Want to know about the latest deck the former Vintage World Champion piloted to yet another Waterbury Top 8 finish? Looking for stories of delerious SUNY: Binghamton college students threatening people at Denny’s with butter knives? Or maybe you just want another fun and amusing report by perhaps the most-entertaining Vintage writer around. Whatever you are looking for, this article has some of everything and is awesome sauce approved.
Deciding to play the right deck is critical to Type One success. This article is going to provide a comprehensive overview of the six best Mana Drain decks in the format. It will trace the trends in development thus far and bring us to some very recent design innovations. The trend that was already in the making has suddenly blossomed at the same time as the restriction of Trinisphere, resulting in the most broken Drain combo decks ever.
A Gifts Ungiven deck that uses Goblin Charbelcher and Mana Severance, but completely removes Goblin Welders from the deck? Can that possibly be good? Our favorite Frenchie Vintage writer thinks so, and there’s a good chance that you’ll see more than a few people running it at the Vintage Megaevent in Paris this weekend!
JP chimes in with his thoughts on Interactivity, the changing applications of Force of Will and Mana Drain, plus some words of advice for those of you attending all these giant, rocking Vintage tournaments coming up.
The reason I wanted to wait an extra week or so on describing the March data was to find some continuity between Trinisphere and post-Trinisphere metagames. Fortunately, the connection isn’t “games are over on turn 1”. The connection is Mana Drain. Any look at the March tournaments begs the question of what will now disappear from the Vintage metagame, and what will be playable that wasn’t before.
One of the hottest deck designers and most amusing Vintage writers around gives you a sneak peak at what decks to expect at this weekend’s Waterbury megatournament. As if that weren’t enough, he also provides decklists for players of all shapes, sizes, races, creeds, and budgets and tells you what he’s playing this weekend. How could you not read this?
More proxies.
More prizes.
More Bleiweiss?!?!
Absolutely.
Being the Vintage Supercomputer is a tough job, so every once in a while, Pip likes to kick back and actually sling some spells as part of his relaxation program. Last weekend at Chicago he did just that, putting up a surprisingly solid record with Landstill, the deck he’s discussing today.
We hate to toot our own horn around here, but the day before the Chicago Power 9, we published an article about the very deck that won the tournament the next day. Today Stephen Menendian talks about variations of Vintage Oath of Druids decks, including the deck he designed that finished second at that very same Chicago Power 9, this time in the hands of Brian Demars.
I hadn’t planned on writing a report. I was worried that by doing so, I’d inadvertently make fun of the Midwest and devalue my win. Then I realized I played like an asshat all day and still won, so I don’t really feel like I earned it anyway. I’m still looking at this Black Lotus wondering why it’s here, because I don’t think I played optimally in any game all day…
Shortbus Severance Belcher (or SSB) was one of the hot new decks to come out of StarCityGames.com Power 9 Syracuse and its designer is back with a tournament report and instructional guide just in time for this weekend’s Power 9 in Chicago. If you are looking for a few pointers on one of the latest control-combo decks to hit the Vintage scene, you must read this article.
Many people think that the color of Yawgmoth’s Will needs little if any tweaking. I agree wholeheartedly. Black is the best understood color (despite that whole “can it be good, not evil?” issue), and it has had the most consistent abilities for ten years as a result. Black is a color with a little of everything, from good, reliable mechanics to good, reliable weaknesses. As a consequence of being so well mapped-out, Black teaches us a lot that can inform design and reformation of other colors’ abilities.
In the first months of 2004, we threw together some Grim Tutor variants of the deck in preparation for what we believed would be a forthcoming announcement. We did some preliminary testing and tuning and then we waited. And waited. And waited and waited and waited. Finally, the announcement came. Now that people are concerned about the deck, some even claiming (absurdly) that Grim Tutor needs restriction. This article is going to demystify Grim Tutor and introduce Grim Long by tying my experience with all three incarnations of the Long.dec archetype together to provide a solid foundation for your own testing.
Since its introduction at the last StarCityGames Chicago Power 9, Doomsday has remained one of the more interesting combo decks in Vintage. With another Chicago Power 9 only a week away, Stephen Menendian revisits the decklist with an updated version and a veritable godbook on how to combo out of practically any situation. This is an article Vintage players simply cannot afford to miss.
So, why in the world am I – the biggest proponent of running Control Slaver sans the Intuition/Accumulated Knowledge draw engine – writing an article about using Intuition in the deck? A little while ago, while discussing the merits of the Intuition/AK engine with some members of Meandeck, I told them that I would test Intuition in Control Slaver. Therefore, this article is a result of my effort to see just how good I could get Control Slaver to be, while also including three copies of Intuition.
