Next Level BUG

Well this will be my last post for the year unless I decide to do another one today which I find highly unlikely. Next saturday marks a year of this blogs existance and as I am still writing I guess I am barking mad. Many of the posts have a fat 0 views, though my Vintage guest post has 100 views I suppose. It must speak to the awesomeness that is a new player coming in and doing well. Aiden has not played again but I hope he did enjoy is short tenure as a vintage mage.

At the moment we have a few newer players in the dandenong area who have expressed some interest in playing. One had allready played in Vintage Masters but the others have taken interest by either seeing the proxy decks in action or been suckered into joining a tournament to make even numbers :) I firmly believe that the proxy decks I made really were a good thing and I am glad I spent the time I did to create them. I hope that these newer players do keep coming back and I will assist them as much as possible over the new year.

However, if you are here; you are not here to watch me pat myself on the back, you are here for some vintage news, brews and musings.

NEWS

Our next vintage tournament will be held on Saturday, January 5th at Next Level Games Dandenong. I hope everyone who can make it will try to attend so we can have an awesome event. I am hoping to talk to Ben/Adam about prize support to have a newer player friendly prize this month. As will be a recurring theme with prizes this year there will hopefully  always be the option of credit/cash instead of the card prizes. I will need to talk to adam about that but that is my hope.

Burning Long decks are now official; while my build has not been represented, the Team Serious Open has been taken down my a Mr S. Menendian piloting an updated version of his list which includes the Oath of Druids/Gristlebrand plan. There has been no decklist published or any additional information available at this time but now we can say that we are piloting real decks. The closest any Burning Long list has come before this was Mühltal with 3 lists in the top 8 taking 2nd, 3rd and 8th and my exploits here in Australia

Deathrite Shaman is getting more attention. Brain De Mars posted a Grixis list on Starcity Games, another player has developed a 4 colour control deck using Deathrite Shaman and Guttersnipe as pinging damage and I have developed a list of my own. One of the defining features of these lists is the return of Strip Mine and Wastelands into traditional blue shells . The offshoots of this could become very important if any of these decks become popular. Will we see Crucible of Worlds also make its way back into the Blue decks to both help and hinder how effective these plans are? If the format is slow enough that a U deck can really threaten you with a strip lock then that opens the door even further for faster decks such as burning Long and Belcher to compete. It will also lessen the effectiveness of Shops Wastelands and we may see some maindeck graveyard hate such as Tormod's crypt to fight the strip lock if it gets really bad.

BREWS

How can I tease you about my own deathrite shaman brew without revealing it. Due to my promises to other players about loaning cards for the 5th I cannot play this list but may pick it up in the future. I have built it with shops in mind but I believe that it is a strong list whose only real weakness would be dude decks, it has not got a great game vs Fish. It can certainly beat them but having tested against Andy's Walking Fish list it seemed like a pretty poor match up.

NEXT LEVEL BUG

Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
5 Moxen
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Sol Ring

Lands
7 U Fetches
2 Island
1 Strip Mine
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
2 Wasteland

Creatures
1 Blightsteel Colossus
3 Deathrite Shaman
2 Trygon Predator

Enchantments
1 Fastbond

Planeswalkers
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Instants
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Gifts Ungiven
4 Gush
1 Mana Drain
2 Mental Misstep
1 Mystical Tutor
2 Natures Claim

Sorceries
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
2 Preordain
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth's Will


Sideboard
2 Natures Claim
1 Trygon Predator
2 Mental Misstep
3 Flusterstorm
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Yixlid Jailer
1 Pithing Needle

I have only actually IRL tested this list vs Walking Fish and Dredge. Walking fish seemed like it was hard but it was certainly winnable as your nuts hand beats theirs everytime. The only problem is the lack of creature removal can be a problem if they can get multiple creatures into play. Cavern of Souls is very good your missteps etc and forces become only good vs swords and their 1 ofs like Recall.

Dredge seems insane. Not only do you have the MD Nihil spellbomb and 3 Deathrite shaman (who I seriously underrated as dredge hate, it's amazing), you have up to 12 cards you can side in depending if you are on the play or the draw. In addition to the 4 Leylines, 2 Jailers, Pithing Needle, Nihil Spellbomb and 3 Deathrite Shamans you have a full set of Missteps and 3  Flusterstorm to protect your hate.

While I have not tested IRL among other decks my conclusions are:

 Oath is certainly beatable because you have answer to all of their kills and get more of them post board. You have Natures Claim (to a small extent Trygon) which is an all star killing both the Time Vault and the Oath kills and creatures that can attack Jace directly.

The addition of the strip package as well as the Natures Claims, Trygons, Grudge and Shamans means that you can often answer their first couple of threats before you can take over the game.

Storm is pretty bad for the MD but the post board 4 Mental Misstep and 3 Flusterstorm as well as Natures Claims and needle can really slow your opponent down.

 The lack of Cage is possibally wrong but I have had to lend them to another deck for the coming tournament. If I could, I would probably take this to the tournament next weekend.

MUSINGS

I think 2012 has showed a real change in the Melbourne Vintage Scene.

 Whereas in 2010-11 there was only really Metagames holding Vintage tournaments (while it was open RIP Meta Games), now there are two stores that hold monthly tournaments (Games Laboratory and Next Level Games). However the roles of the two stores have changed over the course of the year. In early 2012 it felt that Games lab has having regular events thatat least semifired whereas NLG (or GG Dandenong as it was known) would struggle to get 4 players for a monthly. Coming to the end of the year and things have turned around and I have not attended a Games Lab Vintage event with more than 1 other person in the last 4 or so months (attended 3 im pretty sure) while NLG has had 8, 12 and 14 at their most recent events from memory. I think this has been due to a push in different directions by the stores themselves and the players. Games Lab now has a thriving Legacy scene with many players and tournaments organised both by the store and the players themselves. Alexander Johnston especially deserves credit for his tireless work in starting a Legacy community there.  NLG has really turned a corner and started pushing for player acquisition. What started earlier in the year with Lee bringing a friend along as turned into a small but definative "new player" base which is exciting and hopefully promises further growth.

2012 has also brough about a change in the Melbourne meta.  Many of the older (read: Metagames) playerbase who were playing when I started in 2010-11 have slipped off the radar or have only attended one or two tournaments this year. Another facet of the changing face of Melbourne is the lack of Dredge and Shops. Traditionally these were very strong pillars of the Melbourne Metagame but now dredge is almost not played and Shops is only really being stuck to by its stallwarts.  Yet even with dredge not being played, players are really hating it out and loading up on sideboard slots in order to be sure vs dredge. I think we are a long way off people turning up with 4 grafdiggers and hoping not to face dredge but that time may be coming if dredge really does continue to show up in these numbers (or lack thereof).

The newer Shops pilots are taking up newer Shop decks. While some of the older players have stuck to their guns and have played similar decks all year, we have seen an explsosion in new shop variants that have been played. Vintage Masters saw the first appearance of Martello Shops which now seems to be a mainstay despite its online bashings from the Australian Vintage Facebook group.

Untill Next Time

December Vintage Landscape

Two weeks into December, Two tournaments in and with one more still to come the vintage bug is going strong. 

Two 14 man tournaments at two different stores is huge... with only one week between them!!! What's even better is the spread of players between the two stores, it was not the same 14 people at both events, there were a few at both events such as Andy Horne and myself at least half of the faces at Good Games were not at Next Level Games the week before. Special props to the Canberrans who were down for the PTQ and came along to play in the event.
Next level games on December 1st had 14 players and 4 rounds with no cut to top x. We never worked out how long we would be playing for and some of our players had to leave at the end of the swiss so we left it at that which seemed fine. Prizes were paid out for the top 4 which ended up:

1) Forgemaster Shops
2) Turtle Dredge
3) Mono R Shops
4) U/W Bomberman

and filling out the rest of the top 8

5) Verbrannte Ranken
6) Affinity
7) Oath
8) Walking Fish

Way to go the pillars of Vintage: 2 Blue Decks, 3 Shops Decks (2 Prison/ 1 Aggro), 1 Dredge Deck, 1 Ritual Deck and 1 Fish Deck. Almost exactly what you would hope to see in a healthy format.

In this event I ran my Verbrannte Ranken list with a couple of changes.

5) Joshua Butler – Verbrannte Ranken

4 City of Brass
4 Forbidden Orchard
2 Gemstone Mine
1 Tolarian Academy

2 Simian Spirit Guide

1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth’s Bargain

1 Ancestral Recall
2 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Chain of Vapour
2 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Rebuild
1 Vampiric Tutor

4 Burning Wish
1 Demonic Tutor
3 Duress
1 Mind’s Desire
1 Ponder
1 Regrowth
1 Timetwister
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windfall

1 Black Lotus
2 Chrome Mox
1 Lion’s Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Memory Jar
5 Moxen
1 Sol Ring

Sideboard
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Balance
1 Shattering Spree
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Thoughtseize
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Ravenous Trap
4 Xantid Swarm

The addition of Diminishing Returns was something I had been audibling so finally cut the second Tendrils of Agony for it. This meant that I always had a engine in the board which meant that I would hopefully never be short of a source of card draw. An emergency draw 7 is helpful as it turns all your Burning Wishes into card draw if you are in a top deck war.

I also turned the Pyroclasm into Balance as I expected there to be more Tarmogoyfs than usual so I decided that balance is the better card to have in that matchup.  Its also a must counter vs U decks or watch all their lands/hand hit the bin.

I also turned the MD Flusterstorm into a Chain of Vapor. I did this as Dandenong has generally had a very strong Shops presence and Flusterstorm is a very dead card in that matchup. It is also a MD out to Stony Silence which I knew (thanks to arming my opponent) would be making an appearance. 

The list ran well. I lost round 1 due to playing the mull to 5 game. I mull to 5 game 1 and lose. Dan mulls to 5 game 2 and loses and on game 3 I mulled to 5 and lost. Woooo. I won my next to matches and unfortunately draw round 4 due to a stupid mistake when I did not lead my turn with a duress effect and get my mana vault misstepped which meant I was 1 turn too slow and won on turn 6 of time which as we all know, is too late.



Good Games also had 14 players including three guys from Canberra who had come down for the PTQ.  5 rounds were played before a cut to top 4 and a very different top 4 resulted.

1) Grixis Control
2) Walking Fish
3) 5C Control
4) Noble Fish

I cant remember the rest of the top 8 but I finished an unfortunate 9th place after going 3-2 on Martello Shops. Having two Noble Hierarch decks in the top 4 is great. Andy Horne was having a chat with another Vintage player a couple of weeks ago defending the Noble Hierarch decks while this other player kept saying the decks were not very good. Having three in the two most recent top 8's is surely contrary to that view.

 I lent Verbrannte Ranken to Wei-Ning who went 2-3 overall after winning his first two rounds (I think).  The list I played was:

4  Ancient Tomb
4  Mishra's Factory
4  Mishra's Workshop
1  Strip Mine
1  Tolarian Academy
4  Wasteland

1  Duplicant
4  Kuldotha Forgemaster
4  Lodestone Golem
3  Phyrexian Metamorph
3  Phyrexian Revoker
2  Steel Hellkite
1  Sundering Titan

1  Black Lotus
4  Chalice of the Void
1  Mana Crypt
1  Mox Emerald
1  Mox Jet
1  Mox Pearl
1  Mox Ruby
1  Mox Sapphire
1  Sol Ring
3  Sphere of Resistance
4  Tangle Wire
4  Thorn of Amethyst1  Trinisphere

Sideboard:
4 Grafdiggers Cage
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Razormane Masticore
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Precursor Golem
1  Phyrexian Revoker

Martello shops seems a fine list but I am just not sure that it wouldn't be better without the Forgemasters. I won a couple of games using them e.g.  getting Steel Hellkite vs Merfolk or getting Sundering Titan vs various U decks but I felt that they were largely win more. They did not help locking my opponents out; I never felt "If I just draw Forgemaster here" and they are a pretty big crosses in my mind for designing a shops deck. I'm not calling myself a master at shops decks in any way but I want ever card to be active and sometimes Forgemaster was just not. It's just a threat that's sometimes not a threat.

[To be continued]