@purple-hat Countering the Mox/Lotus follow-up is a line I hadn't considered. That definitely seems like it would tilt the scales in favor of not countering the Stormcaller. Good call. Depends on the counter you have available, of course.
@thewhitedragon69 said in [ZRN] Sea Gate Stormcaller:
@revengeanceful I think it just becomes a spell that gets countered whether you are bluffing or not
I guess we’ll have to wait and see!
@thewhitedragon69 said in [ZRN] Sea Gate Stormcaller:
@revengeanceful I dunno if that works so great because it is "this turn." If you play land, mox, stormcaster...pass, that's terrible. unless you are following up with lotus or sapphire, you're likely not casting anything the opponent cares about anyway in that same turn.
That is the scenario I was thinking. It’s clearly a risky scenario because if you don’t have Sapphire or Lotus to follow it up with it’s terrible as you pointed out, but you wouldn’t take that line unless you had the follow up...or would you? That’s the mind game I enjoy about it.
In addition to everything else that's been mentioned, I love the pressure this puts on your opponent if you lead on something like "Land, Mox, Stormcaller". Can they really afford to not counter it if they have one? Maybe you're bluffing, maybe you're not, but if you're not it's really just game over on the spot.
@vaughnbros You mean the "enters the battlefield with X +1/+1 counters" on Ballista, Walker, etc? That's not an ETB trigger, they just come in with those counters.
If you don't have Yet Another Aether Vortex in the stack, you absolutely should. Maybe active player controls the creature? We used to play Type 4 with this card always in play and it was a blast.
@brass-man said in The best format in Vintage history ...:
@revengeanceful said in The best format in Vintage history ...:
he was kind enough to sign my Memnarch after smashing me in the round 2 of that event that didn't count.
Oh my god, the phantom round two! What an insane event that was. I ran TPS and ended up in a t4 or t2 split. I won the advertised Black Lotus which it turned out was damaged heavily enough to be unplayable in a sleeve. I had a good time as well, but that will surely go down in history as one of the worst-run Vintage tournaments of all time. Perhaps second only to the Baldswinsville catastrophe. Someday I'll have to write that stuff down.
lol, yeah that event was a total disaster, but I had a great time anyway. Now I'm curious about the Baldwinsville catastrophe.
My personal favorite periods of Vintage history have very little to do with the format itself, and more to do with who I was able to spend time with. My most active participation in the Vintage community was from 2003-2006 period, and I'll always look back fondly at periods 50-54 and 58 in particular.
50 - The Age of Storm (aka Beginnings)
This was shortly after I arrived at college and realized that half of the people on my floor played Magic, and several of them were interested in getting into Vintage. We really bonded over playtesting janky decks, and one friend of mine who has since passed away even won a Mox Pearl in a local tournament piloting a hacked together version of Burning Tendrils - turns out you don't really need power if you have 4x LED, 4x Burning Wish for Yawg Will.
51 - Burning Tendrils Flames Out (aka Falling in Love)
During this period I got my first taste of a big Vintage tournament, piloting Oshawa Stompy to a top 16 finish at Andy Stokinger's Dual Lotus tournament in Storrs, CT, iirc, which also happened to the first and only time I met @Smmenen - he was kind enough to sign my Memnarch after smashing me in the round 2 of that event that didn't count. This tournament was great fun, and really sealed my love of the format and the community.
52-54 - Control Slaver Emerges to The End of Type 1 (aka Give Em the Clamps)
I'll always remember the time spent helping a friend tune an Affinity list featuring the newly printed Genesis Chamber and Skullclamp, culminating with him winning a Mox with it in a local event. That deck was super sweet and did some really busted stuff with the right draws. Subsequent to that, I worked tirelessly with the help of others to try and break Arcbound Crusher, exploiting its interaction with Genesis Chamber and Affinity creatures. This ended up not being quite as good as just playing Trinisphere, but it was really fun to work on and play, and one of the co-creators did top 16 an SCG Power 9 tournament with it so there was some merit to the idea.
58 - Meandeck Gifts (aka Re-connecting)
After taking a brief break from the format and getting into the Vs System competitive scene for a bit, I circled back to Vintage. Being in Western MA at the time, I had the opportunity to connect with a great group of local players. It was great to be a part of the community again, and I'll never forget cramming onto the floor of a hotel room the night before a Waterbury with what felt like 12 other people. I remember very little of the Magic from that weekend other than @Brass-Man winning a huge game of Type 4, but I'll remember the experience forever.
The following summer I sold off my Magic collection to fund the necessities for my summer internship, and I fell out of the loop with Vintage and the community. It wasn't until after my friend passed away in 2015 that I came back to the format to help organize a Vintage tournament in his memory, and I'm really glad that I did.
@protoaddict said in B&R Announcement - May 18, 2020:
This entire discussion pertains to the B&R list, which is for sanctioned formats. If you want to play proxy or have your own banned lists that is your prerogative, but I do not see how you can decouple this discussion from sanctioned play.
Literally every paper tournament I have played in that has allowed proxies/playtest cards has followed the current B&R list. I think it is a bit silly to limit the discussion solely to sanctioned events, of which there are roughly 1-2 per year as someone noted earlier. It may be your opinion that sanctioned is the lifeblood of the format, but that is an opinion, not a fact. I tend to hold the exact opposite opinion, for instance. I think paper Vintage would die completely if not for proxy events.