[FREE Article] Interview with Hiromichi Itou, the 2009 Vintage Champion!

[Smmenen]

I interviewed Hiromichi Itou on his success at the Vintage Championship this year, how he sees the Vintage field, his matches, card choices, and much, much more!   Enjoy!

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/17915_So_Many_Insane_Plays_Interview_with_Hiromichi_Itou_the_2009_Vintage_Champion.html

Editor's blurb:

Monday, August 24th - While Japan has a well-deserved reputation at the top of the Magic Excellence tree, Vintage Magic is not a format with which they are generally associated. All that changed at the 2009 Vintage Championship, when Vintage Road Warrior Hiromichi Itou took home first prize! Today, Stephen Menendian interviews the new Vintage champion…

[LotusHead]

To supplement your thunder, not steal from it, MTG.com's GenCon wrap-up has a good bit about the Vintage Championships in it.
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/53

[Smmenen]

Thanks for the link

Yeah, I must be the only person to actually have interviewed Hiromichi!   

Wizards seems to have dropped the ball at Gencon this year. 

[pierce]

sweet shoutouts. glad my rants have not fallen on deaf ears. 

meddling mage worked very well for me at worlds to protect my null rods. So did Vendillion Clique.
that said, due to the diversity between pre and post board answers to null rod, I think Extract may be the nessecary evil for fishy decks. In addition, it helps solve the nearly unwinnable Oath matchup g1.

Green based beatz decks, by contrast, will have to sit with CCG open and try to sandbag krosan grip. Naturally, if this becomes a trend, the vault decks can either run Vendillion Cliques or Orims Chant.

The future remains uncertain. I'm happy to take it one tournament at a time.

[JACO]

Hiromichi took the extremely unusual step of running three dedicated bounce or removal spells for Null Rod. But more than that, he also ran Darkblast and Fire/ice maindeck!

In your article you write about the unusual amount of bounce and removal in Hiromichi's deck, but it really isn't unusual at all, except in America. Many decks in Europe, as well as most of my Tezzeret lists, have been playing 3-5 bounce spells, as well as Darkblast or Fire/Ice, and have been doing so for the better part of a year. All of the decks playing multiple Repeals really don't care about Null Rod, because they can just let it sit there while they counter important spells, and then draw into a Repeal and combo out.

[Smmenen]

Repeal decks are a different animal.  I know that lots of European lists have run 3-4 Repeals (I've called them European Control) for some time, but I see that as part of a general control engine rather than as dedicated bounce slots.   That is, running 3-4 Repeals is not the same thing as running 1 Chain of Vapor, 1 Hurkyl's Recall, 1 Rack and Ruin.  Repeal can storm out, help you dig, buy you tempo, etc.   Those other cards are dedicated to their function far more than Repeal, which is a cantrip, free in many cases.   

[JACO]

Repeal decks are a different animal.  I know that lots of European lists have run 3-4 Repeals (I've called them European Control) for some time, but I see that as part of a general control engine rather than as dedicated bounce slots.   That is, running 3-4 Repeals is not the same thing as running 1 Chain of Vapor, 1 Hurkyl's Recall, 1 Rack and Ruin.  Repeal can storm out, help you dig, buy you tempo, etc.   Those other cards are dedicated to their function far more than Repeal, which is a cantrip, free in many cases.

The thing is, many of those European decks (as well as mine) were playing 2-4 Repeals PLUS the standard 2 bounce spells (some combination of Hurkyl's Recall, Rebuild, Chain of Vapor, Echoing Truth). It's not like they were substituted straight up for them. Repeal can provide more utility main deck than things like Rack and Ruin, and I'd submit are much better at combating problematic permanents in general.

[the_lord_shaper]

The main deck creature removal can always be answered with Kira, the great glass spinner. Protecting null rod is a bit trickier though...

[nicofromtokyo]

I spent a lot of time translating Hiromichi's interview as I thought the article would be available to everyone, but actually it's not the case and I feel sorry for all the people who would like to know more about the Japanese Vintage scene and our new World Champion. FYI, you can find the original interview in japanese here (it's not Smmenen's article translation):

http://nicofromtokyo.diarynote.jp/200908281030326727/

[hyst]

Thanks Nico.

[Kotch]

Thanks a lot Nico, you made a great job here! 

[fury]

Thank you Nico for having freed the article to everyone.

[Deathknight]

A very good idea Nico, thank you for the whole community.
As a premium member, I don't really understand how an interview of a "public" figure (as new American Vintage Champion) of the Vintage scene could be premium.
A good move, that enables the whole community to discover a bit more about our Japanese friends and their metagame.

[Phoenix888]

Thank you, Nico.

[huguesparri]

Thanks Nico.
A pity your english is not as good as your japanese.
But I guess that's why premium members have to pay: to profit from smmenen super grammar corrector

[Smmenen]

This article is now free!  Enjoy!!!