Team SeriousWhere does your team's name come from?
Team Serious originates from a band of roving miscreant vintage players that would show up to tournaments around the globe and utterly dominate the dojo.
What is your current roster (list active and inactive members separately)? A quick bio of each would be awesome as well.
Inactive Dojo Dominators-
GarbageAggro- Visiting Yangtimes home country of Scottland.
Justin “Guhstin” Dewey- Currently working on prison tattoos.
Matt “Hazard” Hazard- Currently running black opp missions in the jungles of South America.
Bob “Hells Caretaker” Davis- He is like a personal trainer. Just helps in the testing sessions.
Juan “Juanmandingo” Rodriguez- Getting his masters in Herbology at college. Once 3 for 1’ed himself in a tourney and still made top 8.
Jeff “Kharniverous” Blystone- Once dominated MTGO for 17+ hours a day. He got burnt out, but periodically rears his Brain onto the tourney circuit. He currently pillages the high seas of Lake Erie on a cigarette boat.
Jason “Lawnboy” Paré- Currently on hiatus due to work scheduling conflicts. Will be back to dominate the dojo shortly.
Jeff “President Skroob” Moes- Innovator in the dredge archetype, now logges in more time on WoW that all of Team Serious testing time put together.
Active Dojo Dominators-
AggroGil- Was a Vintage Fish mastermind. He has recently given up on the archetype due to Fish’s “fair deck” factor and has succumbed to MonoRed Workshop Aggro.
Mike “Candy the Black” Gumble- Commonly called Candytime, he is known for decks in the Cleveland metropolitan area such as Candy Time Fish and Candy Time aggro. He recently tied the knot with his old lady and is in the process of creating the most advanced gaming bunker in all of Ohio.
C. “cjster” J.- Single handily introduced Sea Drakes to Vintage by smashing his way through a Vintage Q. at Mr. Nice Guys in Pittsburgh. His theory on mono blue runs deeper than the Mariana Trench. Being sponsored by Lexus, you’ll most likely see him cruising to vintage Q’s in his Lexus LFA.
GregW- Last tourney I participated in Greg blew me out of the water. His Vintage mastery is on the rise so be on the lookout for this smoking gun. Don’t let his smiles and fun demeanor fool you, its all pure cutthroat vintage tournament caliber player under there.
Randal ”Icy_Triskelion” Witherel- Avid collector of rare and priceless vintage alterations, Icy_Triskelion has proved that you can climb the ladder to the top by utilizing an anti-synergy strategy. Not only does it work, but it perplexes his vintage opponents to an unprecedented amount of confusion.
Jason “JACO” Jaco- The one and only BigballerShotCaller, JACO is held to the highest regard in the eyes of Vintages most elite player haters. He not only brings his baller ass status to the table, he also brings it to Chi-Towns most exclusive Clubs and V.I.P. rooms. He can make it rain faster than Al Bundy on a sunny day.
JR ”JR” Goldmenburghstein III- Able to smoke more cigarettes and drink more beer than any other MTG player on the Team, JR has revolutionized Bomberman, Urphid, and Dragon. JR also has the uncanny ability to run decks with absolutely no draw engine and still gain card advantage on his opponent.
Jimmy “LHC” McCarthy- The Lord of the Homer Cats, LHC is probably the most dangerous man in magic. I have seen him first hand demolish his opponents faster than a Rocket Powered Turbo Slug. He also has a natural affinity towards cats and uses them in everyday applications. He is also the only person I know that can speak fluently in Cat.
Nat “Lochinvar” Moes- The last human being on the planet to still play Belcher. Lochinvar revolutionized the Goblin Charbelcher archetype by cutting it down to just Green and Red. Lochinvar is also ranked #3 in the world at the game of Munchkin. He follows Stephen Hawking and Bobby Fischer.
Mike “M.Solymossy” Solymossy- Known to his closest friends as “The Salad”, Soly has dominated the vintage scene by using his gorilla like size to intimidate his way to top 8’s every where. His bane is Twaun007 who still to this day remains X-0 versus him.
Nam “Nartman99” Tran- The most conservative man in vintage, Nartman has dominated the Cleveland Vintage scene since its conception. His collection is filled with so many holo-foil cards that the foundation to his house had to be reinforced just to bare the weight. He has a natural affinity towards Bud Light which usually leads to a natural affinity to my couch. He is also the sole contributor and founder of TranStax.
Mark “Snoop Trogg” Trogdon- The most outside of the box thinker on the team, Snoop has been an avid participant in the Vintage tourney scene since before most of us were opening booster packs. Snoop, being a Margarita aficionado, has spared no expense in his quest to discover the greatest Margarita on the planet.
John ‘TK” Blystone- Long ago he was one of the most feared players on the type two scene, TK has now come to love Vintage. The TK stands for The King since John refuses to purchase anything that isn’t named brand or the most elite of its kind.
Valorale- New to the Serious crew, Valorales collection of alpha cards is so pristine that he actually got the BGS cases that hold his mtg cards BGS graded!
Jerry “Yangtime” Yang- Hailing from the Scottish country side, Yangtime has been perfecting his MTG skills through a rigorous training schedule of scotch and the most expensive meals money can buy. We usually end of our testing sessions by glasses filled 3 fingers high of Glenfiddich Rare Collection 1937 Whisky.
Significant accomplishments in deck building/contributions to the format?
We have revolutionized Mono-Black Braids, Eureka, and Show and Tell Decks.
What have you guys won lately? (don't count wins accumulated before that person joined the team) Amount of power/approximate dollar value of prizes won total or per person. We could divide the total by the number of members to see who has the highest wins per capita
I won a free 20 piece McNugget from the McDonald’s Monopoly game a day or two ago. As for everyone else I don’t really know.
EDIT: About 2 years ago Yangtime won my heart.
Testing procedure/schedule
I have gone through 2 kitchen tables due to the shear amount of card tapping that has occurred at my house. We will test constantly until a hole has been burned straight through the table. Only then, we allow ourselves to take a day off. After that it’s back to the meat grinder.
Things that work for you?
Holo-foil cards. They perform strictly better than non-foil cards and we have the statistics. We have also perfected our rolling techniques of different dice so we no longer die to Mana Crypt. Having a sleeved up copy of Yawgmoth’s Will in our back pocket’s has tested pretty strong too.
Things that didn't?
Choreographed dance entrances into tournaments. We tried this, but it cut heavily into out testing time. The other factor was the majority of us wanted to do it to Thriller, but Yangtime insisted we do some kind of tap dance routine instead. Rather than having the Team torn into two warring factions we decided to 86 the concept all together.
