[Free Article] Vintage Year in Review, Part II

[forests failed you]

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/25463_Vintage-2012-Year-In-Review-July-December.html

Part two of the Vintage Year In Review is up on SCG.

[covetousrat]

Great read thanks.!!

[merfolkOTPT]

hey I am on there twice.  Hurray for playing weird things at TSOs.  Also, whether it was a small tournament or not that 2 card monte list top 4'd the Dec 30th TSO too.  I think it is real good if there are lots of shops decks in your area and not much blue.

As for the Naya Aggro list, that deck is actually really fun, in a making your opponent hate you kind of a way.  I actually beat the belcher player in the swiss of that tournament with that deck.  One thing I would recommend is actually playing 4 wastelands and not forgetting to sub out the tec edge that was a place holder (the new hawt tek).  Also the sideboard was thrown together on the spot and would probably need to be tweaked.

Anyhow, thanks for writing a nice account of the format, and here's me telling you that if I can win in vintage with 2/2s for 2 you can win in Vintage, and you should come to Ohio!

[Prospero]

Another great read.  Thanks, Brian.

[psyburat]

Ctrl-F, Shardless Agent, frowned.  I'm disappointed that Noble Fish was but a footnote in both articles.

[msg67183]

Thank you for including me in your article Brian.
In that tournament (Bloomsburg December), Rob actually went undefeated. I played against him in the Swiss as well as the finals, both game ones he played turn one Jace on the play, AND had Force plus blue card for my Revoker. Not to mention game one in the finals he mulliganed to 6, and game 2 I had turn 1 Lodestone and Chalice at 0, and still lost. So I found it funny that you said that people who lose to his deck can't get mad, I was a little flustered.
Anyway great article, keep up the good work, I enjoy these articles.

[forests failed you]

Thanks everybody for the kind words.

The year in review articles are by far the most difficult and time consuming to write of all the articles I work on during the year.  I think that for this year, instead of waiting until the end of the year to review I am going to do quarterly reviews to keep the project a little smaller.  With that being said, I noticed that several people had wanted me to mention specific things (for instance not including a Noble Fish list), which I should have done, but was overlooked in the process of undertaking such a large project.

So, with that being said:

If people want to message me here on TMD with links or ideas of stuff they would like to see mentioned, or believe will be not worthy at the end of the quarter, I would be happy to review these messages when I write future reviews.  This offer is doubly extended to the European Vintage community, as it is even more difficult for me to follow your metagame and keep track of your tournaments (since I don't personal know or talk to people who play in your events).

Thanks for reading.

Brian

[xouman]

Hi Brian,

I read all these articles you post on SCG, although I rarely post any feedback. I thank you for them, as I always enjoy the read. I just wanted to say that writing a full year review, or even shorter periods of time, seems hard and often is related to a single zone. There are decks that show true potential, as Martello, and get quite popular all around, but lots of decks show play in just some environments. BTW, there were here in spain 4 top's with kuldotha and without metalworker before Forino popularized it in the second half of the year: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/busqueda.php?token=Decks&tname=&nlow=0&nhigh=0&dlow=0&mlow=0&ylow=0&dhigh=0&mhigh=0&yhigh=0&player=&dname=&format=Vintage&aname=&main=kuldotha&nomain=metalwor&side=&noside=&strict=on.

And then it comes how any metagame reacts to top tiers. Lots of decks with mana disruption could derive into strong manabases, filled with lightnings against fish and mud, or trygons/claims. And then ichorid can raise and be dominator. But next month, if people play 8 dedicated slots to ichorid, joined with bad luck for dredgers, can be a disaster for them. Just examples.

So people must understand that not all succesful decks can appear in those yearly reviews, as noble fish. I enjoyed this global review, but it I write a particular article about the year summary in LCV, it would be quite different, because bomberman striked more in the first half of the year than in the second half, because we combined tournaments with 3 MUDs in the top8 and then 0, and 4 next time... Even with internet each metagame its a own world!

[PeAcH]

Great job Brian

We are really lucky you are taking so much time to perform this kind of time consuming analysis.
It´s not an easy task but really worth the time from a Community point of view. Thanks for that!

Regarding info coming from European Vintage community, I will be posting all info related to the LCV in Barcelona (Spain) as we will be heading to our 9th year with our 2013 edition I can PM once published just to let you know.

[Metman]

Good read as always. Like others have mentioned we appreciate the hard work you put into the project. I hope you are compensated, both financially and intrinsically, for your contributions to Magic, Vintage, and this community.

[vaughnbros]

I agree with all the above.  Great job on reviewing the format for the year.

[bax]

Nice coverage although it seems you forgot the second biggest Vintage tournament in the world after Annecy in your review.