Sunday, April 19, 2015

A Look at Vintage

Hello,

 In a couple weeks, Wizard Den will be hosting a four week proxy Vintage league where the first place prize is a revised Tundra and second prize will be a Demonic Tutor.
Entry will be $15 for the full league to help mitigate the costs of the prizes.
In preparation to that, lets go over the most important cards that you would expect to play against.

Mishra's Workshop Decks, also known as "Shops" is the big mana deck in the format. Powered by it's own repeatable "Black Lotus", shop's decks quickly ramp into powerful spells such as Wurmcoil Engine, Steel Hellkite, Sundering Titan, and Staff of Nin to finish out the game quickly. However, how does the deck protect itself from quicker decks such as Monastery Mentor decks, Storm Combo decks and others.


That's where the prison strategy of the deck comes in. This deck uses the early turns to start locking opponents out with cards such as Chalice of the Void, Sphere of Resistance, Thorn of Amethyst, Trinisphere, and Wasteland to deny the opponent from playing anything.


A typical decklist would look like:


Vintage Daily (4-0) by Baulvor (http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/276019#online)
Creatures


Spells


Lands


In this deck you can see that we ramp into our primary threats such as Kuldotha Forgemaster and Lodestone Golem while protecting with Chalice of the Void, Sphere of Resistance, Thorn of Amethyst and Tangle Wire.  Generally you have the most consistent late game and the longer you lock the game down you are more favored to win because you can usually play your threats while the opponent cannot.

Bazaar of Baghdad
Bazaar of Baghdad enables one deck in vintage and it's completely vital to have this card. Dredge (the deck in question) works differently in vintage than in legacy because this card allows for a more aggressive game plan because the deck velocity is so much greater.  One copy of this card allows you to dredge up to three times a turn while keeping dredge cards in the graveyard to keep dredging.
The familiar Narcomoeba/Bridge from Below/Cabal Therapy package help fuel your attack. Along with Bloodghasts/Undiscovered Paradise and Ichorids to keep the pressure on, games generally finish with a flashback cast of Dread Return to get Flame-Kin Zealot finish the game in one turn.

 An example deck list:
Vintage Daily (4-0) by Legion273 (http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/277707#online)
Creatures:


Spells


Lands


Again, it is extremely important to have Bazaar of Baghdad in your opening hand. It is a mulligan or use of Serum Powder (if you play that). You will NOT win if you do not have that card.
Null Rod
"Fish" decks use Null Rod to cancel out the higher power levels of the other decks in the format by preventing the use of the moxen, Lotus and other mana accelerants. These decks are usually aggro-tempo decks that looks to put a lot of pressure on opponents early and force interaction in the first few turns. However, some pure control decks like Standstill decks also use Null Rod to answer powerful game ending combos such as Time Vault/Voltaic Key.
These decks also usually do not run as much artifact power as the other decks so that the Null Rod affect is as one sided as possible.


An example of an aggressive Null Rod deck:
Merfolk by Randy Buehler (VSL Season 2) (http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-online/vintage-super-league-season-2-decklists#Buehler)
Creatures
Spells
Lands
11 Island
A more controlling example Null Rod deck:
UR Standstill (3-1) by XShockWaveX (http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/276023#online)
Spells
Lands
These decks look to disrupt the other decks in the format by preventing explosive starts while not hindering their own plans.
Mentor/Delver Decks

Monastery Mentor

The other type of aggro decks in the format. These decks work around the spell heavy nature of the format to enable Delver of Secrets, Monastery Mentor, and Young Pyromancer to take over the game though providing extreme efficiency and value through out the entire game. Delver provides a quick clock that you can pressure the opponent to kill it with their very, very few kill spells (Generally some mixture of 1-2 Swords to Plowshares, 1 Fire // Ice, 2-3 Lightning Bolts and 2 Pyroblasts).  
Monastery Mentor and Young Pyromancer allow you to store up spells and get an army so that if the creature is killed, you still have enough creatures to take over the game.
Jeskai Mentor by LSV

Creatures
Spells
3 Gush
Lands
2 Island
These decks follow the same general principles of Standard Caw Blade, and Delver decks and if you enjoyed those decks you would like this deck.
Combo/Storm
Why would you like to interact with the opponent? Wouldn't you rather just kill them?
If so, then combo is the way to go. There are many types of combos that are viable in vintage, however there are three main ones you need to look our for: The Perfect Storm (Storm Combo), Oath of Druids, and Doomsday.
The Perfect Storm:
Similar to the legacy version, vintage storm is about playing enough spells and generating enough mana in a single turn to be able to cast a lethal Tendrils of Agony. Using Moxen, mana rocks and rituals along with card draw spells, TPS also uses string card drawing spells such as Mind's Desire, Necropotence, and Yawgmoth's Bargain to ensure that they don't ever run out of gas once the user decides to go off.
The Perfect Storm (4-0) by UnrestrictGifts (http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/273277#online)
Spells


Lands
2 Island
1 Swamp


Essentially a two card combo: Oath of Druids and a large creature, usually Griselbrand or Emrakul. Oath of Druids says if your opponent has more creatures than you, reveal from the top of your deck until you hit a creature and put that into play. However looking above, not all decks have creatures in the first few turns, so we can add a third card, Forbidden Orchard, to give an un-counterable way to give your opponents a creature.


Oath of Druids (3-1) by evouga (http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/278707#online)
Creatures
Spells
Lands
2 Island
Finally, Essentially a one card combo, Doomsday, gives you 5 cards from your library and graveyard and replaces your library with those cards. To win, you then play a Laboratory Maniac and then draw a card. The issue is figuring out how to get there.
Doomsday (4-0) by oRS (http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/267206#online)
Creatures
Spells
4 Gush
There is enough cards to make everyone happy in vintage. With a card pool so vast, your imagination can go wild. Remember to make sure that each card in your deck is in there for a purpose and either advances your game plan or hinders opponents' game plans in a way that doesn't hurt your game plan. Remember your role in the matchups and figure out how to execute.
Thank you for your time and attention. This has been Will Pickett with Wizadden.com.
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Thursday, April 16, 2015

Judge's Den: Chapin at the Pro Tour

Ariel at Wizardden.com weighing in today on the Pro Tour feature match of Patrick Chapin vs. Michele Ancona. While I tend to avoid the over discussed topics, I have been asked my opinion on the scenario so many times that I thought it best to write this article. As a reminder I am level 2 judge, tournament organizer at a local level, and still a very active player in standard and modern events both locally and regionally. I am also a huge fan Chapin and all he has done to help other players bridge the gap from semi-casual play to highly competitive play.

If you missed the coverage, Chapin made two game play errors. The first was missed by all parties present and can not be truly determined as intentional or not. Chapin played a scry land, put the card on the bottom of his library, then cast Read the Bones, put the top two cards of his library on to the table, modified his life total accordingly, then placed the cards in his hand. This is the first place I'll stop. At this point he makes a visible reaction to his misplay of immediately drawing the cards without scrying first, while legal it was a play mistake. As a player what I notice here is a visibly flustered player that is now likely to make more mistakes going forward. At this point Chapin activates his Ugin, the Spirit Dragon to remove some soldier tokens, then plays his second land for the turn to cast an Elspeth, Sun's Champion. This is against the rules beyond a doubt, but I can not determine from the coverage if this was intentional foul play or not. An argument has been raised that he increased his pace of play afterward indicating that he may have realized it after the fact and wanted to get as much play between him and his mistake. While this could be true, it is in no way definitive.

The second was the big one that drew everyone's attention. Chapin used his Ajani, Mentor of Heroes to look at his top four cards, chose one and put it in his hand. This has been an extremely polarizing topic for the community. On one side thanks to coverage we can beyond a doubt prove he made a legal choice in which card he picked. On the other side adding a card to your hand is considered a game rule violation that is to be upgraded when it is dealing with hidden information that can not be confirmed by all players. My first thought on this seems to be one that is missing from most arguments I have heard. This is the Pro Tour, it is not competitive level of rule enforcement, this is at professional rule enforcement.
From the Infraction Procedure Guide:
Competitive events are usually those with significant cash prizes or invitations awarded to Professional events. Players are expected to know the game’s rules—but not to a technically detailed level—and be familiar with the policies and procedures, but unintentional errors are not punished severely. These are events that protect the interests of all players by providing event integrity while also recognizing that not all players are intimately familiar with Professional-level event structure, proper procedures, and rules.

Professional level events offer large cash awards, prestige, and other benefits that draw players from great distances. These events hold players to a higher standard of behavior and technically correct play than Competitive events.

In professional rule enforcement there are not often downgrades. In this scenario there was no way short of coverage to confirm the identity of the card beyond a doubt. I add the beyond a doubt, because Chapin argued that his cards were known anyways and he could just reveal his hand. Unfortunately this would not definitively confirm that he did not put a land or something else into his hand via the ability unless the opponent confirmed knowing all the contents of his hand.

From the IPG:
An error that an opponent has no opportunity to verify the legality of should have its penalty upgraded. These errors involve misplaying hidden information, such as the morph ability or failing to reveal a card to prove that a choice made was a legal one. If the information was ever in a position where opponents had the opportunity to verify the legality (such as on top of the library, as the only card in hand, or on the battlefield), do not upgrade the penalty and reveal the information if possible.
So our last point of contention is should coverage be a tool for judges. Simply put, no. This would be unfair to other players. Why should one match have this tool that the rest of the matches in the room are not granted. On top of this time is a concern. This is a publicized event via live stream, delays in coverage are extremely detrimental to their objectives. The other players in the event would also be forced to wait an additional period of time for this tool granted to certain players. Keep in mind coverage is generally granted to players by preference. If Channel Fire Ball is running an event they are more likely to put someone from their team on the screen than two random unknowns with high seeds. We as judges must be fair to all players, so no advantage or disadvantage should be given unless it can be granted to the room as a whole. It is my personal belief that we should be allowed to use this tool if all players are on coverage (i.e. the top 8). That however is a discussion for far more experienced judges than myself to have.

Those are my thoughts on the Chapin Pro Tour incident. I hope that this doesn't haunt him too much, and more so that he doesn't make any more mistakes like this. Pros and the Pro Tour are looked to by the semi-competitive player base on what to strive to, this is not the kind of thing that a Pro Tour should remembered for. This has been Ariel with Wizardden.com, thank your for reading.
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Sunday, April 12, 2015

Announcing: Vintage League

That's right, Wizardden.com will be hosting a vintage league. Full proxy allowed. This will be a four week league taking place on Sundays. $15 one time entry gets you into the league so you can start earning points.

3 points for showing up on Sunday
3 points for every match you win
1 point for each loss

At the end of the fourth Sunday the winner will receive a Tundra and the runner up will receive a Demonic Tutor. All of this starts on Sunday, April 26th. Bellow is the banned and restricted list for Vintage. Happy brewing and we'll see you down here for Vintage.

Conspiracy card type, Ante, and Dexterity cards are all banned
Shahrazad

The following cards are restricted, which means you can only have one of them in your main deck and sideboard combined:

Ancestral Recall
Balance
Black Lotus
Brainstorm
Channel
Demonic Consultation
Demonic Tutor
Fastbond
Flash
Imperial Seal
Library of Alexandria
Lion's Eye Diamond
Lotus Petal
Mana Crypt
Mana Vault
Memory Jar
Merchant Scroll
Mind's Desire
Mox Emerald
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Mox Ruby
Mox Sapphire
Mystical Tutor
Necropotence
Ponder
Sol Ring
Strip Mine
Thirst for Knowledge
Time Vault
Time Walk
Timetwister
Tinker
Tolarian Academy
Treasure Cruise
Trinisphere
Vampiric Tutor
Wheel of Fortune
Windfall
Yawgmoth's Bargain
Yawgmoth's Will

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Thursday, April 9, 2015

Judge's Den: Forcing Priority

This topic will be a little different than normal in that I can't actually give you a black and white answer to it. If you remember the first Judge's Den article posted here on Wizardden.com some of this will be a recap. Magic the Gathering has some rules that can be a sore spot for judges when we are asked to a table to rule on a situation. This particular rule boils down to the biggest problem in every TCG; communication. Here is that rule from the Tournament Rules:

  • A statement such as "I'm ready for combat" or "Declare attackers?" offers to keep passing priority until an opponent has priority in the beginning of combat step. Opponents are assumed to be acting then unless they specify otherwise.
This is an example under the section on shortcuts. If you take a moment to recall the situation with Goblin Rabblemaster covered in a previous article, we can modify that situation slightly to create an entirely different outcome. Lets replace the phrase "move to combat" with "move to attacks" thereby purposing a shortcut to the declare attackers step. In this altered scenario the opponent's only response is "Hero's Downfall" targeting the Rabblemaster. If we strictly adhere to the rules on shortcuts we are to assume that spell was cast immediately prior to declaring attackers since he did not state otherwise. This means the goblin token has already been created and will presumably attack. Whisperwood Elemental creates the same situation when a player says "go" there by purposing a shortcut through the end step and on to their opponents turn granting them a manifest creature.

In essence these phrasings will trap opponents who don't say the right thing into accepting moving past some number of phases and any corresponding triggers. An argument can even be made for missing any triggers within the shortcut basically allowing players to modify the course of the game through sly wording.

All this sounds pretty bad doesn't it? Not to worry though, noble judges ride against what we call "gotcha magic" where you trick your opponent into something by a sleight of words or superior rules knowledge. This is where the judge's greatest tool when making a call comes in; the investigation. A simple question of "what happened here" can tell us everything we need to know. However this also opens a door for you to make the same mistake again. If you say that you moved to combat and tried to kill the creature well too bad, you're in combat and the token has been made. So be clear, "My opponent said move to attackers and I stopped him before the goblin trigger (or whatever trigger/action you're trying to avoid) with this spell (or whatever action you want to take)." Making your intent clear to the judge is the best thing you can do to preserve the game itself.

At the end of the day we are all here to play a game of Magic the Gathering. We may not have the same knowledge of the comprehensive rules text, silver tongues, or even speak the same language. We do all however know how to play the game and what it is we are trying to accomplish with each of our plays. It is up to the players to communicate as clearly as possible with their opponent, and when that doesn't work, with the judge so at the end of the day we can do what we all came here to do, play magic. This has been Ariel with Wizardden.com, thank you for reading.
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Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Rogue T3ch VS The "Real" Idaho State Championship



Hey party people. I'm back to talk about the State Championships this past weekend and what we at Wizardden.com and Team Rogue T3ch sleeved up to try and beat the competition. Now, before I go any further I have to tell you; no, I didn't win but I was knocked out of the swiss in round five by the guy who did win so that should count for something, right? *nudge nudge*

Now I'm gonna start with the 75 Team Rogue T3ch member Danny O'Berry piloted to a top 8 finish. I want to say, Danny doesn't play standard much but when he does he tends to put up the best record out of all of us. Fellow team member Will Lotz did that this time but the point is the same. When Danny comes out, He intends to crush face and does just that. His weapon of choice this time around being a super sweet Mardu Control deck. It's mostly sweet because I helped him build, test and adjust the deck but I digress.



Danny O'
Weapons of Mardu Destruction (WMD Control)
7-8th place at Idaho State Championship

 Creatures:
4 Seeker of the way
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
3 Thunderbreak Regent
2 Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury

Spells:
4 Thoughtseize
3 Wild Slash
2 Magma Jet
3 Lightning Strike
2 Ultimate Price
3 Crackling Doom
3 Outpost Siege
2 Murderous Cut

Lands:
4 Nomad Outpost
4 Temple of Triumph
3 Battlefield Forge
2 Caves of Koilos
2 Mana Confluence
4 Bloodstained Mire
5 Mountain
1 Swamp

Sideboard:
3 Arc Lightning
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
3 Duress
2 Erase
2 Kolaghan's Command
2 Radiant Purge
1 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker



When building this list we tried to use other Mardu aggro and control lists as reference but it was significantly different than any we could find. I would like to thanks the dudes over at spikes reddit for the recommendation of Kolaghan as a planeswalker killer. He did plenty of that and lead Danny to 4-0 and gave him the luxury of a double draw into top 8. Two hour breaks always help top 8 performance and i'm sure was much needed.

Next up we have Will Lotz's G/R aggro. We knew the deck was well positioned for an aggro heavy meta like we expected (And ultimately got, the SCG open on the otherside of the country had a top 8 of all aggro decks for Christ's sake). He finished top 4 and here's the 75 that took him there.



William Lotz
Petro's Binder Special (PBS Aggro)
3-4th Idaho State Championship

 Creatures:
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Rattleclaw Mystic
4 Heir of the Wilds
3 Boon Satyr
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
4 Thunderbreak Regent
4 Stormbreath Dragon

Spells:
1 Stoke the Flames
1 Roast
2 Wild Slash
2 Lightning Strike
4 Crater's Claws

Lands:
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Temple of Abandon
2 Mana Confluence
1 Rugged Highlands
6 Mountain
6 Forest

Sideboard:
3 Destructive Revelry
2 Xenagos, The Reveler
2 Atarka's Command
4 Ashcloud Phoenix
2 Stoke the Flames
2 Roast

Will had a top 4 finish out of 70 people. That is super sweet. I have to admit i'm salty as there were promises of beer had he took 1st or 2nd but his loss to Ramzi in the semi-finals crushed that dream and the free beers that came with it. That aside, Will had an intense tournament. A round four loss brought him to 3-1, same record as me at the time and the fear of us being paired was real as X-2 had no hops of top 8 and us in Rogue T3ch always seem to knock each other out of tournaments quite frequently. For once, that didn't happen then as I was paired against Ryan and took a rough loss in game 3 of the match and Will took his match down and progressed in the tournament to ultimately finish X-1 in the swiss and make the cut to top 8.

Us at Wizard Den couldn't be happier with Danny and Will's finishes. For now, we move back to the Grind. Next on the Rogue T3ch agenda: Team member Josh Kreiter has a Regional PTQ to test for and I'm sure he will post soon with his list and preparation for the event.



Much love,
Christian.
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Thursday, April 2, 2015

Judge's Den: State Champion! Setting up for Success

This Saturday is an extremely important day. The Real Idaho State Championship is happening, for the first time since Innistrad we will have a real state champion. If you are unaware or from anywhere out of state let me explain what we mean when we say a real champion. When Wotc stopped supporting state tournaments other well known shops took up the mantle and kept the state championships going. This was good until we started having a new 'state champion' every couple of months, there was no more prestige in the title when three of your five opponents at fnm were state champs. Wizardden.com and other local stores had a better idea.

The Real Idaho State Championships (Magic: The Gathering)

Working together, the six biggest shops in Idaho removed all the state championship events from their calendars and made one true state tournament. With a $500 top prize, prestige returned to the title of State Champion, and teamwork between all the shops this has been a huge success! You can follow everything about it here at http://mtgidaho.blogspot.com.

This is of course a Judge's Den article though so that's enough about this event, on to the main topic. What can you as a player do to best prepare yourself for this type of event?
  • Sleeves: Bring extra. Wear and tear happens. Intentional or not the likelihood of gaining an advantage (or even disadvantage) from recognizing a card that should be unknown due to the condition of its sleeve is there.
  • Pen and Paper: Life disputes happen, having a record to refer to can help clear up a lot.
  • Silence your Devices: Keep in mind electronic devises are not allowed at competitive level.
  • Deck Reg: Being prepared by printing one out or showing up EARLY does a lot to get the tournament moving and keep your fellow players and judges happy.
  • Know your cards: Know the rulings for your cards.
  • Food and Water: Dont let yourself get hungry and cranky in the middle of a long tourney.
  • Know where you are going: Check ahead of time when and where the tourney is.
  • Shower: Seems to be less of a problem now days, but still.
There are many things that go into being prepared for a tournament, only a few of which I highlighted today. I highlighted the ones I felt were most important for players newer to competitive rules enforcement. Good luck to everyone playing this weekend and thank you for reading this weeks issue of Judge's Den here at Wizardden.com
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