@Megustalabanana First of all you are being extremely rude, and if I knew how I would report you. Second of all I think you are overlooking something extremely important to this discussion, and that is that you cannot have both PO and MD unrestricted at the same time, period. They are both storm cards, one with less potential but less set-up and the other with more potential but more set-up. When you combine the two you have a PO with no set-up chaining into a MD with no set-up either, probably making it the most busted card ever. Even if you do not hit a MD you will likely hit another PO, and then you can probably hit a MD. At his point even with only three artifacts, and assuming you have drawn no more from PO (likely statistically impossible) then your storm is already at least 8 and you have drawn at least 6 cards. I am not saying you are right or wrong, and I do not know enough to have an opinion on whether or not PO and/or MD should be unrestricted or restricted but I will say this:

1. Be respectful or no one will listen to you or take you seriously.
2. Think carefully about the consequences of each unrestriction and restriction before calling for them.

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/vintage-101-lucy-in-the-sky-with-moxen

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/vintage-101-guilds-guilds

I just wanted to share this here. I think it is great that we are getting more vintage content, and I am glad to have Vintage 101 back. Thank you @volrathxp.

I would love to see more streams that are not just Paradoxical Outcome. I think that it is great that it is getting so much attention but as a viewer when all the streamers I watch are playing PO it can get boring.

We had 9 awesome players show up today to duke it out. It was 5 rounds of swiss + top 4.
Top 4:

I had a lot of fun today, and I am sure others did to. We had some very powerful wizards come out to play today including the indomitable Cyrus Corman - Gill (@CyrusCG ), and the handsome Matt Sperling. As some of you may have noticed Alex Kibner's decklist does not have 60 cards in it and that is due to him making some decklist errors and I do not know the correct decklist. I can post pictures of all decklist if wanted but I already stayed up late enough doing this, so I will consider it tomorrow.

Below is the metagame breakdown:
2 Pitch Dredge (22%)

• My list

• Top 4 list

1 Ravager Shops (11%)
1 Azorius Eldrazi and Taxes (11%)
1 Jeskai Xerox (11%)
1 Esper PO Storm (11%)
1 Bant Sylvan PO (11%)
1 Sultai Midrange (11%)
1 Azorius Landstill (11%)

Hope we can have some more people come out next time! If you have any questions or I made a mistake let me know.

Hi, I am a kid in HS from the Bay Area who has been lurking here for awhile, and who loves vintage. I watch streams of people like the Atog Lord play on MTGO, the NA Vintage Championship and the Asian Vintage Championship (I just wanted to watch Survival).One thing that saddens me about vintage is that I may never be able to play paper vintage because of the enormous price that vintage decks carry. I was wondering if anybody on this forum plays at my LGS, Eudemonia in Berkeley. I know that they hold monthly vintage tournaments with 15 proxies allowed, and I was wondering if they could tell me if it is worth it to try to be a part of the paper scene in Berkeley. I have never really owned many mtg cards, as I am still quite young, but I am looking into maybe buying into some form of Miracles at the moment in Legacy, which I hope could help me kickstart my playing skill, and card collection so that one day I might be able to participate in a sanctioned vintage tournament. Please let me know what you guys think.

@Smmenen This is really cool. Thank you. This is a beautiful way of showing how restrictions and bannings tend to fix a format for awhile, before it is "solved" again and they have to ban something else. I think in the next few months, once RNA is released we will see if Vintage is really in a sweet spot or if it is just waiting to be solved. Another thing I am interested in is how the new player in the format, Survival will impact people's ability to "solve" the format, and if the MOCS and potential for Pro Tour will bring new grinders and players who will either help accelerate format diversification by bringing other cool new decks in, or may "solve" it once again, potentially leading to yet more restriction.

With TMD's recent redesign I have taken it upon myself to make a few basic primers or collections of information regarding certain archetypes. For Xerox there is a beautiful piece written by the one and only @The-Atog-Lord , also known as Rich Shay. While the thread that this definition is from is off topic, I thought it highly worthwhile to link it and to copy the relevant part. So without further ado here it is:
@The-Atog-Lord said in Turbo Xerox and Monastery Mentor:

"Turbo Xerox Across Formats
It was 20 years ago that Turbo Xerox theory was introduced to the Magic universe by Alan Comer. Turbo Xerox remains the most powerful approach to building Magic decks today. [...]

Turbo Xerox theory is, briefly, the construction of a manabase with a suite of cantrips. A traditional deck might use 36 spells and 24 land. A deck built around the principals of Turbo Xerox Theory might have 20 land, 28 regular low-cost spells, and 12 cantrips. Here, a cantrip is defined as an inexpensive spell that replaces itself, often with a bit of library manipulation. The idea is that replacing lands with cantrips allows for much greater control over draws as the game progresses. Fewer land means fewer dead draws as the game progresses. More than that, the deck-manipulation cantrips mean that each drawstep is much more valuable to the Turbo Xerox deck than the traditional deck. Turbo Xerox Theory enables decks to maximize each draw step, while minimizing variance each game.

Turbo Xerox decks can be observed wherever there are sufficient cantrips. Consider some of the best decks in Modern. The Grixis Shadow deck has Thought Scour, Serum Visions, Street Wraith, and just 19 land. The Modern Storm deck has 18 land, along with Manamorphose, Sleight of Hand, and Serum Visions. In both cases, these Modern decks minimize their land count and dedicated win conditions in order to make room for cantrips. Similarly, in Legacy, some of the most powerful and popular decks utilize Turbo Xerox Theory. The leading Legacy deck is Grixis Delver, featuring 18 land alongside full sets of Brainstorm, Ponder, and Gitaxian Probe. The Legacy Miracles deck, before being hit with a Top banning, had Brainstorm, Ponder, and Top. Even the Legacy Storm deck is a Turbo Xerox deck, with a fairly large number of cantrips. What we are seeing is that across large formats, Turbo Xerox Theory is the centerpiece of some of the most powerful decks."

Here is the link to the thread where I pulled that quote if anyone is interested.

@Smmenen Holy crap 10k words! I will have to block off an afternoon in my schedule to just sit down, read and enjoy this thing. You are a true inspiration and godsend to the vintage community. Thank you for everything you do!

@moorebrother1 I think that Vintage is not primarily a digital format. Yesterday in Berkeley we had multiple big names come out for Vintage for a grand total of 19 people! For us it was a lot, and I think there was and will continue to be a lot of enthusiasm and interest in the Vintage format in paper for as long as possible. While I agree that MTGO and paper Vintage have different meta's I think that people play what they want on both platforms. I think that the divergence in meta is a product of the target audience and primary users rather than a lack of innovation or whatnot.

On Sunday, April 14th, Eudo will be hosting an EW Trial where you can win a bye to EW!
On-site registration opens at 11 AM.
Registration at the door will be $30, save time and money by preregistering online.
Sanctioned -- No proxies allowed.
Competitive REL -- A decklist is required.
Swiss rounds with cut to Top 8.
100% prize payout in store credit.

http://www.eudogames.com/ewtapril/

One week from yesterday, I hope to see a good amount of people!

@Daniel-Worobec @ajfirecracker I have a lot to say about this because I have thought a lot about Dredge sideboards.

I have found that most Pitch Dredge decks use a creature to give your other creatures haste such as Flame-kin Zealot and Dragonlord Kolaghan. While both are effective they are neither blue nor green that can be exiled to Force of Will or Force of Vigor. I believe Maelstrom Wanderer is a good alternative to be added to Pitch Dredge that is both blue, green and can be exiled to cast Force of Will and Force of Vigor and should be added as the “Haste” creature.

I think this is a really good idea with some good reasoning behind. I think that the inclusion of "pro-active" cards like Force of Vigor, and creatures (duh). I think with the inclusion of Maelstrom Wanderer increases the value of Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis as it is a bigger payoff to Cascade into than most of our cards (being either small creatures or counter spells).

Sideboard option one:

4x Force of Vigor

4x Noxious Revival

3x Shambling Shell

I have done quite a bit of testing with Noxious Revival and I am pretty confident that in a "normal" Pitch Dredge shell you often want 2-3 but that 4 is to many. Also as @ajfirecracker said there is little to no value of playing Dredge cards in the SB.

I find that adding four Noxious Revival would be good candidates for being cards that you can exile to Force of Vigor. Noxious Revival is a good utility cards in Pitch Dredge decks allowing you to recover a Bazaar of Baghdad and getting a second Bazaar from your graveyard. Noxious Revival is also good at getting utility cards from your graveyard such as Force of Will, Force of Vigor or getting a Hollow One into your hand. Other applications include putting a card onto of your opponent’s deck that they may not want, saving a Bridge from Below from being exiled and putting a Narcomoeba on top of your library.

Yes! Noxious Revival is a very good card in my opinion for the Dredge SB and I think is a necessity in the current version as they are a lot weaker to waste effects than they have been in the past. As you can tell there are many, many uses to Noxious Revival and I have been very nicely impressed with it. My biggest complaint with it is that it is yet another source of card disadvantage in a deck with 8-12 pieces of card disadvantage which can lead to you being unable to fully capitalize on its power at times.

Sideboard option two:

4x Force of Vigor

4x Basking Rootwalla

3x Vengevine

Again, like @ajfirecracker said I do not think Vengevine has a spot in the SB of Dredge as it is weak to all of the same things that our other creatures are. Basking Rootwalla is a card that I really like and have thought about a lot in the past and I think can spawn a new type of SB for Dredge because of Force of Negation (I will expand on this later).

In my play testing I do find that getting the appropriate combinations of cards into your hand is inconsistent.

Ah, yes. The biggest advantage of Bazaar of Baghdad can also be its biggest weakness at times. This comes back to my point of not being able to fully capitalize on your powerful cards because you are so low on resources (ie you cannot resolve the cards you are digging for or you cannot dig as efficiently or quickly as you would like because you have so few cards in hand)> I have a few ideas on this later.

Sideboard option three:

4x Force of Vigor

4x Elvish Spirit Guide

2x Nature’s Claim

I like this and recognize that it is not a complete SB but you most likely need some answers to Containment Priest.

With the London Mulligan taking into effect soon, Pitch Dredge may not rely on Serum Powder as much and there may be decks that do not include Serum Powder.

I think this statement is very risky. If you look at the math you are roughly 97% to hit Bazaar without Serum Powder with the London Mulligan, yet with Serum Powder you are roughly 99%. Now assuming you lose every game where you do not have Bazaar of Baghdad in your opener and that you have a 50% win rate (when you have Bazaar in your opener) then the inclusion of Serum Powder boosts your overall expected win rate by roughly 1% (it is actually a bit more I think), and this number goes up the better player you are! So to cut Serum Powder you would have to find a set of 4 cards that boosts your win rate by more than roughly 1% for it to be worth it. Is that possible? Most likely. Have we found what cards yet? I am not convinced. Additionally Serum Powder increases the average number of cards in our opening hand which is also heavily correlated with winning the game for Dredge.

Notable creatures to put in Pitch Dredge to help support Force cards are Domia, Sage of Stone, Muldrotha, the Gravetide, Prophet of Kruphix and Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis.

I think Damia, Sage of Stone is a possibility as it allows us to have more cards in hand (more countermagic, resources), digging power, and speed but I think it may be win-more. If you could Dread Return a Damia is it better than Dread Returning an FKZ or DLK (most likely winning you the game on the spot)? As for Muldrotha, the Gravetide I think that you need to heavily tune your list for this to be playable as there is nothing we can play from the GY for value that we can not already, if you made a more land heavy list with Loams and such then it could be alright. Prophet of Kruphix seems really bad to me, not enough lands in the deck to use it, might as well DR a huge green creature. Hogaak seems worthwhile, not because he pitches (we want it to be blue and green for that) but rather because he seems viable post SB as he can be cast from GY through Priest and can be cast through Cage from hand for free.

4x Bazaar of Baghdad

4x Bridge from Below

4x Stinkweed Imp

4x Cabal Therapy

4x Hollow One

2x Ichorid

2x Dread Return

1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

4x Narcomoeba

4x Prized Amalgam

4x Force of Will

4x Mental Misstep

3x Force of Negation

1x Maelstrom Wanderer

4x Force of Vigor

4x Noxious Revival

4x Golgari Grave-Troll

3x Shambling Shell

This seems like a good starting 60, but I think you want to shave some Shambling Shells for an Ichorid and a Force of Negation

I am now going to provide a few 60s and 75s that I think have some theoretical merit and will explain why.

This is a pretty normal looking MD with some of the changes I suggested you make. I did not include the SB because I think it is one of the most complex and important decisions for Dredge.
For this version the SB needs to include between 2 or 3 of the following:

1. Answers to GY hate (an the means to execute it).
2. Another axis of attack.
3. Redundancy.

The Antihate SB
Now when you break into option #1 you have a few targets. You must be able to deal with the following effects/cards as efficiently as possible:
Spheres
Wasteland
Containment Priest
Grafdigger's Cage
Leyline of the Void
Countermagic
Tormod's Crypt
Pithing Needle
Yixlid Jailer*
Rest in Peace*
Now the ones with a * are rarer or lower quality concerns because they are either not very good (RiP) or not very popular (Yixlid Jailer).
Now most SB include very broad and efficient answer such as Nature's Claim or Chain of Vapor. Because Force of Vigor fits this role we may be able to more carefully curate our SB with more powerful or narrow cards to be able to beat certain specific cards or matchups. With this in mind I propose Survival all-star, pet card of mine, and a card I have been thinking about a lot and testing a bit, Squee, Goblin Nabob. Yes, you read that right. Squee. In a Dredge SB. Here is the thing though, in matchups or situations where you GY is not permanently exiled (which is a decent amount since only 2 of the above cards achieve this) he is insane. While you GY may be "locked down" or you are unable to get your normal value out of it, Squee operates on a different axis than our other value as nothing is put onto the battlefield or cast, getting around Priest, Cage and Countermagice. Additionally he solves one of the biggest issues I have mentioned with Pitch lists; low resources (not many cards in hand). With Squee operation you are not only able to dig much more efficiently but your hand size will increase by 1 every turn provided you are not doing anything else. This is very important if you are looking for something like a Hollow One and want to keep your Countermagic live or the where you want to find your land for your anti-hate spell. As promised here is a suggested rough draft antihate SB along with a note on what role each card serves:

1 Squee, Goblin Nabob (Utility)
2 Noxious Revival (Utility/Answer)
4 Gemstone Mine (Mana)
1 Mana Confluence (Mana)
1 Vengeful Pharaoh (Disruption/Answer)
3 Chain of Vapor (Answer)
3 Nature's Claim (Answer)

The Delver SB
This is my take on option #2 (for @ajfirecracker it used to be Marit Lage).

4 Squee (Utility)
3 Noxious Revival (Utility/Answer)
4 Basking Rootwalla (Transformation)
1 Strip Mine (Disruption)?
1 Wasteland (Disruption)?
2 Hogaak (with some MD)

So this SB is extremely theoretical so far but the new Forces + Hogaak allow you to have what I think is a sufficient critical mass of not only free creatures that do not rely directly rely on the GY but also Counters to "ride" these highly efficient creatures to victory. This strategy is somewhat similar to Delver decks in Legacy but taken to the extreme. @brianpk80 has been very vocal recently about how Hollow One allows Dredge to "transform" into a Delver deck and I think this SB is mean to capitalize on that idea to the max. The Strip Mine and Wastelands are there because I would imagine you need a few lands in the Shops matchup, because it furthers your disruption while again being on a different axis and because it could really help you in the mirror.

I wanted to also just throw a few decklists out there to get more ideas brewing and to think of how the 60 impacts and complements the final 15.

Please let me know your thoughts and suggestions. If I made any mistakes or did something dumb please let me know as I stayed up way to late trying to do this since I got excited. I have many more ideas on the subject and have discussed it a lot and cannot wait to begin testing on MODO soon (PS if anybody is looking to sell Dredge on MTGO for a nice price PM me).

Edit: Fixed some counting stuff cause I am tired and bad at math. Also realized none of these lists have any GY hate so that could be an issue in an open meta.

Just wanted to make sure that this article got some attention, it is written by Nico Bohny, a great Vintage player and streamer who goes by shir kahn on MODO and streams on twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/busterbohny.

https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/the-state-of-vintage-before-and-after-the-restrictions/

Great article written by Brian DeMars, long time Vintage player and lover, features other big names in the Vintage community along with some thoughts from people on Twitter.

https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/the-restrictions-are-just-a-first-step-toward-fixing-vintage/

@highsididy1 Yes, but I would image it would be pretty difficult to cast, as it is 4 mana with 2 different colors, which could make it too slow. On the other hand, Thalia 1.0 is only 1 color, 2 less mana, and also helps protect against Xerox and Combo. But I could be wrong, as I could image he could be good in a BUG survival shell with DRS.

@volrathxp The race is on.

@ChubbyRain I appreciate you asking, and I assume that you are talking about for streaming. With that in mind, I tend to enjoy watching every kind of deck, and I think that they all have their own intricacies that I feel I can appreciate as I watch someone figure them out. Now having recently bought into Pitch Dredge, I should probably try to spend some time watching some to help myself learn, but I understand how one might not want to play or watch it. The thing I was complaining about for streams is that despite having three pretty consistent vintage streamers, they all seem to play similar decks, and that can begin to feel repetitive. I understand that you guys are all practicing for EW and I respect that, but as a viewer anything goes as long as in my total intake their is variety.

@ChubbyRain and @fsecco I understand your feedback and appreciate it. Thank you.

@IamActuallyLvL1 I hope PO does not get restricted. I think we are seeing the beginning of the snowball affect of restrictions. I would much rather prefer that they unrestricted Chalice of the Void, as I believe that it would reign in PO, and entice more creative deck building by reducing Mental Misstep's dominance. Now this would probably make shops to powerful, so I would recommend restricting Walking Ballista, because I think that it is much more powerful than people believe. It really hurts all non-shops aggro, hatebear and prison strategies by stripping them of their creatures, being resistant to removal, presenting too much of a threat by itself, and having to much synergy with the shops deck in general, and especially with Arcbound Ravager. In my mind these restriction would welcome more diversity in the combo archetype by hindering PO, and more diversity in the hatebears/prison archetype by upping their effectiveness and reducing one of shops major advantages. Though this is my personal opinion and I have more thoughts on the B&R list, I am interested to hear anybody's thoughts on this.