TagVintage

While I call these set reviews “The Obligatory…”, I didn’t do one for Betrayers. Betrayers really didn’t seem very interesting and it was really hard trying to justify an entire article when the only card that I thought that would see play was Ninja of Deep Hours. In the end, I think that Umezawa’s Jitte is really the only other card from that set that is seeing play, unlike Champions where more and more cards are seeing play as time goes on. Saviors, on the other hand, looks packed with cards that appear to be both powerful, interesting, or both.

I am struck with deck ideas all the time. Most of them are crap and I acknowledge that. However, it is critical to document your ideas. Most of my good ideas have started out as a crap idea that I shelved and then something strikes me and suddenly I get an “aha” moment and the idea clicks. Today’s deck is one such example.

After graduating Law School, Oscar Tan is back with his theoretical thoughts on the Theory of Interactivity (or something). In fact, Oscar and Stephen Menendian go head to head on this subject today in dueling theory articles, both designed to answer Master Magic Theorist Mike Flores. Peep both articles for yourselves and tell us who got the better of the debate in the forums!

Probably the most interesting article I’ve read all year is Mike Flores’ article on Interactivity. WARNING! ALERT! WARNING! I’d like to talk about Interactivity and Vintage. That means boring Magic theory to those of you who couldn’t care less. For those that do care, let’s parse what Master Flores has had to say on the subject and see how that applies to Vintage as a whole.

Pure Magic would be a world where there were no card pool constraints on a person’s deck choice, where there were no time limits, where everyone has perfect information as to the decks in the metagame and where no one made play mistakes. Unfortunately, Vintage, as defined by the rules of Magic and the banned and restricted list, doesn’t exist. What exists is a particular variant of Vintage called Tournament Vintage. It is essential to tournament success that you focus upon the actual features of Vintage tournaments, not just the features of the format as defined by the rules. In this article I am going reveal all of my secrets – all of the tidbits of knowledge I’ve picked up from my experience in Vintage tournaments.

There are numerous elements involved in proper Vintage tournament preparation. This article is going to concisely focus on just one: testing.

Welcome to the first Vintage daily series! This week I have been given a platform to rant. I will delve into five topics that I would not normally write about because they aren’t worthy of a full-length article. To begin the week, here is a list of ten things Vintage could really use more of and things that Vintage really does not need (even though we might think we do).

So here we are boys and girls, we’ve finally reached the end of this block. We all know what that means… more annoying and completely wrong guesses at what will be good. I feel it’s my duty to try anything like this once though, so I’ll give it a shot and will surely look like an idiot in a few months. Because this is a Vintage review only though, it’d be stupid to cover every card. I’m only reviewing cards that I think may have a place in some decks, a few mockable ones and ones the pique my interest.

Want to know what will be popular in Richmond this weekend, what your sideboard need to be prepared for, and what the best deck at the tournament might be? JP’s got the scoop!

Tired of the combo-control grind and looking for some aggressive decks to play at your local Vintage tournament? Take these for a spin and tell us what you think in our forums.