https://www.eternalcentral.com/delving-into-vintage-unleashed/

Wrote up my notes and a brief tournament report for the first Vintage Unleashed event. It was small but powerful. Players have had a lot of fun exploring the format and I'm looking forward to working on more decks!

The first ever Vintage Unleashed event is being held online in the Team Serious Virtual realm. This is an open event, free to play, playtest cards allowed (or play on Cockatrice or MWS or whatever). Connections and player pairings are made through Discord.

Date: July 11, 2020
Time: Noon ET
Location: Team Serious Virtual Realm (Discord)
Entry: Free

Vintage Unleashed is a player-created Vintage format that opens the restricted list greatly, so there are more exciting cards and interactions. Complete rules and restricted list are available, and you can learn more about the format from Joe Dyer, Vintage 101 and Serious Vintage. Very fun format, still very open. I guarantee if you look at the restricted list and come up with the "best deck" you probably haven't.

Google signup form is here: https://forms.gle/F47cQiwfo9718fV26

For episode 47, Geoff Moes (@ThallidTosser on Twitter), Nat Moes (@GrandpaBelcher), and Josh Chapple (@joshchapple) talk with Jerry Yang. Jerry is a longtime Team Serious member and a big influence on many teammates’ love of fun Magic and incredible food. If you want credible, he also has multiple StarCityGames Power 9 Top 8 appearances to his name. But who are we kidding, you don’t listen to this podcast for credibility.

https://www.eternalcentral.com/serious-vintage-episode-47-introducing-ux-vintage-unleashed/

Here’s the timestamped table of contents for your listening ease and enjoyment:
00:42 – More Like ComBANion
11:42 – Now THIS Is Podracing: Vintage Unleashed
44:01 – Food & Drink: Staying Inside
1:08:21 – Outro
Total runtime – 1:09:06

If you want to skip right to the inaugural UX tournament information without listening, Vintage Unleashed is the format for the third tournament in the Team Serious Virtual Realm, July 11 at noon ET. I would love to have a great turnout for this inaugural event!

The signup sheet is here, including a link to the Discord and more complete rules for the format. As with our previous Virtual Realm events, we’ll have a Friday evening Pub Quiz leading up to the tournament on Saturday.

Honestly, if you think you have the killer deck for this format, please try it out against other decks from this format. There's more counterplay here than you might expect.

@babau said in Vintage 101: Vintage UNLEASHED!:

Flash + 4 g probe+ 4 street w.+ new mullingan= gg turn 1 ......80% covered (force w...misdirection..pact...veil)

It's funny because so many people respond to this idea with some deck they can't conceive of being beatable: Flash, Trini MUD, BDEV Delver, Tinker Combo, Channel Mirror etc. People have already been playing these decks, none of them is unbeatable.

This is a fun format where all the spells matter. It's exciting and engaging and there are plenty of decks to invent or reinvent. Don't knock it till you've tried it.

DM'd. The Discord and tournament are open. We're just not publishing the invite widely. All people have to do is ask.

The Team Serious Virtual Realm is planning on a U30 event in early July. This is an experimental format based on greatly raising the bar for restriction in Vintage.

If you remember the Mr. Burns Disease analogy from The Simpsons, it's like that. The current restricted list for U30 is below. If you're curious, the response to Lurrus's banning was to add Lion's Eye Diamond to the restricted list. Lurrus is legal as a four-of.

Ancestral Recall
Black Lotus
Demonic Consultation
Demonic Tutor
Imperial Seal
Lion's Eye Diamond
Mana Crypt
Mana Vault
Merchant Scroll
Mox Emerald
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Mox Ruby
Mox Sapphire
Mystical Tutor
Sol Ring
Time Walk
Timetwister
Tolarian Academy
Vampiric Tutor
Wheel of Fortune

Theory behind this is that it's tutors; the best, oldest fast mana; and unconditional, cheap draw-7s. This includes all of the P9, for tradition's sake.

So here's what's unrestricted:
Balance
Brainstorm
Chalice of the Void
Channel
Dig Through Time
Flash
Gitaxian Probe
Golgari Grave-Troll
Gush
Karn, the Great Creator
Library of Alexandria
Lodestone Golem
Lotus Petal
Memory Jar
Mental Misstep
Mind's Desire
Monastery Mentor
Mystic Forge
Narset, Parter of Veils
Necropotence
Ponder
Strip Mine
Thorn of Amethyst
Time Vault
Tinker
Treasure Cruise
Trinisphere
Windfall
Yawgmoth's Will

Do what you want. Vintage cannot be tamed.

Brass Man has suggested five-game matches.

For episode 46, Geoff Moes (@ThallidTosser on Twitter), Nat Moes (@GrandpaBelcher), and Josh Chapple (@joshchapple) talk with Rajah James (@rykerwilliams). Rajah is a Team Serious member and friend who organized the online Team Serious League and played in the recent Team Serious Invitational: Virtual Realm, so we’re talking to him about getting your Magic fix while dealing with physical distancing.

https://www.eternalcentral.com/serious-vintage-episode-46-vintage-in-the-time-of-coronavirus/

Here’s the timestamped table of contents for your listening ease and enjoyment:
01:17 – Team Serious Leagues
24:10 – Enter the Virtual Realm
37:47 – The Cat’s in the Vintage
55:28 – Food & Drink: MTG Pub Quiz
1:16:49 – Outro
Total runtime – 1:17:51

I forgot to post part two of this! These were a lot of fun, and they're relevant beyond Dave being a friend of ours. Listen if you have interest in Magic's early days.

For episode 45, Geoff Moes (@ThallidTosser on Twitter), Nat Moes (@GrandpaBelcher), and Josh Chapple (@joshchapple) continue their discussion David P. Baum, longtime owner of a card and comic book store in Northern Ohio. He doesn’t have a personal Twitter account, but (Pop! the store has one. And if you’d like to support the store through the coronavirus quarantine, Pop! opened an online storefront to help get them through.

https://www.eternalcentral.com/serious-vintage-episode-45-the-dave-files-part-2-enter-the-hero-zone/

Here’s the timestamped table of contents for your listening ease and enjoyment:
01:20 – The Dangers of Supply: Fallen Empires, Chronicles, and the Power 9
30:00 – Dave Opens His First Store
38:49 – “They Stole Your Cardboard?”
51:55 – Changes, Inertia, and Model Railroads
57:26 – Digressions About Success
Total runtime – 1:15:19

Greetings from the virtual realm! Since no one's allowed to interact in person, we decided to host a Team Serious Invitational online with (hopefully) similar amounts of fun, camaraderie, and drinking.

On Friday, to kick things off, I hosted MTG Pub Quiz covering Magic: The Gathering trivia of all kinds, including movies with Magic card titles, remembering 1993, and drinking with Team Serious. A fun time was had by all, and congratulations to jonhammack (Jon Hammack), gloriouswolfman (Kaleb Woodward), and angui_82 (Fernando Anguiano) for a commanding 62 to 50 to 49 to 47 victory. They started hot in the Magic category and even identified a random drink I pulled from Jaco's Twitter feed by name!

On Saturday, we opened the tournament. We had 24 players representing at least six countries, five rounds of Swiss, and a cut to top eight. Plenty of companions throughout the event, including seven in the knockout rounds, one deck alternating between two of them. It looked hairy as we had thought playing the entire tournament via webcam in Discord would work, but five minutes into the event Discord had other ideas. Players were quick to react and we soon had games proceeding in Discord DMs, over Zoom, and even through Cockatrice.

In the end, Zias won using Shops Vines and no companion. Thanks to everyone who played, especially those in different time zones, and congratulations to the finalists. Thanks especially to Brass Man for the inspiration, as well as for hosting and commenting from his stream. Thanks also to Jimmy McCarthy, Jerry Yang, Tyler Etters, and others for helping players figure out their webcam setups and other options.

If you want to watch the coverage, it's available on Twitch from Brass Man!

1. Zias (Greg Hughes) - Shops Vines
2 Wasteland
4 Serum Powder
1 Chalice of the Void
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Hollow One
4 Stonecoil Serpent
4 Ancient Tomb
1 Black Lotus
4 Walking Ballista
4 Vengevine
2 Petrified Field
4 Null Rod
4 Bridge from Below
1 Strip Mine
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Sphere of Resistance
2 Once Upon a Time
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob

Sideboard
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Wasteland
3 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Sphere of Resistance
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Crucible of Worlds
1 Petrified Field

2. gloriouswolfman (Kaleb Woodward) - Lurrus BUG Delver
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Flusterstorm
1 Brainstorm
1 Unearth
1 Ponder
1 Dead Weight
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Assassin's Trophy
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Spell Pierce
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Mental Misstep
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Force of Negation
2 Daze
2 Mishra's Bauble
2 Preordain
4 Force of Will
1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
2 Collector Ouphe
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Tarmogoyf
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Strip Mine
1 Bayou
2 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Wasteland
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island

Sideboard
2 Veil of Summer
1 Lurrus of the Dream-Den
1 Fatal Push
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Mindbreak Trap
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Yixlid Jailer
2 Force of Vigor
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Assassin's Trophy

3. sillysam71 (Sam Krohlow) - Lurrus Doomsday
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Lotus Petal
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
3 Doomsday
1 Timetwister
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Thassa's Oracle
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Ponder
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Brainstorm
1 Gush
4 Preordain
1 Night's Whisper
1 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mental Misstep
1 Flusterstorm
3 Force of Will
1 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Dark Petition
3 Duress
1 Collective Brutality
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands

Sideboard
1 Lurrus of the Dream-Den
1 Echoing Truth
2 Soul-Guide Lantern
2 Fatal Push
3 By Force
1 Mountain
3 Pyroblast
2 Ravenous Trap

4. cha1n5 (Kevin Cron) Lurrus Oracle Breach
2 Thassa's Oracle
1 Snapcaster Mage
2 Underworld Breach
2 Seal of Fire
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Soul-Guide Lantern
1 Reanimate
4 Preordain
1 Ponder
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Brainstorm
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Dig Through Time
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Gush
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Sudden Shock
4 Force of Will
1 Mental Misstep
3 Daze
1 Flusterstorm
2 Pyroblast
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Lotus Petal
3 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Underground Sea
4 Volcanic Island
2 Mystic Sanctuary

Sideboard
1 Lurrus of the Dream-Den
3 Tabernacle
2 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Karakas
2 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Shattering Spree
1 Flusterstorm

5. hothands (Steve McGrew) - Lurrus Paradoxical Sprite
1 Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
1 Snapcaster Mage
2 Sprite Dragon
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Time Walk
1 Force of Negation
4 Force of Will
1 Mental Misstep
4 Paradoxical Outcome
3 Pyroblast
2 Repeal
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
2 Mishra's Bauble
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Opal
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Sol Ring
2 Soul-Guide Lantern
3 Mystic Remora
1 Seal of Fire
1 Flooded Strand
1 Island
1 Karakas
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island

Sideboard
1 Lurrus of the Dream Den
3 Hurkyl's Recall
1 By Force
1 Flusterstorm
2 Mindbreak Trap
2 Seal of Cleansing
1 Swords to Plowshares
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Tormod's Crypt

6. lhc (Jimmy McCarthy) - Lutri & Lurrus Hanging Out
1 Fiery Islet
2 Flooded Strand
1 Mana Confluence
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Mystic Sanctuary
2 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Strip Mine
1 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Wasteland
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Assassin's Trophy
1 Black Lotus
1 Brainstorm
1 Collector Ouphe
1 Dack Fayden
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Dig Through Time
1 Fatal Push
1 Flusterstorm
1 Force of Negation
1 Force of Will
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Gush
1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 Kess, Dissident Mage
1 Kolaghan's Command
1 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Mental Misstep
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mindbreak Trap
1 Misdirection
1 Monastery Mentor
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Narset, Parter of Veils
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Oko, Thief of Crowns
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Tarmogoyf
1 Time Walk
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Wrenn and Six

Sideboard
1 Lurrus of the Dream-Den
1 Lutri, the Spellchaser
1 Ancient Grudge
1 By Force
1 Dead Weight
1 Execute
3 Force of Will
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Mishra's Bauble
1 Nature's Claim
1 Null Rod
2 Pyroblast

7. Lord Etters (Tyler Etters) - Lurrus Paradoxical Sprite
1 Flooded Strand
1 Island
1 Karakas
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island
1 Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
1 Snapcaster Mage
2 Sprite Dragon
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Force of Negation
4 Force of Will
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Mental Misstep
1 Merchant Scroll
4 Paradoxical Outcome
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
3 Pyroblast
2 Repeal
1 Time Walk
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
2 Mishra's Bauble
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Opal
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
3 Mystic Remora
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Seal of Fire
1 Sol Ring
2 Soul-Guide Lantern

Sideboard
1 Lurrus of the Dream-Den
1 By Force
1 Flusterstorm
3 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Mindbreak Trap
2 Seal of Cleansing
1 Swords to Plowshares
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Tormod's Crypt

8. osDan (Dan Ersch) - Oath of Everything
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Opal
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring
1 Time Vault
1 Voltaic Key
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Dig Through Time
1 Flusterstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Gush
1 Mental Misstep
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Echo of Eons
1 Gitaxian Probe
2 Preordain
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth's Will
4 Oath of Druids
1 Blightsteel Colossus
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Griselbrand
1 Muldrotha, the Gravetide
2 Dack Fayden
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Forbidden Orchard
1 Library of Alexandria
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island

Sideboard
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Bane of Progress
1 Blazing Archon
3 Nature's Claim
4 Ravenous Trap
2 Sorcerous Spyglass
2 Tormod's Crypt

We're looking at having other, more open, events in the future and will share them here and with friends.