Vintage Championships Top 8 LIVE!

[Clariax]

Vintage Championships T8 will be starting in <1 hour, and streaming live at http://ggslive.com

[Lou]

Awesome! What a great idea. Kudos to whoever set this up.

[erictehfatz0r]

Top 8:

Mark Trogdon v Hiromichi Itou

Colin Wu v. John donovan

Jesse Spears v. Brian Demars

Deven Cucommun v. Brandon jones

[dawnstrider85]

how many stacks deck made top 8 trogdan playing stax i heard

[erictehfatz0r]

Trogdon is playing Stax, Demars is playing Steel City Vault, I have no idea on anyone else.

[LotusHead]

These live feeds are the awesome sauce.  eclipsing even my pics from NorCal.

Tough Breaks DeMars!

[AK44]

Thanks so much for the coverage! Sort of helps make up for the fact I couldn't be there.

[MagicIsCardboardCrack]

Top 4

Hiromichi Itou defeats Brandon Jones
Colin Wu defeat. Brian Demars

[MagicIsCardboardCrack]

Hiromichi Itou wins game 1

oops my bad wrong name

[erictehfatz0r]

Itou wins game 1 of the Finals, thanks to Ancestral and a MisD Ancestral.

[MagicIsCardboardCrack]

1-1

off a empty for 10 tokens and 1 copy getting drained leaving 8 tokens swinging.

[Smmenen]

Hiromichi Itou is the 2009 vintage champion!!!!

[MagicIsCardboardCrack]

Hiromichi Itou wins it!!

Off of tinker for leviathan with double force and misdirection backup from  yawgwill!

[LotusHead]

Outstanding coverage. A new high in Vintage reportage....

[Yare]

Great stream. Thanks for doing this, guys!

Congratulations to the new champion!

[DPCyric]

Itou wins game 1 of the Finals, thanks to Ancestral and a MisD Ancestral.

Totally an insane play Great finals! I am glad that I got to watch it, the coverage was excellent (save for that painful break before the final round)!

[nicofromtokyo]

Eroma! (=Hiromichi) did it!! He went to USA only for the Champs, as we went together on May in France for Bazaar of Moxen 3! So happy for him!!! 

[MagicIsCardboardCrack]

Holy Force of Wills Batman!!!

A little blurry cuz he just started to move, but that pic is of Pryoblast, 4 FoWs, MisD, and a Drain

[MAXGFY]

I believe the real story of the Vintage Championships was not the end result, but the quest to keep 5 color stacks on the map without one of the most powerful/most played cards in all of magic. (Black lotus) I observed a new vintage player by the name of Brandon Jones from MA team GFY. This was his second major vintage tourney (the first being a mox tourney in mass 12th place, and last nights vintage worlds prelim 10th place) he has ever played in. To make it to the top eight is one thing, but to be literally one card away from the finals and probably the championship is mind blowing. I feel that he is the up-in-coming vintage player. I had some time to talk to him to get some match results throughout the tourney along with his deck list after his very close semi-finals lost to the "2009 vintage champion." In this match there was everything. His match in the semis with the newly crowned champion was the match of the entire tourney. Brandon was literally a workshops away from being in the finals. A finals he would have won.

Here is his list:

NO LOTUS SHOPS

MAIN BOARD:

4 WORKSHOPS
4 GEMSTONE MINE
3 WASTELAND
2 CITY OF BRASS
1 STRIPMINE
1 BAZAAR
1 BARBARIAN RING
1 TOLARIAN ACADEMY

5 MOXEN
4 TANGLE WIRE
4 SPHERE OF RESISTANCE
3 CHALICE OF THE VOID
2 CRUCIBLE OF WORLDS
2 UBA MASK
1 TRINISPHERE
1 POWDER KEG
1 SMOKESTACK
1 LOTUS PETAL
1 SOL RING
1 MANA VAULT
1 MANA CRYPT
1 MEMORY JAR

2 ANCIENT GRUDGE
1 ANCESTRAL RECALL
1 DEMONIC TUTOR
1 VAMPIRIC TUTOR
1 CROP ROTATION
1 TINKER

4 GOBLIN WELDER
1 KARN SILVER GOLEM
1 SUNDERING TITAN
1 RAZORMANE MASTICORE
1 TRISKELION

SIDEBOARD:

4 LEYLINE OF THE VOID
2 PYROBLAST
2 ANCIENT GRUDGE
2 ENSNARING BRIDGE
1 RED ELEMENTAL BLAST
1 TORMODS CRYPT
1 TIME VAULT
1 VOLTAIC KEY
1 POWDER KEG


Ok, so lets think about this. He runs no lotus, 2 grudge main, 2 grudge board and vault/key in board. I have never seen that. Ever. I asked him how often he sided  in the vault/key and what matches he did because besides the lotus not being there, that jumped out at me. Brandon said, " Well, to be honest it's just not something you are expecting to see from shops. Against any sort of G/B aggro it is ridiculous. They have two outs. Null rod and oxidize. That's it. With the two ancient grudges in the main, the null rods mean nothing and if they waste the vault then who cares. You just lock them out with another piece they won't be able to deal with. For example, round three in game two I played against G/B and sided the combo in game 2. I went (second obviously) he played a land and said go for his first turn. I went mox + shops + vault + key = infinite turns? Then he oxidized it. So, after he played an irrelevent turn 2 I wasted his 1 land and dropped trinisphere. Good game. Two scoops. It is very good in the mirror of any form because they just can't deal with it. Except welder. Who you just kill. Razormane for the win? Exactly." So, the big question was why he wasn't running black lotus. His reply, "Well, I obviously don't have the money to go buying a lotus. I work a lot and have a lot of bills. I play a lot of type two now. Lucky for me one of my best friends has a huge collection and i pretty much borrow whatever whenever. However, after the outcome of today I'm not sure if I will ever put lotus in. I know it sounds crazy and/or "awful" but think of it like this. Turn one if you are playing countrol and i play shops lotus, what happens? Lotus gets countered. If i go shops, petal what happens? They let the petal go and then it's over. I bait with welder (they counter) and I drop lock piece. From there on in I just ride the wave controlling their lands and tapping them down with tangle wire. I have had possibly one time where I wished it was a lotus and it was in the prelims. I won that match anyway. So, at no point did i need it. Could it have helped? Possibly. Could it have ruined my day if i had it? Probably. If you are playing tezz and thinking, I would let the lotus resolve then you are a liar. Every time I've done it or seen it done it's happened. I've been testing this list back home with my team and I feel like I've worked very hard on it and I'm extremely happy with my results."   Between his arrogance, ego, listening to his Ipod (switching songs mid match thinking "I don't care what you play, I'm locking you out.") and just overall attitude he was definitly one of the most entertaining players I've seen in a long time. If you ever meet him, ask him about some of his matches. They are completely hilarious.

So, I believe Brandon has picked up where the N.Y.S.E left off after turning away all the disbelievers and putting STAX back on the map. The best two stax/shops lists to date in my opinion are NYSE & NO LOTUS 5C SHOPS. NYSE has been proven (if you read back to the article one of them posted) but if you give it time and see other players play Brandon's list then that could change very quickly)

Lastly, I asked him what he thought of the field at the 2009 vintage tourney here at Gencon and this is what he said: (This made my day.) "Fish sucks, bug fish sucks, brown stax sucks, dredge sucks, 7 card draw tezz sucks and W/G aggro sucks. Go back to the drawing board and stop saturating important events with that trash because you want to nuke tezz even more. Just because you think you can beat tezz, doesn't mean you're going to. Tezz won worlds and his list was questionable. Now imagine if an established player with a real tezz list played? You might as well just hand him your money. I don't like playing against Tezz every round but that's just how it is or was anyway. I hate hearing how W/G players say how they smash stacks/shops and then loose to them in the top 8. It's one thing to beat random scrubs round 1- 6 playing stax, but when you barely make it to the top 8 and proceed to loose miserably doesn't that tell you something? I've never lost to that deck. Just my opinion. What do i know right? This is my second vintage tourney. If ratings mattered in vintage, I'd be a 2000 after today. I know there are a lot of players that are going to read what you post and think very negative of me and that's fine. What do I know right? I top was in the top 4 at vintage championships. #1 SHOPS list at the vintage championship. Where were they? That would be at the bottom of the pairings list. Just play my list and win. No scrubs allowed."That's all i have for you all. I look forward to see his performance in Legacy and some side vintage events tomorrow. I'm telling you, look out for this guy. He means buisness. Try his list out. Best stax player I've ever seen and obviously he should be. He was the top stax player in the world championship. (If you weren't there to stay the best, you aren't the best for all of you who are thinking about who wasn't there.) Remember for all you blue players, if you let lotus petal resolve then you are probably going to get smashed and humilated. Does stax need lotus? I don't think so.

- Max Bennet.




 

[failtofind]

oh man
                                                                    NO LOTUS MUTHAFUCKIN SHOPS!!!!!
                                   this deck is hotter than Meghan fox on my dick!!!

                                                                          TIME VAULT KEY IN THE SIDEBOARD!!!?!!??!    TECHNOLOGY!!!    THE BEST COMBO IN VINTAGE ISN'T EVEN GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE MAINBOARD    RAZORMANE MASTICORE> EVERY OTHER DECK    period.
       
                       

[Maverrick77]

Brandon made T1 look so easy, I just might start playing it again. 

[Blitzbold]

Thanks for the great stream!

[MishraTron]

This actually happened:

Brandon Jones was playing against Ichorid, and his opponent casts Cabal Therapy and names...BLACK LOTUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And Brandon had Lotus Petal in his hand!!!

If that had been a Black Lotus, he probably would've lost right there, but since it was Lotus Petal he had just enough mana to lay down his threats and lock pieces and "smashed his opponent's skull in."

Black Lotus is so vulnerable. People will counter it. People will name it with their Cabal Therapies and Meddling Mages. People will take it from your hand with Duress and Thoughtseize. People will use their graveyard hate against it so that you can't Weld it back in. And it costs $700+ dollars (which will make people more likely to steal it from you)! Lotus Petal suffers from none of these problems. Stax already runs four Loti that they get to use every turn (Workshops). Why run a "fifth" that dies to so many things? Mishra's Workshop also has none of the problems listed above.

Lotus Petal FTW, GFY

[Prospero]

I believe the real story of the Vintage Championships was not the end result, but the quest to keep 5 color stacks on the map without one of the most powerful/most played cards in all of magic. (Black lotus) I observed a new vintage player by the name of Brandon Jones from MA team GFY. This was his second major vintage tourney (the first being a mox tourney in mass 12th place, and last nights vintage worlds prelim 10th place) he has ever played in. To make it to the top eight is one thing, but to be literally one card away from the finals and probably the championship is mind blowing. I feel that he is the up-in-coming vintage player. I had some time to talk to him to get some match results throughout the tourney along with his deck list after his very close semi-finals lost to the "2009 vintage champion." In this match there was everything. His match in the semis with the newly crowned champion was the match of the entire tourney. Brandon was literally a workshops away from being in the finals. A finals he would have won.

Here is his list:

NO LOTUS SHOPS

MAIN BOARD:

4 WORKSHOPS
4 GEMSTONE MINE
3 WASTELAND
2 CITY OF BRASS
1 STRIPMINE
1 BAZAAR
1 BARBARIAN RING
1 TOLARIAN ACADEMY

5 MOXEN
4 TANGLE WIRE
4 SPHERE OF RESISTANCE
3 CHALICE OF THE VOID
2 CRUCIBLE OF WORLDS
2 UBA MASK
1 TRINISPHERE
1 POWDER KEG
1 SMOKESTACK
1 LOTUS PETAL
1 SOL RING
1 MANA VAULT
1 MANA CRYPT
1 MEMORY JAR

2 ANCIENT GRUDGE
1 ANCESTRAL RECALL
1 DEMONIC TUTOR
1 VAMPIRIC TUTOR
1 CROP ROTATION
1 TINKER

4 GOBLIN WELDER
1 KARN SILVER GOLEM
1 SUNDERING TITAN
1 RAZORMANE MASTICORE
1 TRISKELION

SIDEBOARD:

4 LEYLINE OF THE VOID
2 PYROBLAST
2 ANCIENT GRUDGE
2 ENSNARING BRIDGE
1 RED ELEMENTAL BLAST
1 TORMODS CRYPT
1 TIME VAULT
1 VOLTAIC KEY
1 POWDER KEG


Ok, so lets think about this. He runs no lotus, 2 grudge main, 2 grudge board and vault/key in board. I have never seen that. Ever. I asked him how often he sided  in the vault/key and what matches he did because besides the lotus not being there, that jumped out at me. Brandon said, " Well, to be honest it's just not something you are expecting to see from shops. Against any sort of G/B aggro it is ridiculous. They have two outs. Null rod and oxidize. That's it. With the two ancient grudges in the main, the null rods mean nothing and if they waste the vault then who cares. You just lock them out with another piece they won't be able to deal with. For example, round three in game two I played against G/B and sided the combo in game 2. I went (second obviously) he played a land and said go for his first turn. I went mox + shops + vault + key = infinite turns? Then he oxidized it. So, after he played an irrelevent turn 2 I wasted his 1 land and dropped trinisphere. Good game. Two scoops. It is very good in the mirror of any form because they just can't deal with it. Except welder. Who you just kill. Razormane for the win? Exactly." So, the big question was why he wasn't running black lotus. His reply, "Well, I obviously don't have the money to go buying a lotus. I work a lot and have a lot of bills. I play a lot of type two now. Lucky for me one of my best friends has a huge collection and i pretty much borrow whatever whenever. However, after the outcome of today I'm not sure if I will ever put lotus in. I know it sounds crazy and/or "awful" but think of it like this. Turn one if you are playing countrol and i play shops lotus, what happens? Lotus gets countered. If i go shops, petal what happens? They let the petal go and then it's over. I bait with welder (they counter) and I drop lock piece. From there on in I just ride the wave controlling their lands and tapping them down with tangle wire. I have had possibly one time where I wished it was a lotus and it was in the prelims. I won that match anyway. So, at no point did i need it. Could it have helped? Possibly. Could it have ruined my day if i had it? Probably. If you are playing tezz and thinking, I would let the lotus resolve then you are a liar. Every time I've done it or seen it done it's happened. I've been testing this list back home with my team and I feel like I've worked very hard on it and I'm extremely happy with my results."   Between his arrogance, ego, listening to his Ipod (switching songs mid match thinking "I don't care what you play, I'm locking you out.") and just overall attitude he was definitly one of the most entertaining players I've seen in a long time. If you ever meet him, ask him about some of his matches. They are completely hilarious.

So, I believe Brandon has picked up where the N.Y.S.E left off after turning away all the disbelievers and putting STAX back on the map. The best two stax/shops lists to date in my opinion are NYSE & NO LOTUS 5C SHOPS. NYSE has been proven (if you read back to the article one of them posted) but if you give it time and see other players play Brandon's list then that could change very quickly)

Lastly, I asked him what he thought of the field at the 2009 vintage tourney here at Gencon and this is what he said: (This made my day.) "Fish sucks, bug fish sucks, brown stax sucks, dredge sucks, 7 card draw tezz sucks and W/G aggro sucks. Go back to the drawing board and stop saturating important events with that trash because you want to nuke tezz even more. Just because you think you can beat tezz, doesn't mean you're going to. Tezz won worlds and his list was questionable. Now imagine if an established player with a real tezz list played? You might as well just hand him your money. I don't like playing against Tezz every round but that's just how it is or was anyway. I hate hearing how W/G players say how they smash stacks/shops and then loose to them in the top 8. It's one thing to beat random scrubs round 1- 6 playing stax, but when you barely make it to the top 8 and proceed to loose miserably doesn't that tell you something? I've never lost to that deck. Just my opinion. What do i know right? This is my second vintage tourney. If ratings mattered in vintage, I'd be a 2000 after today. I know there are a lot of players that are going to read what you post and think very negative of me and that's fine. What do I know right? I top was in the top 4 at vintage championships. #1 SHOPS list at the vintage championship. Where were they? That would be at the bottom of the pairings list. Just play my list and win. No scrubs allowed."That's all i have for you all. I look forward to see his performance in Legacy and some side vintage events tomorrow. I'm telling you, look out for this guy. He means buisness. Try his list out. Best stax player I've ever seen and obviously he should be. He was the top stax player in the world championship. (If you weren't there to stay the best, you aren't the best for all of you who are thinking about who wasn't there.) Remember for all you blue players, if you let lotus petal resolve then you are probably going to get smashed and humilated. Does stax need lotus? I don't think so.

- Max Bennet.

I'd like to speak with him sometime.  If he's going to ELD's tournament next weekend I'll see him there.  Tell him congrats on the finish.

[2nd_lawl]

"Fish sucks, bug fish sucks, brown stax sucks, dredge sucks, 7 card draw tezz sucks and W/G aggro sucks. Go back to the drawing board and stop saturating important events with that trash because you want to nuke tezz even more. Just because you think you can beat tezz, doesn't mean you're going to. Tezz won worlds and his list was questionable. Now imagine if an established player with a real tezz list played? You might as well just hand him your money. I don't like playing against Tezz every round but that's just how it is or was anyway. I hate hearing how W/G players say how they smash stacks/shops and then loose to them in the top 8. It's one thing to beat random scrubs round 1- 6 playing stax, but when you barely make it to the top 8 and proceed to loose miserably doesn't that tell you something? I've never lost to that deck. Just my opinion. What do i know right? This is my second vintage tourney. If ratings mattered in vintage, I'd be a 2000 after today. I know there are a lot of players that are going to read what you post and think very negative of me and that's fine. What do I know right? I top was in the top 4 at vintage championships. #1 SHOPS list at the vintage championship. Where were they? That would be at the bottom of the pairings list. Just play my list and win. No scrubs allowed."

I strongly Agree with this. Alot of the fish decks "designed" to beat tez who's pilots are claiming(or implying) very high MW%(against tez or both tez and shops) look great on paper, but somehow Tez seems to win tournament after tournament regardless.  The fact is if you arent playing force of will or some other way to interact on the draw your match win percentage has an upper bound vs a deck like tez or even shops, for when they go t1 workshop trinisphere, turn 2 smokestack.  If your deck doesn't have FOW or a way to "draw broken" on its own, you better be prepared to chop 5-10% off what your win % in "real" games is.  The best way to beat shops is still just to play a ton of basic lands or FOW, and Its a lesson the 3 color hate decks are not learning.  When you allow your null rod deck to branch into a 3rd color, you are basically turning on wastelock as a win condition for Stax instead of just striplock.  And stax WILL draw wasteland.

[Juggernaut GO]

This has potential to be the most epic thread that TMD has ever seen.


I'll come up with something really good when I wake up tomorrow, if this thread is even still here.

Edit: OH that mishratron, always up to shenanigans....

[zeus-online]

So....any chance of seeing the decklists?

[Cole]

Hey, this is Colin. I had a great time playing in this event and I'm sure I'll post a mini report sometime next week.  That finals match was a blast although I got blown out  .  You guys probably saw, I scrolled for recall game 1 with force backup and he had ancestral in hand with misdirection and force back up. fml.  game 2 we both had slow hands and my little green men got there.  Game 3 I kept a suspect opening hand but it had lands, drain, walk, and someway to deal with bob.  I figured as long as I win the bob battle I would be safe but he led with t1 library and just vastly outdrew me.  That last play was brutal, he pretty said "f you dtuor, i'm taking home this painting!"  Thanks again and it was a pleasure meeting everyone.

[nicofromtokyo]

Eroma's blog 

http://eroma.diarynote.jp/200908151959028426/

[ELD]

Congrats Brandon.  Glad to see Monday Night Vintage was able to help prep you for Worlds.  All things considered, I'm pretty sure the deck would be better with Lotus, but I'm glad to see you finish so high. 

I'd like to speak with him sometime.  If he's going to ELD's tournament next weekend I'll see him there.  Tell him congrats on the finish.

Well, the tournament is for a Lotus, but I think Brandon might come anyways