Vintage World Championships at GenCon Decklists

[forests failed you]

Brian seems to be the victim of a strong desire to play Legacy cards in a Vintage tournament.

Says the guy who played Standstill?  :p

As it turns out, playing with Legacy cards is not the solution to beating the modern Vintage metagame.  The new pillars are firmly in place and champs has shown up that the meta is actually shrinking toward a three headed monster and not expanding into a multiplicity of viable options.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Brian seems to be the victim of a strong desire to play Legacy cards in a Vintage tournament.

Says the guy who played Standstill?  :p

As it turns out, playing with Legacy cards is not the solution to beating the modern Vintage metagame.  The new pillars are firmly in place and champs has shown up that the meta is actually shrinking toward a three headed monster and not expanding into a multiplicity of viable options.

In all fairness, that's only because people suddenly play Dredge in proper proportion to its likelihood of winning.  It's usually drastically under-represented on account of being no fun to play.

[chrispikula]

Brian seems to be the victim of a strong desire to play Legacy cards in a Vintage tournament.

Says the guy who played Standstill?  :p

As it turns out, playing with Legacy cards is not the solution to beating the modern Vintage metagame.  The new pillars are firmly in place and champs has shown up that the meta is actually shrinking toward a three headed monster and not expanding into a multiplicity of viable options.

Yeah it is weird that Landstill is somewhat also doing the same thing (playing Legacy cards in Vintage), but that isn't how it feels to me. To me it feels like what I'm doing it not letting my opponent play his cards at all.  The reason I think Landstill and Stax (and dredge to a lesser extent) are the best decks in the format is because they are primarily about not letting your opponent resolve any meaningful spells at all.  

[heiner]

As it turns out, playing with Legacy cards is not the solution to beating the modern Vintage metagame.  The new pillars are firmly in place and champs has shown up that the meta is actually shrinking toward a three headed monster and not expanding into a multiplicity of viable options.

Almost, Kuldotha has 7 arms but only one head.

To be honest, I am not too surprised by these results, they resemble the strong performance of Dredge and Kuldotha MUD at the large European tournaments. The only fighting stance for control decks currently is brokeness, early combo and to pack the same amount of hate vs. stax as vs. dredge. This is fine because you don't need to board against combo/creatures and the like because stax is already taking care of them. Of course, as long as you're not so unlucky running into them in your first rounds.  While RUG sounds good in theory against MUD (creatures used to be good vs. stax after all) it is not because MUD is powering out 5/x creatures at a faster rate than RUG can play its delvers. If sth. goes wrong, Kuldotha is there to save the day. Leyline beeing the biggest problem for dredge? That was long ago. Dredge is now packing 4x Ingot Chewer into their MAIN deck..

[Adan]

To me it feels like what I'm doing it not letting my opponent play his cards at all.  The reason I think Landstill and Stax (and dredge to a lesser extent) are the best decks in the format is because they are primarily about not letting your opponent resolve any meaningful spells at all.  

This is not exactly right, the reason why MUD and Dredge are so successful is that they don't really interact. The rule of thumb for both of these decks was always: the more the opposing deck tries to interact with you, the better the matchup for you.
I know the first time I ever played against Dredge, I resolved Standstill only to witness myself getting absolutely slaughtered without knowing what was going on.
And that's the point: Both MUD and Dredge are both very linear decks - and usually so consistent in what they are supposed to do - that they usually don't care what you do. Their plan almost always works (except for mulligans into oblivion obviously which can happen to anyone with any deck)

As heiner said, brokeness (or rather "unfairness") is currently the only effective method for a deck to be successful. Drawing a bunch of cards probably is. Powering out a planeswalker is also. Turning vanilla creatures sideway... not so much.

[Grand Inquisitor]

To me it feels like what I'm doing it not letting my opponent play his cards at all.  The reason I think Landstill and Stax (and dredge to a lesser extent) are the best decks in the format is because they are primarily about not letting your opponent resolve any meaningful spells at all.

I think the first part of this is overstated.  Landstill's posture is that in a diverse metagame where attrition is king, the ability to play (effectively) zero win conditions lets you be entirely reactive.  Ie, against Landstill an opponent is playing plenty of spells (except when land denial takes over), it's just that the deck bottlenecks the opponent to only a few resolved spells that it can then snuff out with EE/JTMS.  Shops is much more faithful to the above description of opponents not even being able to play meaningful spells.  Dredge is orthogonal to most commonly MD cards and is a combo deck.

I think people are being hyperbolic, especially given how many other big events there have been this year where other strategies have placed.

solution to beating the modern Vintage metagame

I'd also argue that instances like GenCon bring people, more than usual, to try to drawn conclusive opinions about the format.  Landstill, Dredge, BobControl and Shops are all relatively easy decks to hate.  It's exactly because we have a diverse format that any one deck can't hate all of them.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Yeah it is weird that Landstill is somewhat also doing the same thing (playing Legacy cards in Vintage), but that isn't how it feels to me. To me it feels like what I'm doing it not letting my opponent play his cards at all.  The reason I think Landstill and Stax (and dredge to a lesser extent) are the best decks in the format is because they are primarily about not letting your opponent resolve any meaningful spells at all.  

Wow....it's like someone thought the exact thoughts I had at the same time

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=44429.msg609806#new

[Stalker007]

grats on the win marc and to all the others that made the 8....would love to play in one of these tornies even if i didnt make the top8.just to play against ppl like u guys would be fun.

[Twiedel]

Thanks for all the congrats - I can finally take some time and dropyou guys a few lines here... been running around at gencon and roadtripping since the tournament all days long

First I want to thank anybody I played on Friday. It was by far one of the best tournaments I ever played regarding my opponents - everyone was so kind, cool and quite relaxed even if they lost. I know so many "bad losers" and it's great everyone had a great time there.

As this is the Decklist Thread I want to make sure to not forget this one: I didn't care about blue decks at all when I made my decision on what to play. I was sure that MUD and Dredge would dominate the Champs, and I was pretty sure that a blue deck playing the right answers could beat both of those decks without really hard struggle. Of course, this list has a problem against decks like landstill, that are just waaaay better at playing blue vs blue, and the singular red elemental blast does nearly nothing to my percentage (altough it is nice) - but I was thinking something like: If I play vs blue decks, I'd be already loosing. I was banking on the top tables being nearly all dredge + shops, that killed every blue deck with less than 7 dredgehate and less than 8 shophate. Seems I got this one right

So anyway, I guess I must apologize, you won't see a tournament report out of me. When I was 5-0 I thought about starting to write my matches down after completion, but I figured my chances of winning were so minimal that none would care about it... and unfortunately, I have my no means the abilities like some Mr. Menendians that can recall a game play by play after hours I'm always just focussing on my next game, and - believe it or not - I didn't even know my 2nd round opponent when I IDed in Round 7 and knew I would top 8. So sorry guys, none of that from me.

The only thing I can offer will be a short interview [sorry for my bad english trying to improve] with Inside the Deck and a longer one with Kevin Cron which I think is going into a podcast that should be availbale soon. As Kevin was so smart to interview me right at 10 the next morning, I still knew at least SOME interesting decisions - but don't expect too much. And before I forget: Everything I stated is like my personal point of view (like on the American metagame, proxies, etc.) - don't take me too serious or as a representative of all European players - I'm just a regular Vintage player that had a hell of a time at GenCon.

Anyways, one last thing that is really important to me: a HUGE shoutout to wizards, I was so depressed that it would be a great deal shipping the Twister over to Germany (and by that I mean like 600 bucks) - and Pasttimes talked them into shipping it to my hometown for free! Thanks a lot on that, and thanks a lot to everyone I played and talked too - always a real pleasure to meet that many generous and nice people in a tournament. Hope to see all of you, if not more, next year!

Best regards from <fill in some location in america>,
Marc

[JACO]

JACO is my hero.

Well thank you, sir.

I am finishing the first batch of Vintage decklists, metagame breakdown, and photo report from the Vintage Prelim 10am, and they are scheduled to be autoposted tomorrow (Wednesday) morning at 10am CT on Eternal Central. Be on the lookout!

[LotusHead]

To all who posted tourney reports in this and other threads (and other sites): Thank you.

They have been some of the most awesome reports of competetive Vintage I've read, and really appreciate your input.

[JACO]

In case the guys following this thread didn't see elsewhere, I have posted the Vintage 10am Prelim decklists, metagame breakdown, and photo report here this morning:
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=44445.0

Tomorrow morning will be the Legacy Champs 2012 tournament winning report by Chris Bergeson (who won with Sneak & Show). Friday morning will be the Vintage Prelim 4pm decklists, metagame breakdown, and photo report. Saturday will be the Legacy Prelim 8pm decklists, metagame breakdown, etc. Monday morning will be the Legacy Champs Top 32 decklists, metagame breakdown, etc. I'm still waiting to get the full Vintage champs decklists to post the Top 32 and metagame breakdown, and I'm hoping it's soon.

[Saya]

I call Vault control decks w/dark confidant and snapcaster mage,like the 1st one, Invitational Tezzeret

[TheWhiteDragon]

As this is the Decklist Thread I want to make sure to not forget this one: I didn't care about blue decks at all when I made my decision on what to play. I was sure that MUD and Dredge would dominate the Champs, and I was pretty sure that a blue deck playing the right answers could beat both of those decks without really hard struggle. Of course, this list has a problem against decks like landstill, that are just waaaay better at playing blue vs blue, and the singular red elemental blast does nearly nothing to my percentage (altough it is nice) - but I was thinking something like: If I play vs blue decks, I'd be already loosing. I was banking on the top tables being nearly all dredge + shops, that killed every blue deck with less than 7 dredgehate and less than 8 shophate. Seems I got this one right

I love this.  This is my new approach to magic.  Shops, Dredge, anything else.  Seems to be a winning formula.

[JACO]

Holy Legacy Decklists Batman! GenCon Legacy Champs TOP32 DECKLISTS & FULL METAGAME BREAKDOWN now up on EC:
http://www.eternal-central.com/?p=3050

BAOM!

[ErtaiAdept]

Not sure if this is the appropriate venue for this question, but it seems fitting enough...

Does anyone know if there was any feature match video coverage of the Vintage Champs this year?  I'd love to see some gameplay.

[quicksilvervii]

Not sure if this is the appropriate venue for this question, but it seems fitting enough...

Does anyone know if there was any feature match video coverage of the Vintage Champs this year?  I'd love to see some gameplay.

Not this year, no.

[LotusHead]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RplmGdU7BZU

Smennen tweeted this link to a video about Vintage at Gencon!

[ErtaiAdept]

Not sure if this is the appropriate venue for this question, but it seems fitting enough...

Does anyone know if there was any feature match video coverage of the Vintage Champs this year?  I'd love to see some gameplay.

Not this year, no.

Bummer...