Random Questions

[Minkar]

Hello all, just had a couple of questions regarding literally playing Vintage in person, and a tactical question about counterspells. Not sure if this is the correct place, but it seemed to be the most accurate place based on the descriptions.


I've only ever played Vintage online on Magic Workstation. How does it work when you play in a tournament setting with regards to switching phases? Do you have to announce upkeep, draw, main, attack, end every single turn? Is there any shortcuts? When i play on MWS, you just go to the phase you want, and if the other person wants to play something before switching phases they'll just say "Wait!". i remember watching a video of a Vintage match, BUG vs workshops. The shops player had an active Tanglewire in play, and the Bug player untaps and says "draw?" without tapping for Tangle and the shops player says okay. The BUG player draws and then the shops player realizes he didnt tap for Tangle, but apparently the new rules its on the player who owns the trigger to announce them, and he received a warning for not maintaining proper gamestate, or something along those lines. So is it standard to announce every single phase for every single turn, or did he just do that to avoid tapping to the wire?

Another unrelated question: When youre in a large counter war, is there any reason to target the original spell instead of one of their counters? For instance:

Player 1: Ancestral Recall
Player 2: Mental Misstep targeting Recall
Player 1: Counterspell targeting Mental Misstep
Player 2: Mana drain

Is there any tactical advantage (in general) to choosing to Mana Drain the Recall over the Counterspell, or vice versa? I think i tend to counter the original spell when im playing but ive thought about it a lot and im not sure if its the correct play.

Thanks for your time!

[thecrav]

How does it work when you play in a tournament setting with regards to switching phases? Do you have to announce upkeep, draw, main, attack, end every single turn?

I usually do but it really depends on the circumstances. I don't play MWS but on Cockatrice, I'll click through each phase so that they have the option to say something to stop me before I move to the next one.

<description of situation>
did he just do that to avoid tapping to the wire?

That's what it sounds like to me. I'll leave the discussion over the ethics of trying to get someone to miss a trigger up to someone else.

Another unrelated question: When youre in a large counter war, is there any reason to target the original spell instead of one of their counters?

On MTGO, I usually let the stack clear and counter the original spell if only to keep things simple. I'm sure there are arguments in both directions but I'd imagine that most of them are extreme corner cases.

[John Cox]

Another unrelated question: When youre in a large counter war, is there any reason to target the original spell instead of one of their counters? For instance:

Player 1: Ancestral Recall
Player 2: Mental Misstep targeting Recall
Player 1: Counterspell targeting Mental Misstep
Player 2: Mana drain

In the situation above you get more Mana Drain mana from countering the Counterspell. Letting the stack clear has its own benefits. If you were to cast a brainstorm or ancestral (or other instant) in response they could misdirect your counter onto your draw, or blow out your stack with Flusterstorm or Mindbreak Trap. What to do depends on the situation.
You may also find more ways to loose the counter war appear the bigger the stack is. Say Pyroblast is used, until that resolves Mental Misstep is live. For Drain, Spell Snare, etc.

[tribet]

Another unrelated question: When youre in a large counter war, is there any reason to target the original spell instead of one of their counters?

There is no general rule and it will always be different.

If you have Drain, threatening to target a Force of Will may be more juicy than an ACall.
If you have Misdirection in hand, you may counter their counter to bait them into over-expanding away from the ACall (they may end up mistepping their own ACall in response to your Misdi!).
Same thing, if you have Misdi, maybe you choose to exclude their ACall from your Mindbreak Trap.
If they have Snapcaster, Yawg's Will or Treasure Cruise, maybe you prefer to exile all with Mindbreak Trap.
If they have Snapcaster, maybe you don't want to give them a low CMC counter in the graveyard midway through the fight
With Flusterstorm, you often split the storm copies because if they let the one spell be countered, you may not want all the copies to fizzle and be wasted...
Then once you start mixing conditional counters such as: Misstep, Spell Snare, Spell Pierce, REB, Swan Song with your various removals: Nature's Claim, Bolt, STP, Dack Fayden, Repeal, Rav Trap... the scenarios are always infinite and interesting.

Unless you're ok to go with a "it depends" answer, I don't think giving you a rule#1 in Vintage is very helpful.

[Minkar]

Unless you're ok to go with a "it depends" answer, I don't think giving you a rule#1 in Vintage is very helpful.

I guess i should have worded my question better, but you answered it perfectly. Was just looking for some different scenarios so i could analyze the thought process for choosing which card to target. Thanks for the info!