For those who have purchased this book in the past, what updates or issues do you wish to see addressed in future versions? What else would you like to read, or thought could use more detail (or was not addressed)? Feel free to post here or email me at jaco@eternalcentral.com, as I'm always looking for feedback. I will update this at some point, I just don't know when with the other stuff that's on the calendar that needs to be finished beforehand.
It also has to do with your manabase in Jeskai. Specifically, against Wasteland decks, what is your secondary, and what is your tertiary color? Often times you don't want to be fetching red mana if your secondary color is white, per se. There are small intricacies and tradeoffs, aside from the instant vs. sorcery speed and 1 vs. 2 mana.
@stuart said in Vintage door prizes?:
Cheers @cup and @JACO . I’ve gotten signed cards a few times (EC Old School and the Goyfvitational) and loved them, so that could be good. Was getting an EC-stamp made difficult?
No, you can basically just go online and look up custom stamps and have one made online, and have it to your door within 2-3 weeks or so.
As @cup noted above, what we have done in Chicagoland is have everybody sign a bunch of cheap tournament staples (all under $1-2 each) before the tournment, and then draft them in reverse order of finish after the tournament (so last place drafts first). I donated the entire pool of these for the 18 person event above, and another 32 person event (TSI) and it cost me about $25 total, and people seem to love those cards, and a reminder of an event they had fun with friends at. Things like Ingot Chewer, Stinkweed Imp, and Foundry Inspector are about $.25 each, while Brainstorm, Ponder, Mind's Desire, and more are all about a buck or less each. There are many ways to go with this, but we started doing that for Old School a few years ago, and it is a great affordable mechanism for community building, which is more personal than something like sleeves or packs. If you have more people donating playable black bordered cards in to an ongoing local pool that's even better.
@t1darkrit said in 11/19/17 - Indianapolis - Monthly unlimited proxy vintage @Game Time:
Great to hear, sorry I missed it. As to the names - should 2-Card Muddy be 2 Card Monte? That's the name of the Workshop based combo deck that plays Helm of Obedience/Leyline of the Void along with Painter's Servant/Grindstone.
2Card Muddy is a 2CM variant that eschews most or all of the colored mana and the rainbow mana base. The Muddy variant will often play stuff like Kuldotha Forgemaster, or now the Mirror combo card with Dark Depths. There are different ways to build it.
Week 9 was a fun watch. Technically my latest list was the one I emailed you last month:
That's a bit off of what I'd play today, but I think it's pretty important to have at least 2 basics main. Both mine and Tom's list from the challenge had 2 basics, and not having 2 definitely cost you in the M1G2 last night against Dave. Not being able to fetch another basic to play through Wasteland + Thorn left you in a pretty rough spot (unable to cast Ponder and/or Ancestral without problem). Still, I was excited to see you play Rector in VSL, especially in light of what was supposed to be the "Brewer's Challenge" be pretty uninspiring outside of yours and a couple other decks. Rector Omniscience has been one of my favorite decks the past few years, and is still the most fun Vintage deck I've played since TNT. I also enjoyed you playing Ad Nauseam Tendrils, which was a throwback to the ANT lists of 2008/2009. Very nice, and different from what the other players were doing.
@chubbyrain said in Article: Vintage Champs 2017 and the State of Vintage:
This is missing the entire point. Running 5-7 "dead cards" (Missteps/Flusters/Pyros) is a constraint the current metagame.Yes players can opt to run Oath to beat Shops, but you cannot cut those "dead cards" and expect of have prolonged success in the Vintage metagame. At least not in Blue. My entire argument has nothing to do with beating Shops and everything to do with why cutting Missteps/Flusters/Pyros is not feasible in the current metagame. It would be the same argument if Dredge was dominating at a small share of the metagame.
Not to beat this point in to the ground, but I don't agree that a necessity to run 5-7 "dead cards" is a constraint of the current metagame for blue decks. Here is a blue deck that Tom played to a 5-0 finish in a Vintage Challenge last month that plays 1 Misstep, 1 Flusterstorm, and...that's it. Robert Greene's Grixis Thieves list from 2015 Vintage Champs Top 8 ran 0 Misstep, 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Pyroblast, and...that's it. Sure it's preferred a lot of time if you're adopting the control or aggro-control stance and you load up on those, but let's not pretend there aren't other things that can be played to successful finishes, and that it's strictly necessary to play all of those to do well.
@diophan said in Article: Vintage Champs 2017 and the State of Vintage:
When I test for Champs, I do a ton of playtesting. Most of my testing goes into swapping around cards that improve one matchup at the expense of another. I played as few as 2 missteps, balance, ancient grudges in the main, and a huge variety of creatures. When I test I keep track of my winrate against various archetypes and look at my prediction for the expected metagame.
The deck I played at Champs had 4 missteps and 0 grudges in the maindeck. The reason was that I could not consistently beat delver, which both had a high metagame representation online and I expected to be well represented at Champs. Sitting on the pulpit and telling blue players how they should be building decks strikes me as assuming that the deck that one arrives at was without proper testing.
In my 10 rounds at Champs I played 1 dredge, 1 shops, 1 mono red deck, and 7 blue decks. Perhaps a more expected result would be 2 shops decks, but I can't understand how anyone thinks I am going to improve my 8-2 record (losing to dredge with 8 sideboard cards and mono red) by cutting missteps and switching my abrade for an ancient grudge in the maindeck.
Definitely, and I do the same. If you are rewarded with those choices by going X-0 against blue decks that was a good choice in that regard. There are conscientious decisions that go in to every card decision in that case. The issue is, I'm more willing to to play cards that are not aces against blue decks, but nines through queens, if they have value against everything else as well, rather than just drawing a textless card against Workshop decks, for example. In my case for most blue decks that meant trimming to 2-3 Missteps and ditching everything else in favor of cards like Thoughtseize and/or Mana Drain, which actually do something. That's the tradeoff of all deck building. But tons of other people unwilling to do so will continue to allow Workshop decks to flourish, and that's fine with me if that's their prerogative. The point is if people are unwilling to accede even an inch in their blue matchups, Workshops decks should not be punished just because they are also building to exploit the same metagame. This is precisely why the constant calls for restriction are so asinine.
@chubbyrain said in Article: Vintage Champs 2017 and the State of Vintage:
@jaco Most people netdeck based on what does well, so if you could make a Blue deck that eschewed main deck Mental Missteps and Pyroblasts and was winning tournaments, you would see people play that. It hasn't happened in 2+ years. Look at the Oath decks that did well - they are running 5 of your dead cards against Shops. Aldridge ran 6. It doesn't work. Believe it or not, I've tried it. I've tried cutting Missteps and Pyroblasts from noncombo Blue decks. My results were terrible. Not definitive, but I would like some of these people saying "Blue mages need to cut these cards" to actually practice what they preach.
As far as people desiring a 90%+ Blue metagame, this is a strawman. People want a balanced metagame where Shops is not consistently outperforming the rest of the field. Let me be clear: I agree with your conclusions that we need to give the metagame more time following the most recent restrictions. That acting based on the results of a Champs Top 8 without considering other data would be errant. However, I am tired of these bullshit arguments. You are undermining your position and failing to persuade people that would otherwise be inclined to your position. For example, the DCI...
Oath is historically great against Workshop strategies, and that has proven to be part of the allure of it, even if it may be inconsistent from time to time. Most of the Oath decks that did well in the trial and Champs have heavily adjusted to account for Workshops. Sure they may still play 2-4 Missteps and a Flusterstorm or REB. But they have totally changed their creature selection and many were running multiple Ancient Grudges main, and some had like 3 Grudge + 3 Energy Flux + other stuff after sideboard (Fehling for example had 2 Grudge, 1 Repeal, 1 Slice and Dice, and 2 Dack main, and had 7 more cards out of the sideboard). They have chosen to play a strategy that wastes no time, and is naturally advantaged against Workshops. On top of that, they have supplemented this with a lot of very effective countertactics (not simply a few one for one hate cards). Aldridge's main deck config was not as great in the matchup, but he could bring in 9 additional cards for the matchup out of his sideboard, and also had access to the Key-Vault plan.
If Workshop is restricted there will be little incentive to play anything other than blue decks that play the most powerful cards. I'm not sure how you consider that more "balanced." If there are fewer natural or designed predators to the most powerful strategies/cards, there will just be more of those decks being played. That is not a strawman - that is the reality of how powerful those cards are compared to nearly everything else in the Vintage. Dredge will certainly be a presence, as will the occasional hatebears deck. You can say it's bullshit, but it is pretty foolhardy to think otherwise, and ignores the history of the format.
@chubbyrain I'm not sure why you would think that. I think most of them are poor deck builders and metagamers though, or are unwilling to adapt. Perhaps what they've been try to do for the past year will work if WotC restricts Workshops and they achieve their desired 90+% blue metagame.