My Vintage Adventure

Once again it has been over a month since I updated this. I really must get better at this.

The lack of activity on here however is not indicative of lack of action in Vintage.

The final Vintage event for 2012 for NLG will be held tomorrow on the 1st and I have arranged for the event to be playing for a playset of GP Auckland Lotus Cobras which has spurned interest from some of the standard/non-vintage players, I will certainly think about continuing running events for actual prizes in 2013 in lieu of store credit for NLG. The event will be 10 Proxy (with some changes I will outline below) and start at 1PM.

On the 9th, Good Games Melbourne will be running their second Vintage event for the year. However beyond the initial announcement there has been no further information regarding prizes, prices  or proxy limit. I inquired about this but have so far not had any word back from them. I do not know how well attended this event will be. I will be there but I have heard of no confirmation from any other vintage players.

On the 16th Games Laboratory will be running their final Vintage event for 2012. Last month there was only myself and Andy Horne when I was expecting another 2-3 people so I was disapointed however maybe the excitemend of the last Vintage event of 2012 may pull more people. Games Lab have moved their Vintage events to 1PM which is great for me as I get that extra hour of sleep after working till at least 4AM in the morning.

I have made some changes to the way Vintage is being run at NLG for this tournament and I hope that I will be able to continue this into 2013. Not only have I changed the prize structure from store credit to the Lotus Cobra's (plus more if we get the numbers) but I have introduced 100% proxied decks. Late September I brought into NLG 4 100% proxied Vintage decks with the intention that they would be visible at the front of the store, maybe people would sift through them and maybe even have a game or two between them. The decks I made up were Burnt Tendrils  (I couldn't resist), Marc Lenigra's Grixis control list from Gen Con 2012, Raf Forino's Martello Shops from Gen Con and a European Dredge list; I have also added Matt Elias' final Noble Fish build since then. This has worked much better than expected as I have been told that a small number of players were playing the decks in between rounds at a Super Series Standard grinder as well as a couple of other occasions. Novembers' Vintage event fired (8 man) thanks to Jimbo Jones Dowling agreeing to play the Grixis Control deck and he did quite well.

I have decided (at least for this event however I will be speaking to Adam about continuing it) to allow these proxied decks to be used in the tournament if it is a players first tournament. Obviously entry is still to be paid etc but these decks will be able to be used and are pre made up so if someone expresses interest on the day, there will be no scrounging around for cards, they will be ready to go.

This has been a resounding success, not only is Jimbo back (now playing with real cards as it will be his second event) for December, we also have Luke back for his first event since masters as well as Tye and Patrick coming for their first events with the possibility for one or two more coming to test the waters. For the first time since January we have 8 telling me they are coming on the facebook page as well as another 9 in the maybe column. The biggest NLG event this year has been 11 in January and I am hoping to beat that. It will be great to close out 2012 with a bang.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out when preparing for this event I am able to almost build 3 decks with 10 proxies (have not checked with sideboard though) including Verbrannte Ranken (Burnt Tendrils), Shops (Espresso or Martello) and a U Deck (Oath, Gush, Jace/Bob) missing only power and maybe a few cards from each archetype. This should help to alleviate any issues with the newer players needing decks after their first event.

I will be posting my list for tomorrows tournament  after the event so wish me luck