Cards you are embarrassed to not have

[Meddling Mike]

I was at a local gaming store about a week ago. I had constructed Rich Shay's gush list from the Vintage Champs and was playing it against an opponent I was teaching how to play my gush deck. The locals who were not familiar with Vintage "ooh"ed and "aah"ed at real power and then I cast my preordain...that is to say another card that had the word "preordain" written in sharpie on it. One of the locals turned to me and said "You have power, forces, duals and all of that but you don't have a 15 cent common from M11?" my pimpness factor took a serious dive. I've gotta imagine there are some similar stories out there. What are you missing?

In addition to that:
-Just one Sensei's Divining Top, not sure how I managed to not pick of more of these, I drafted a ton of Champions of Kamigawa.
-No Doomsdays. I wasn't playing for either printing and have never played or built a Doomsday deck.

[Cruel Ultimatum]

I do not have a big collection, even to this day, however when I started playing vintage about a year and a half ago I had no cards. I was able to scrap together a tps deck through the help of Austin Pollack, the Gans, and Nick Detwilers power. At some point in the tournament, one of my opponents commented on how I had an alpha lotus next to a proxied polluted delta.

At a tournament not to long afterwards, I played in a philly open playing RnD tezz, and had Nicks power once again. I believe in Matt Elias's tournament report, he mentioned something along the lines of a beta jet next to a sensei's divining top written on a rize of eldrazi common.

[Bibendum]

Was playing with 4 Real shops all my power, full foiled deck with Dismember proxies

[mikekilljoy]

JP, I had like a dozen Dismemebers on me...

As for me, um, having a Intuition and Jace, but needing to borrow a Voltaic Key and Preordains.

[Prospero]

I was putting together MUD Marinara for the most recent Grudge Match - Alpha power, foil everything, when I realized that I didn't own four Mountains.  In fact, I owned zero Mountains.

[marcb]

I've done something similar and used duals to proxy basics.

[Twaun007]

I had to pick up quad lazer Preordains from Mark Trogdon two days before I left for the TMD Open 15. I don't even have Nihil Spellbombs, Mental Missteps, or other rando commons and uncommons from the new sets.

[TheWhiteDragon]

I'm embarrassed not to have 4 mishras workshops, 3 bazaar, 1 imperial seal...and that's it.  I don't own preordain as i never play it.  If I had a slot i wanted to use a preordain effect other than sensei top or ponder, I'd use portent.  That's a highly underrated card that is a quasi-ponder (but manipulatable with sensei top after shuffle yet before the draw) that can also hose your opponent's next draw or two while cantriping.

As far as card's I wish i had, i have them all...so...yeah.  One of the perks of owning every vintage playable in max quantities is a lack of embarrassment at proxies.

[Samite Healer]

This happens to me all the time.  Tons of expensive cards, uncut sheets, artwork....but virtually no commons or uncommons from the past 2 years.  I don't have any Mental Missteps, which I need to rectify shortly!

[honestabe]

You people need to draft.  Geez

[The Atog Lord]

I was putting together Legacy BUG control to play some games yesterday. I played some games with my Vintage deck, knowing that I had all of the deck sans Proxy. But in the Legacy BUG deck, I just couldn't find my Thoughtseizes anymore. These were probably lost at Gencon.

[Demonic Attorney]

I think it was at Waterbury VI that a crowd around my feature match pointed out the real Black Lotus in my graveyard, sitting beneath a proxied Eye of Nowhere.

[Diakonov]

Every so often a random draft will happen, and it won't be until after we've finished drafting that we realize nobody brought any basics.  A few weekends ago I had to use Eastman's stack of revised Raise Deads for Mountains.

[Prospero]

Every so often a random draft will happen, and it won't be until after we've finished drafting that we realize nobody brought any basics.  A few weekends ago I had to use Eastman's stack of revised Raise Deads for Mountains.

Please tell me that they were Revised Raise Deads that were autographed by Jeff Menges.

[Bill Copes]

I had to proxy Dark Confidants when they first came out.  I wasn't sure they were worth the 8 bucks a pop.  I think the embarrassing part is the deck they went in.

http://morphling.de/printview.php?c=500&d=8

[Norm4eva]

'Real' duals. 
Vindicates. 
Goyfs. 
A fourth Stoneforge Mystic. 
Preordains. 
Chain Lightnings
LEDs

[dangevin]

Definitely 4x Tarmogoyf, I sold these on the way up thinking it was ridiculous to get $25 a pop on a silly green creature. Now I refuse to repurchase them

[Smmenen]

I'm never embarrassed not to own cards.  That's what proxies are for

[Delha]

...an alpha lotus next to a proxied polluted delta.

This, exactly (though I at least didn't get called on it). I still don't have Deltas.

[Meddling Mike]

I'm never embarrassed not to own cards.  That's what proxies are for

It's more about this interesting juxtaposition in Vintage where you can have some of the most expensive cards in the game next to proxied commons from a set that's still in print. It's also an interesting exercise as the Vintage card pool is so big and spans the whole life of the game to see what cards people neglected to pick up/hang onto along the way or cards that they incorrectly evaluated at the time and didn't think were worth picking up.

[Royal Ass.]

I own lots of very expensive Type 1 and legacy staples.  People where I play know this because they watch my friend and I play Type 1 between Standard rounds for fun.  But I get shit for playing Janky Standard decks because I refuse to invest money in cards that will only be good in Standard.  So I basically play with cards that I get from trading stuff I pick up at release events and the occasional pack I open for kicks.  But I enjoy playing my quirky Type 2 decks because they are fun.  I only really build serious decks in Type 1 and Legacy because I don't mind investing in the cardboard.   That being said I will pick up Standard cards that I know will be good in eternal formats.  IE, I already have a playset of Snappers, that I miraculously traded a bunch of worthless cards I pulled in limited for.

[TheWhiteDragon]

I remember a time where I wanted to stabalize my manabase by adding basic lands, but didn't have any on hand.  So I had to sharpie-up 3 beta black lotuses for 3 islands.  After Lotus was restricted anyway, there was no point in having 4 since it's safe to say they'll never be unrestricted.

[honestabe]

I remember a time where I wanted to stabalize my manabase by adding basic lands, but didn't have any on hand.  So I had to sharpie-up 3 beta black lotuses for 3 islands.  After Lotus was restricted anyway, there was no point in having 4 since it's safe to say they'll never be unrestricted.

Makes more sense than most things I read here

[Diakonov]

Every so often a random draft will happen, and it won't be until after we've finished drafting that we realize nobody brought any basics.  A few weekends ago I had to use Eastman's stack of revised Raise Deads for Mountains.

Please tell me that they were Revised Raise Deads that were autographed by Jeff Menges.

Yes

[Prospero]

Every so often a random draft will happen, and it won't be until after we've finished drafting that we realize nobody brought any basics.  A few weekends ago I had to use Eastman's stack of revised Raise Deads for Mountains.

Please tell me that they were Revised Raise Deads that were autographed by Jeff Menges.

Yes

That's awesome.  Glad to see that he's putting his 9th place prize at Grudge Match II to good use.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

Every so often a random draft will happen, and it won't be until after we've finished drafting that we realize nobody brought any basics.

this happens to me all the time.

[Klep]

I keep getting embarrassed whenever a new common from Odyssey or Invasion block becomes important.  I have almost no cards from that period.

[Norm4eva]

I keep getting embarrassed whenever a new common from Odyssey or Invasion block becomes important.  I have almost no cards from that period.

I have a playset of Diligent Farmhands, they're a steal at $50

[Delha]

I keep getting embarrassed whenever a new common from Odyssey or Invasion block becomes important.  I have almost no cards from that period.

I have a playset of Diligent Farmhands, they're a steal at $50

Gogo MuscleBurst.dec!

[Will]

I own only 2 Spell Pierce and 0 Preordain currently.  Granted my 2 Spell Pierce are Japanese but still it doesn't complement my Power particularly nicely.  Oh well...