all next week for our special Monday Night Vintage!

[HungryHungryHeifer]

See you all next week for our special Monday Night Vintage!

I have a new theory. This theory is that baking will bring me luck. I am bound to win next week since I will be making and bringing oatmeal cookies. (Maybe I just think everyone should let me win for making said cookies!) No. I would never want that. I do however want everyone who reads this thread to come and enjoy some baked goods! Even if I lose, I will still feel like a winner when I see the happiness on peoples' faces, induced by my cookies.

[ELD]

Thank you to everyone who made this such a success.  It's this kind of display of community that shows why New England is the best place in the world for Vintage!  19 players on a Monday Night, in the middle of finals week is amazing.  A special thanks to everyone who chipped in and brought food, especially my wife Megan, and Heather Carpentier who both baked several dozen cookies.  They were delicious!

The competition was unbelievably high - that Top 8 could stand with any I've ever seen.  Those Vintage Ranking points were all earned!

           Op-Match
Rank    Name    Points   Win%
  1   Demonic Attorney    12   62.6667
  2   Matt Macauley    12   58.6667
  3   Rich Shay    12   56.0000
  4   Eric Dupuis    12   50.6667
  5   Bill Copes    12   49.3333
  6   Stefan Elsworth     9   66.6667
  7   Scott Bluementhal     9   62.6667
  8   Brandon Jones     9   55.0000
  9   Jesse Martin     9   54.6667
 10   Bill Rosa     6   56.0000
 11   Heather Carpentier     6   54.6667
 12   Katrina Brown     6   53.3333
 13   Nick Vallas     6   48.0000
 14   Bob Seeley     6   41.3333
 15   Andy Farias     6   40.0000
 16   Marius van Zundert     3   75.0000
 17   Kenny W.     3   55.0000
 18   Micah Greenbaum     3   52.0833
 19   Robbie Connolley     0   77.7778

[MagicIsCardboardCrack]

Results?

[ELD]

Photo Gallery from A Very Special Monday Night Vintage is now up.  I'll get the results up from this past week ASAP. 



Matt Macauley doing a double take on his Gorilla Shaman - Wow! It actually does say "XX1 - Destroy target Rich Shay"

The picture is linked to the full gallery located at: http://www.perspectives-photography.com/Vintage/

[waywreth]

Photo Gallery from A Very Special Monday Night Vintage is now up.  I'll get the results up from this past week ASAP. 
Matt Macauley doing a double take on his Gorilla Shaman - Wow! It actually does say "XX1 - Destroy target Rich Shay"

HAHA!
We had a first turn counter war over the Shaman, with his hand consisting of Mox, Lotus, Seat of the Synod x2 and Voltaic Key.

[ELD]

           Op-Match
Rank    Name    Points   Win%
  1   Jesse Martin    10   56.2500
  2   Robbie Connolly    10   50.0000
  3   Rich Shay     9   54.1667
  4   Matt Macauley     6   58.3333
  5   Chris Roberts     6   52.0833
  6   Pat Broderick     6   47.9167
  7   Bill Rosa     6   41.6667
  8   Scott Bluementhal     3   66.6667
  9   Eric Dupuis     3   54.1667
 10   Heather Carpentier     0   60.4167

Standings for May 11th.  The school year ending took a bite out of attendance, but I'm looking forward to the bigger crowds of the summer starting soon. 

[HungryHungryHeifer]

Thanks for posting pictures Eric! (And giving me more affirmation that I definately need a haircut!)

Congratulations to Robby for doing so well this week. I, for once, am happy to have lost against him. He couldn't have gotten there without me!

[ELD]

       
Rank    Name   Points
  1   Rich Shay    10
  2   Eric Dupuis    10
  3   Jesse Martin     9
  4   Nick Rodrigues     9
  5   Heather Carpentier     7
  6   Chris Roberts     6
  7   Bill Copes     6
  8   Bill Rosa     6
  9   Jerry Vandehey     4
 10   Robbie Connolley     3
 11   Matt Macauley     3
 12   Andy Farias     3
 13   Brandon Jones     3

[waywreth]

And if anyone was interested in the metagame breakdown...

  1   Rich Shay    10            Tezzeret
  2   Eric Dupuis    10          Tezzeret
  3   Jesse Martin     9         Storm Combo
  4   Nick Rodrigues     9      Tezzeret

[HungryHungryHeifer]

I'm not going to lie; I'm a little sad that I placed higher with a goblin deck I picked up for the first time than I ever have with a deck I have actually practiced and trained with. It kind of makes me question what kind of deck I should be playing even more than I already had been.

[Demonic Attorney]

I'm not going to lie; I'm a little sad that I placed higher with a goblin deck I picked up for the first time than I ever have with a deck I have actually practiced and trained with. It kind of makes me question what kind of deck I should be playing even more than I already had been.

Heather,

As I'm sure you know, different Vintage decks can come with vastly different learning curves depending on their internal complexity.  A deck like TPS or Long is going to take much, much longer to learn and master than a deck like Goblins.  If I were to give myself only a little time to familiarize myself with a completely foreign deck concept before a tournament, I'd expect that I, like you, would perform better with a deck like Goblins than a deck like TPS.

That's not to say Goblins is a bad deck or that you're a bad player.  Not at all.  It's just the natural result of human limitations.  Decks with smaller learning curves are easier for people to learn quickly than decks with steeper learning curves.  The longer you stick with a complex deck like Tezzeret or TPS, the further up the curve you'll go and the better you'll do; it'll take longer to reach the point where you're in a position to consistently put up results, but eventually it should happen. 

On the other hand, aggro decks are, at least in my experience, easier to master quickly.  At the same time, when I played aggro decks, I reached the point where my results plateaued sooner than I did when playing, say, Tezzeret.  For me, part of the essence of doing well in Vintage is the ongoing process of mastering the complexities inherent in my deck to make sure I get the most out of it.  It's quick and (relatively) easy for me to do that with aggro; it takes longer for me to do with combo or control decks, but in my experience, the longer process ends up paying more dividends.  So my advice is that if you plan to stick with Vintage in the long-term (and I hope you do), then playing a more complicated deck will pay off in the end.

I post this here and not in a PM because I've heard similar remarks from other players, and wanted to share my thoughts with them, as well. 

[MagicIsCardboardCrack]

How'd we dooooo?

[ELD]

  1   Robbie Connolly - Goblins
  2   Rich Shay - Confidant Control
  3   Matt Macauley - Tezzeret
  4   Eric Dupuis - Tezzeret
  5   Nick Vallas - GW Aggro
  6   David Lawrence - Tezzeret
  7   Jesse Martin - TPS
  8   Pat Broderick - Tezzeret
  9   Jeff Posner - Dredge
 10   Chris Roberts - TPS
 11   Bill Rosa - Bill's Homebrew
 12   Heather Carpentier - TPS

[oneofchaos]

If goblins and elves keep top 8ing formats...

Elves vs goblins finals match please!?

[ELD]

Goblins is a legitimate contender in a field full of Tez and Fish.  It outclasses fishes creatures, owns the combat step, works around counters, and wrecks their manabase.  Tezzeret needs to combo out to beat them, and Null Rod is a serious issue when backed with a real clock.  In the finals, Rich's Dark Confidants were a completely ineffective draw engine vs Goblins.  The decks worst match in the field was TPS, and goblins does have enough disruptive elements to stand a chance.  Mana Denial can buy turns, and life loss makes comboing out with Bargain less likely.  When Goblins draws mana acceleration, it's far faster than people realize.  Earwig Squad is the least likely card to make an impact due to it's CC, but if it resolves, it can result in the W vs most top decks. 

GW Aggro is in a similar metagame position, but with a slower clock for more disruption.  Nick Vallas did just win the Mana Clash Picnic Edition, the deck can destroy Time Vault based strategies, as well as the storm decks.  Oddly enough, I believe Nick has a winning record vs Goblins on Mondays, I'd be interested to see what he has to say about that match up, as well as the fish match up.

On a separate note, we're very happy with the success Monday Night Vintage has had this past year.  We started reviving the scene last May, and we've got a strong community going.  This results thread even has the most replies out of any results thread on TMD!  I really encourage anyone who is interested to spread the word and be a part of it.  Really, the people who actually get good at Vintage are people who actually play Vintage.  The Mana Clash was dominated by the Scholar's crowd.  I can say that Scholar's has been the most important tournament series for more game. 

[islanderboi10]

I would enjoy seeing that Goblin Decklist.
It would be an interesting choice for todays metagame.

[waywreth]

Not sure if the Goblin deck pilot posts on the drain, so I'll respond.  I believe he uses a very close version of the deck that Ron White typically plays at Myriad.  Here's a link to the most recent version I saw - http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=37605.msg523348#msg523348

[ELD]

Results for June 8th:
   
Rank   Name
  1   Demonic Attorney
  2   Jesse Martin
  3   Scott Bluementhal
  4   Matt Macauley
  5   Roland Cheng
  6   Nick Vallas
  7   Heather Carpentier
  8   Eric Dupuis
  9   Robbie Connolly
 10   Chirs Roberts

Results for June 15th:
   
Rank   Name
  1   Eric Dupuis
  2   Chris Roberts
  3   Andy Farias
  4   Jesse Martin
  5   Matt Macauley
  6   Nick Vallas
  7   Stefan Elsworth
  8   Robbie Connolly
  9   Nick Marinelli
 10   Mox Mox
 11   Heather Carpentier

[MagicMan]

I wish I lived closer so I could play Monday Nights Argh!!!!!!!!!!

[MagicIsCardboardCrack]

10   Chirs Roberts

Now I know why I did so terrible last week! Clearly I was playing as Chirs Roberts! Silly me...I should just be myself! 

[HungryHungryHeifer]

10   Chirs Roberts

Now I know why I did so terrible last week! Clearly I was playing as Chirs Roberts! Silly me...I should just be myself! 

Always a good policy. Especially when the other option is playing as something that sounds like "curse." That absolutely can not be a good omen!

[ELD]

   
Rank   Name
  1   Jesse Martin - TPS
  2   Demonic Attorney - Tezzeret
  3   Eric Dupuis - Tezzeret
  4   Chris Roberts - Dredge
  5   Robbie Connolly - Goblins
  6   Andy Farias - UBAStax
  7   Scott Bluementhal - TPS
  8   Nick Vallas - GW Aggro
  9   Duncan Devlin - WUB Homebrew

[waywreth]

UbaStax... interesting to see that rear its ugly head again.  Congrats to Jessie for winning. 
I'll be back next week...

[Eastman]

Was this new rules/restrictions?  If the Tezz lists didn't have 4X TFK I am curious how they compensated