A fun event for a first time showing. Hopefully there are more there in the future and more people make the trip.
How should we categorize the Jace Storm deck? Should it be considered a Drain Tendrils deck, and subtype Jace Storm, or should be it's own archetype?
I would say that at its core it's just a Drain Tendrils deck. The idea behind it was largely taken from the old decks played by Codi and the decks that placed well at Roanoke in 2007. A deck I think you and your team called "Scroll Control" IIRC. As with any deck it can have its "OMG look at this there's no way I can lose" draws or one of those balanced hands that seems like your playing fair then all the sudden it erupts.
IMO its a drain-long deck.
Drain-Long might be a viable "sub-type" for it as well, as with the rituals you can get a "TPS" style hand and just go nuts but more often it feels like your slow rolling people and assuming control until you decide its time to win. Which in turn might be why alot of people say that the deck is "slow and painstaking" and on paper looks like a hot mess to which I will freely admit.
Unfortunately I did not make the deck just tried to incorporate old strategies with new cards. So far the deck has performed above average with multiple guys that I test with piloting it
some in "small' (19-25 people) and some in "medium - large" (30-50+ people) events.
Alot of it comes down to whether or not we as a community will allow ourselves to continue to think outside of the box and progress the format and of course having a high familiarity with what your deck is capable of doing and when it's time to as the D3G guys would say "drop it in to third".
Beaver's the man.
The deck is not easy to play at all. Originally I was playing TPS where you exploded on your opponent with early game wins. This deck rarely has wins in the early rounds, but controls the match until it's ready to win on its own good time.
What nobody on these boards got to watch, is what I got to watch in game 3 of Beaver vs. Coval, where this deck played through the opponent resolving BARGAIN and still winning on the next turn by baiting the counters out of Coval's hand with it's own bargain, draining the force, and then using the drain mana to cast tinker into a key/vault win.
Sometimes it's not just the deck that wins, it's the pilot making the decisions.
This deck is awesome but takes a ton of practice to really get. Like Jer said, sometimes you're a TPS deck, lotus ritual demonic will tendrils, other times your hand is totally blue and full of counter/draw. Sometimes you have key vault.
Because of this, the deck NEVER gets old. I have not gotten bored with this deck yet, because every game is so unique while playing it.
All that being said, I'd like to thank Jer, Joe, Nate, Dom, Chris, and everyone else that beats me constantly in Scranton for helping me get to where I am in my Vintage career, as well as this 7th Place finish, while at the same time constantly reminding me how terrible I am at this game.
