Lernin Stuff About Vintage:
i had never played vintage before, but decided to play in this event
http://www.mtgpulse.com/event/18460#260370
at first i thought it would be a soft field with guaranteed payout, then i found out that the 6th, 9th, and 16th place finishers from eternal weekend were going to be there.
but i'd already put the deck together (hideous power proxies and all) and figured i might as well go for something to do anyway.
i had intended to keep notes and whatnot to write this up, but i had to focus on playing magic for the first time in like ever so yall get a super vague account no one asked for.
i decided to roll with sphinx of the steel wind because a.) i was already afraid of ancient grudge as i am a deck that needs metalcraft b.) i was overly afraid of the rise of young pyromancer (a recurring theme)
at the last minute i went with 4 mindbreak trap and dropped tormod's crypt for the more flexible pithing needle. i figured in a field of half ringers and half randos i'd feel better with needle than dredge hate. would never have brought in another welder or any electrickrys so glad i did it.
round one:
i keep a good hand but throw game one away. i try to slam down turn one dack fayden and he wins the counter fight.
he then proceeds to turn two tinker for blightsteel and i've already burnt my counters. gg
i barely remember game 2. i know i mulled to 6 and was on full titlt and basically just rolled over.
kinda like an injured football player coming back, i think i needed to get hit before i was really ready to play. i was loose as fuck the whole game, made bad choices, generally just way too rusty.
0-1
vintage lesson learned: patience is really important. if i had just passed and fought over the tinker i almost cant lose this game. also, blightsteel is apparently still what many people run. great news for dack fayden.
round 2:
i am dejected and fully expecting my prediction of "0-2 drop, hookah bar" to come to pass
my opponent is burning oath. game one he just has the turn one oath and i dont have FoW. it's at this point that it occurs to me that my deck really cant do much against a grisselbrand on board. in fact the only way i can win is by vault/keying before i die to it then win with tezzeret ultimate. i fail to do this in time and die.
games 2 and 3 i am packing 4 cage and 4 mindbreak and it's not super fair for him.
1-1
round 3:
workshop opponent has beautiful proxies. all printed out with full alt arts.
game 1 i win my only die roll of the day and i'm on the play. i put a dack fayden into play on turn one. he liked playing out the games but he should have saved himself the misery. workshops just cant beat dack unless they resolve an immediate revoker. he wasn't the build with revoker.
game 2 he has chalice and trinisphere for turn one. a chalice for one shuts off half my deck including my voltaic key. gg
game 3 he has no chalices so despite a couple lock peices he just runs out of cards and i start drawing a billion of them. i resolve tezz and go get a time vault. he makes me play it out after activating vault.
2-1
lessons learned: chalice of the vault is a pain in the aaaaaaaaaaaass (should be restricted, imo)
tezzeret is my backup win con if need be behind sphinx. this didnt occur to me until after my like 8th consecutive turn when i realize "oh, he also has an ultimate, i can quit waiting around for tinker and just kill him".
in talking to him after a mystery was solved for me. i kept wondering why people played ingot chewer instead of vandalblast. in addition to chalice (which i'd just been rudely awoken too) opponent explained that it was also a corner case sb card against dredge as the evoke can kill a bridge from below.
round 4
game one opponent draws almost literally all mana. i natural draw key vault so we both go about the awkward task of trying to sb with little to no idea what the other player's deck actually is.
game two i have possibly the best hand of the day. early dack fayden does his thing and sculpts me a hand that counters every relevant thing he tries to do to stop me while drawing a billion cards.
3-1
i find out after he actually had a p interesting workshop brew, but more importantly i was really sold on my deck after this. idk if anything other than a nut storm/doomsday draw could have beat that hand
lessons learned: better lucky than good. also, counterspells are so so crucial
round 5:
draw into top 8 so i can go get a sandwich. it was one of the least pleasant subways i've been in.
top 8:
i get paired with workshop. while i have a better workshop matchup than most because of my dack faydens, looking at the top 8 i would rather have played against literally anyone else. it's a really annoying deck to play against because sometimes they just have multiple lock pieces in the opener and it's hard to beat.
game 1 i shouldn't have kept the hand, but i wasn't really expecting to top 8 and must admit i was nervous with everyone standing around watching. there were basically only two cards in the hand so it didnt do a bunch.
he revokers my dack And my mox opal. i draw a few blanks before just dying to mishra's factories.
game 2 i resolve dack fayden and FoW revoker. a quick tinker mops up.
game 3 the hand was better but he had turn 1 chalice for 1 And chalice for zero, stranding all my mana in hand. i draw treasure cruise three turns in a row and it's just too much to overcome. it was the first time all day the nature of treasure cruise came back to bite me. i was usually able to just remove excess ones to FoW or misdirection
disappointing finish but oh well that's magic
got my money back for top 8ing anyway.
lessons learned: chalice needs to be restriced. it's so devastating and it makes being on the play so much more important. it's bad enough that sometimes they just have turn one trinisphere or multiple sphere of resistance, having 4 chalice makes it reeeeal hard to dodge bullets on the draw.
takeaways:
dack fayden is the best planeswalker in vintage. just brutal against anyone hoping to win with lodestone golems or blightsteels, but more importantly he fuels treasure cruises with ease. i cast 2 TC on the same turn multiple times. he also has the upside of improving your mystical/vampiric tutors since you can put them on top then draw the card same turn. he's just absurd all around.
TC should be restricted. with treasure cruise And thoughtcast plus dack sculpting my hand i was able to just win games with brute force. i always had more counters, more action, just more cards and it was enough to overcome my bad play most of the day. when you're gonna cast TC the looting from dack is not just sculpting your hand but also making downpayments on TC, virtually creating mana for later (not to mention setting up yawg will)
chalice of the void should be restricted. see above.
i had too many lands. between all the fast mana and the mana drains i sometimes just had excess mana and would rather draw anything but a land off the top.
vintage meta is slow to evolve. i only saw i think 2 young pyromancers all day despite it being the new, cheap, tier 1, and role flexible deck on the block. i was overly concerned with it as evident by maindeck toxic deluge and multiple sb cards specifically for it.
versatility of sb cards is so important. still working on the new sb, but i know it's keeping 4 cage and probably 3 mindbreak trap.
draw 7s are fairly bad actually imo. your opponent is drawing to so many live and impactful cheap if not free cards its just become a super dangerous proposition.
That deck should have run digs instead of cruises imo.
i was Strongly on the side of TC, but after watching champs and playing some magic for once i've kinda come around. DTT is probably better for some decks, and is possibly restriction worthy itself down the line.
that said we wont find out until TC gets restricted then many of the decks start turning to DTT and find it just fine, because TC is juuuuust nuts. my deck in particular thrives on building up a grip full of counters immediately after the initial scuffling, and enjoys the raw numbers to sculpt with dack.
while i think this deck will be fine when it has to run like 1 TC, 2 DTT, and a gush or something, i'm definitely running it back with TCs again next time (jan 3)
here's where im at with the deck now:
http://www.mtgpulse.com/showdeckbuilder/dxm80m42fc
Cruise City Vault
imperial seal for more nice dack fayden/tutor action, 4 mox opal cause it's so damn good. (TC likes when you tap one for mana then play another)
another thoughcast over the ponder.
might actually go with only 1 misdirection next time only because with so few pyromancers around im less worried about abrupt decay than i had been.
spell snare is super well positioned imo. the big three in tier 1 seem to be oath, pyromancer, and workshop, snare counters key cards in all those matchups and i definitely want to be able to bring it in for the dead cards in the matchup (AHEM lookin at you mental misstep against workshop).
trying to find maindeck room for :
1 Spell Snare OR a second Spell Pierce
a second hurkyl's recall
a fourth thoughtcast (thinking about cutting thirst for it, but thirst helps fuel treasure cruise)
vintage is more fun than i would have thought, and i gotta give it up to vintage super league for peaking my interest.
grabbed some cards for burning oath and doomsday as well so my options are open, but probably running this until they restrict TC. i call it Cruise City Vault and i think it's much better than the steel/angel city vault builds with all the draw sevens, and is actually well positioned.
still cant believe i'm playing constructed magic again, but thanks to Team Serious for running infi proxy events. it's obv the only way the format can thrive
WotC really had different guidelines for color hosing back then...
