[Free Article] The Guide To Vintage’s Landscape – Attacking The Red Zone

[Womba]

Part 2!! Enjoy!


http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/23257_The_Guide_To_Vintages_Landscape_Attacking_The_Red_Zone.html

[Commandant]

Not gonna lie - wasn't a big fan of your first articles but you are starting to win me over via content and excellent meme photos.

[PeAcH]

Nice article Mark!

It´s a really good project you are starting here: Taking care of approaching the format to non Vintage players through the series of archetypes as well as providing nice and useful information to Vintage aficionados and hardcore players alike

Keep it up!

 

[Troy_Costisick]

Really good article, Mark.  Are you saving Dark Times for the Dark Ritual article?

Peace,

-Troy

[Justin]

This article is so full of win, and is exactly what Vintage-curious players need to see. There are so many misconceptions about the format & your work will go a long way to dispel them. I keep 8 decks in my Vintage Rook case & most people wouldn't believe there are even 8 decks to play lol. As a player since 1995, THANK YOU!

[DubDub]

The article keeps crashing my browser.  Looking forward to reading once I've overcome the technical difficulties.

Edit: Smartphone to the rescue.  Article was awesome, as expected!

[Womba]

Thanks for the kind words guys...

Really good article, Mark.  Are you saving Dark Times for the Dark Ritual article?

Peace,

-Troy

I actually plan to talk about it when I go over the combo decks that don't play Tendrils, Oath, Etc. I wanted the Ritual decks to be all storm based Tendrils decks for the most part.

[Stormanimagus]

Hey Mark, nice article and thanks for the shout-out to my list (I was unaware that the best Vintage minds considered Fish a "deck" JK) though I have updated it recently to cut the Green Sun Zenith for a 2nd Predator MD. The tutor effect is nice, but too often just less relevant than overwhelming your opponent in threats/CA. Tutors have never been good for Fish and even though this card almost breaks the rules of a normal "tutor" it still doesn't quite make the cut in my view because it makes selkie a turn 3 play instead of a turn 2 play. I'd rather just run more Selkie than this guy. Also, I changed the trap and flusters in the sb to be just Spell Pierce. Spell Pierce is much better than flustestrorm in Fish I think because you really need to be able to counter game ending cards like Lotus, Jace, or Oath. You can also counter Standstill with pierce and that is also not irrelevant. Perhaps Pierce should even be MD over Sabotage, but I like having a MD answer to BSC personally that also trumps Shop decks. I also would go to 4 Surgical and 3 Rav Trap rather than the other way around.

Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for giving Fish it's fair due.

-Storm

[disrupting specter]

I understand that you will be highlighting all different archtypes but Fish deck may not be the deck new comers should start with. It may not be an archtype that should be highlighted so early in the series so non-Vintage players don't get frustrated with it. Fish decks at worst do not have overtly powerful cards or at best, the wins are hard fought and very skill intensive. Fish decks are highly metagamed and seek to exploit weaknesses in Vintage decks. You need to know Vintage pretty well in order to make the correct card choices and play decisions. I would not recommend Fish to new players. Maybe this could have been noted in the article.

On the other hand, I can see why you picked Fish next after the Gush article. People complained that the Gush article gave the impression that Vintage decks are only made of tutors, restricted cards and cards that can be argued to be restricted. Fish is such a change up from 80% of Gush decks that it really demonstrates that Vintage does have diversity. Fish decks also are attractive because they can be cheaper to build (not fully Powered, less likely to have Jace, 2 or less types of duals). Some Legacy players will already have much of what is needed, which is not true of many Vintage decks. Fish can appeal to players who like aggro control in other formats such as Caws, Stoneforge, RUG, Illusions, Bant, Faeries, Next/Previous Level Blue, etc. I guess maybe it can be for non-Vintage players if skills from such decks is applicable. (I have no experience with them)

P.S. I really liked Dan Sollazzo's teched out Noble Fish. Scavenging Ooze (and Ahs), Tajuru Preserver, Edric, Coastal Piracy, oh my!

[quicksilvervii]

Good article, Mark.  Maybe we can get people to see that there is more to vintage than Black Lotus GG.

I think it's funny to see how oblivious some people are to the format just from the comments (especially the people thinking that the 'joke' deck names are the real names of the decks).

[mikekilljoy]

Good stuff Mark.

[disrupting specter]

Rereading my post, I realize that my signature refers to decks that are or were invalid in Vintage. It is the flavor text from Auriok Transfixer. I started using it when I began to mourn the loss of five different mono colored aggro decks, 5 color control, mono colored control and decks that killed with Fireball in Vintage. The current Vintage format is very deep and interesting to me, even if I can't bring back the days of cheap and dumb (Jackal Pup vs. Kird Ape+Land Grant) decks. Maybe its time to change my signature.


(This excessively sentimental and nostalgic  post is brought to by Stolichnaya Vodka)