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While I'm around six pieces of Power shy of getting into Vintage on MTGO, I have been able to regularly play an unlimited proxy live Vintage event on a near-weekly basis for a while now.
In the last few events I've played, I've felt I actually knew what was going on in the format and have been working on tuning Grixis Keeper. You can find the list that I've been building off and a tournament report here.
Grixis Keeper
The above list is leaning more on the side of control than combo. And, to be fair, any build of Keeper isn't going to be an especially heavy combo deck.
To be even more fair, you don't get a lot of flex slots in Vintage. That said, the more that I've played with the deck, the more I've shied away from the controlling cards. I think that the best way to illustrate what I mean is to start with the current list that I'm playing:
Grixis Keeper
Most of the slots remain unchanged, but this is Vintage and a handful of changes can result in a world of difference. Any card that can be found with Merchant Scroll is actually representing more than a playset with the slew of tutors available.
On the topic of tutors, I believe the best way to explain the evolution of the deck is to explain the changes card by card.
Gifts Ungiven
As I moved slots around, I wanted another hay-maker in the deck.
I initially elected to play a third copy of Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Jace is definitely a nice one, but something about the slot was lacking. Redundant Jaces were always good to have when my opponent countered the first, but it was a lot of copies of a card to have in the deck that didn't do much when I was under the gun.
Gifts Ungiven, alternatively, can tutor for Time Vault, Voltaic Key and some combination of Snapcaster Mage, Yawgmoth's Will and another value card if any of these had already been drawn. Access to a card that can singularly set up a winning turn has been excellent, and I feel a little silly for not running it previously.
The singleton-esque nature of the deck adds a lot of play to Gifts, but also a lot of complexity. The card is so contextual that it's hard to craft go-to piles outside of the aforementioned Vault-Key-Snap-Will and this disruption suite:
You can also just value Gifts for Ancestral Recall and... other cards. Probably Snapcaster Mage and Yawgmoth's Will.
There's no card that challenges you to know your deck more than Gifts Ungiven, and my greatest recommendation on how to play the card is to practice extensively.
Mana Drain
Mana Drain is an excellent card, and one that is completely unprintable by today's design standards. In some respects, Drain is a reactive card with proactive elements, but, for the most part, drawing Mana Drain means that you need to leave up two blue mana or you've functionally mulliganed.
This deck just wants to jam Bobs, Tinker and Jaces, and I haven't had many windows to just leave up mana and do nothing. Having access to one is pretty low cost and can be used to set up Myr Battlesphere very easily, but this deck really prefers proactive counterspells such as Force of Will.
Flusterstorm
With apologies to Mindbreak Trap, Flusterstorm is the best option for a counterspell to win counter wars as well as wreck a Tendrils of Agony.
That said, much like Mindbreak Trap, Flusterstorm performs pretty poorly in other roles. It can't counter Jaces or artifacts, and that counts for a lot in Vintage. I initially boarded up to three copies against other blue decks, but there was nothing that caused me to lose in these matches more than drawing too many Flusterstorms.
One copy is fine, and I do tutor for it on occasion, but I really only want multiples against Storm decks.
Spell Pierce
All of the reasons to Spell Pierce are listed in the section on Flusterstorm. It's not always difficult to pay for Spell Pierce in a format where they let you play Black Lotus, and that explains why I only like one copy.
Spell Pierce, like Mana Drain, most commonly plays a reactive role, but leaving up one blue is considerably easier than leaving up two.
Dack Fayden
Outside of a random blowout or two against Shops, Dack hasn't been doing it for me in this list. At least when I tap all of my mana for Jace I feel like I'll generally win the game when he resolves. Looting is so much worse than Brainstorming in a deck that's filthy with singletons, and Dack doesn't actually build to anything when you plus him. It's true that stealing a Mox will commonly be an option, but that's not what I want to be doing for three mana.
I do really like him against Shops though. The Ingot Chewers alone have made that matchup feel very positive for me, and Dack and Rack and Ruin seems like too extensive an insurance policy, so cutting R&R in favor of moving Dack to the board has worked well.
Lightning Bolt
I love Lightning Bolt in Modern and Legacy.
In those formats, Lightning Bolt is a split card between Lava Spike and Terminate. In this deck, the Lava Spike is essentially never what you want to be doing and the removal aspect is pretty restrictive.
Bolt can be aimed at a Jace, but savvy players will just +2 it anyway. If I'm going to play a spell that kills things, I would rather that it have higher potential impact.
Toxic Deluge
Scott Fielder isn't wrong when he says that Toxic Deluge is criminally underplayed in Vintage.
There are a lot of things that Lightning Bolt can't kill. Conversely, Toxic Deluge kills all the things. Young Pyromancer? I'll kill you and your little friends, too. Blightsteel Colossus? I'll pay 11. Worth it. True-Name Nemesis? Easy game.
It's hard to imagine not playing this card in Vintage being correct.
Fire // Ice
Fire // Ice is a bit worse at killing things than Lightning Bolt. Most notably, Lodestone Golem slips through the cracks.
Upsides, however, include that it can't be Mental Missteped, that it can be Merchant Scrolled for, and that it can be pitched to Force of Will. This is a fairly common inclusion and I've been happy with it thus far.
Mox Emerald
My initial list suggests that I'm not really in the off-color mox camp.
I am, however, in the turn one Dark Confidant camp. Turn one Bob wins a staggering percentage of games, and while I'm not ready to commit to Mox Pearl (ew), Mox Emerald has gotten a very confident nod.
Snapcaster Mage
Former Standard all-star, best card in Modern, and Legacy playable, Snapcaster Mage is simultaneously at its best and worst in Vintage. Flashback Ancestral Recall? Amazing. Die with a 2/1 creature in my hand? Less so. There is no format where Snapcaster Mage has more varied power than Vintage and it's not a particularly close comparison.
With Gifts Ungiven and Yawgmoth's Will in tow, Snapcaster is unquestionably uncuttable. Hell, even just by virtue of playing Ancestral Recall, I'm extremely happy with his inclusion. Two was definitely not a bad number to have, and cutting the second was largely due to needing to fit in all of the other elements of the deck.
Mental Misstep
If there were any slot that I would consider converting to the second Snapcaster, it would be the fourth Mental Misstep.
I racked my brain for a while after moving the Dack Fayden to the sideboard over what to replace him with in the maindeck. Third Jace and Misdirection were also strong considerations, but ultimately the decision came down to the fact that Mental Misstep is just so good against everything but Shops.
The ability to counter Ancestral Recall speaks for itself, and the strength against Dredge is not to be understated. Even with six dedicated sideboard slots in the matchup, Dredge can be tough to beat, and having counters that interacts with most of their spells for "free" is a very good place to be.
The Mana
A few weekends ago, I Top 4'd the local "Big Vintage" tournament with a list somewhere between the above two, despite mulliganing what must have been 1,000 no-land hands.
At this point I decided that the deck could really just use another land and elected to chose a fetchland. I have yet to play a game where I was just ground out and Wastelanded to death in Vintage, so I really don't have much interest in basics. Fetchlands are the only tri-color option, and I've been happy with it so far.
Along those same lines, I didn't see much reason to keep the sideboard Mountain around with both the extra land and the extra Mox to help me beat Sphere effects in the deck.
I will grant it's possible that I am entirely wrong about this and that a basic Island and/or a basic Mountain could be shoring up some matchup that I'm unfamiliar with, or even that my games against Shops and BUG control have not been entirely indicative of the matchups, but for now I have been happy with this mana configuration.
The Sideboard
This is an oversimplification, but there are more or less four archetypes that Vintage can be broken down into. Dredge, Shops, blue decks and Hatebears. "Blue decks" can range from very combo-ish to very controlling, but outside of things like Oath of Druids, there isn't a lot that shows up in any sub-category of these generalities that influences my sideboarding.
Dredge and Shops play fundamentally different games than anything else, and thus require radical sideboarding.
That leaves room for two Pyroblasts against blue decks, a Flusterstorm if they're storm-centric blue decks, and a Pyroclasm to take out Hatebears and to tackle opposing Bobs.
In order to run this light on sideboard slots, the maindeck has to be configured to have good matchups against blue decks and Hatebears. The blue matchups have been favorable in all of my experience and Hatebears does us a favor by being the worst archetype in the format by a country mile.
Closing Thoughts
I believe it's an extremely bold claim to say that there's a best deck in Vintage. Keeper has been the best deck for me and the expected metagame in the area, but it would be foolish to not switch around a few cards in a Shops or Dredge infested metagame. Generally, blue decks will be the most popular and I can confidently recommend my list as a good starting point.
Vintage has really grown on me as a format, though I still prefer Cube and Legacy. I would be very happy to hear any critiques of my list and/or reasoning from any Vintage aficionados out there.
Thanks for reading.
-Ryan Overturf
@RyanOverdrive on Twitter
Great article and great insights on Vintage for the relative newbie that I am with this format.
I’m slowly gathering Vintage cards on MTGO for speculative purposes mainly, but having them in my account will certainly make me play some causal games.
Good to have some tips on what’s good what’s not. Good to hear your, an others, opinion about Toxic Deluge. I was wondering if this could be a speculative target online. Even at a high price currently I think there might be something to do, especially with Legacy MOCS coming up.
I’m glad you enjoyed it. I definitely think that there just needs to be more Vintage content available, and I’m happy to be putting something out there, even if I’m a bit of a newbie myself.
Toxic Deluge is an interesting spec target. The obvious downside is that a reprint would just murder its value, with a more subtle downside being that nobody would need more than one or two. It strikes me as a high buy in for a likely small pay off, but assuming no reprints the price will assuredly mature.
Really good article as usual Ryan. I am definitely going to make some changes to the version I am playing on modo. Also based off of our last few conversations having you say someone is not wrong about something is kind of a big deal am I right? Also as a dredge player I agree that I have lost many sideboard games to multiple missteps plus hate, which is why I have switched to Serenity in my board. I also think that right now vintage has so many options that you can’t just stick with the same build for more than a month. With vintage online now, where proxies can never be present, people are going to be trying lots of different card choices. The other fact is that now with vintage online you have more access to test games, as we in Minneapolis are extremely lucky that we have access to vintage 2-3 times a week IRL.
The huge uptick in play will almost undoubtedly lead to evolution of the format, which will clearly invalidate some older ideas. Also, the frequency of newer cards worth playing in Vintage is definitely increasing, which is sweet.
I do my best to give credit where credit is due, but there are certainly those who generally see the side of me who isn’t afraid at all to put the burden of proof on the speaker of any new idea.
As much as I enjoy reading these articles, because I play a good amount of Vintage online, I can’t help but wonder how much of an impact these have on the people here who do not play Vintage nor care about anything non-finance related.
I’ve been noticing more and more Vintage related insider articles, but, who is this really benefiting besides a small minority of Vintage players on this site? Am I wrong here ?
Either way, I personally enjoyed the read. I don’t have any comments to make on your decklist for now but I might update the post later with my ideas if I have time tonight.
Also, the last bit about “Hatebears does us a favor by being the worst archetype in the format by a country mile,”
I actually laughed out loud at. First off, “hatebears” is way too general to slam down all the different decks under. And second, I personally believe a well tuned ” Hatebears ” list could completely roll over your deck, which I have been doing online the past 3 weeks when I was playing more often. People often underestimate hatebears and the fact that those decks can be tuned to hit you and lock you from multiple angles.
I don’t know if you are referring to the ” mono white ” hatebears, but I play a 4-5c humans version which consists of a few hatebears and I guarantee you its not the bottom of the barrel 🙂
I read most of your article thinking that you are fairly new to Vintage, correct me if im wrong, as most of your comments and/or assumptions just made sense when assuming you are a newer player.
Hey Cooper. Mind posting your Hatebears list here? I remember a list won a fairly large tournament a few years ago, but I’ve traditionally heard of it being Tier 2, much like how Burn occasionally take it all home in Legacy.
And (not to respond for him, hah) Ryan did mention he’s gotten into Vintage more this past year, coming from a competitive Legacy background.
I specifically said in the article that I was over-generalizing, and it’s obvious that I was. Even still, all of the flavors of Hatebears can be said to have one thing in common, and it’s two glaring weaknesses.
The first is that this type of strategy involves playing meta and matchup specific hateful cards at a high level of saturation. This can result in hands that are impossibly good in some situations and completely miserable in others. Call the meta right, you can crush. Call it wrong and your odds are way worse than just playing a different deck.
The other flaw is that you generate far fewer and far worse “God hands” than other decks. Hatebears generally completely closes itself off to having hands that will just beat 90+% of opponents with just what’s in their opener. Granted, these hands don’t come up very often with any deck, but by not including such options in your deck you are going to end up losing a number of games even when your hand is very good for your deck.
Hatebears are basically Vintage’s “The Rock”. You’re fighting fair and you can crush, but you’re taking a much larger risk than other decks and your cards tend to have less play to them as well. My comment was clearly hyperbolic (I should hope), and it’s not without basis. I’m not saying that there’s no reason to play Hatebears, just that playing such a deck incurs the type of risk that I prefer to avoid.
I run a thread here I post in occasionally and you can see some of results with Humans here :
https://www.quietspeculation.com/forum/index.php/topic,7411.30.html
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/player/Coopes
Ryan,
It seems to be like you aren’t too familiar playing vs good hatebear pilots ( this again is a problem with paper vintage, over all the competition you are going to face will be less than that on mtgo due to card availability among other problems, but thats another topic all togther.)
If you are going to over-generalize in your articles, fine, but making blanket statements like ” hatebears does us the favor by being the worst archetype in the format by a country mile ” makes you look foolish :/, even if you were generalizing. I can tell from your post that you haven’t played much Hatebears yourself, as the way you sculpt your deck can come from many angles.
You 100% can play situational cards ( like orzhov pontiff, for instance ) but the reality is that your deck much more consists of solid cards than these ” situational ” ones. On my lists, my core is this :
4x Thalia
4x Dark Confidant
4x Cavern of Souls
and i personally like
3x Mayor.
Look at all of those cards, those aren’t situational cards. Sure, I play bears like qasali pridemage and ethersworn, but those aren’t really narrow. My most narrow card is pontiff. The thing about the cards above is they present an immediate threat, you either counter them, answer them right away, or you are in trouble. Therefore, your argument that you get these ” miserable ” hands is pretty moot and more so depends on the style of deck ( what colors, etc ). sure you can sculpt your deck to attack a certain meta, that’s the beauty of hatebears, but you absolutely make the style sound limp without the “perfect” mixture of creatures in your hand.
Your second flaw for the deck, more about the “god hands”. Gonna stop right here, as I’ve won countless matches off the back of t1 uncounterable thalia/bob. That’s not even a god hand, its a pretty common mixture because we play 4 of, there for, id actually argue the mixture of “god” or “good” hands we get, is far higher than that of a deck that goes broken off one card in a deck, not multiples. Your bit about hatebears not having hands that will beat 90% of opponents, is again, just false. i’ve beat just about every deck in the format with t1 thalia or t1 bob, t1 mayor vs shops is nigh unbeatable as well. humans, specifically, has tons of ways to attack the meta without leaving itself weak as a core.
Your last bit about not playing a deck that incurs risk, well, again, i’d argue my humans deck is much more consistent than what you are imagining. Even if your comment was hyperbolic ( which i didnt take it as whatsoever, there was no indication it was as such ) it was out of line due to being completely wrong ( again, in my opinion ).
Hopefully you understand where i’m coming from, I don’t enjoy hearing you generalize even again here in the comment sections with your ideas of what this inconstant hatebears deck constists of, mind linking what you’re even talking about list wise ? lol.
Also, Tyler… while Vintage has become more popular on MTGO, and i personally have been playing it since it came onto MTGO, i still find the frequency of these articles and the content pretty redundant after a while. Maybe i’m alone here, which is fine, i won’t comment on it anymore. But this is a finance website, i don’t understand why we need continued articles about “pet decks” or the authors favorite decks, when in reality Tyler, most of the information in these articles isn’t super relevant to MTG finance imo..
Again, I actually can relate to these articles and I don’t find them bad by any means, but a lot of people here don’t play Vintage nor have any interest in it, i’m just curious how long you are planning on having the Vintage content for on the inside.
I hope i didn’t come off too harsh, I just get quite flustered when a deck I know has merit gets tossed under the rug due to generalizations.
Where you have a problem with generalizations, I have a problem with anecdotal evidence. I fully believe that turn one Thalia off of Cavern will beat a lot of hands. However, I hardly see this as an unbeatable play. Winning a game isn’t what I’m talking about here, and I thought saying that you’d “beat 90+%” of hands illustrated it. Thalia+Cavern will win games, but not in a way that it is inconceivable that your opponent could ever win. Perhaps with the specific hand that they had drawn, sure, but again, that’s anecdotal.
At that, if Thalia is so good, why wouldn’t you want to play the deck that plays 1,000 Thalias? If this effect is so gamebreaking, why wouldn’t I just play Shops? Yes, you get to beat shops when you Thalia on turn one on the play, sometimes. What about when they Sphere of Resistance (or worse!) on turn one, which they’re much better at doing. Your argument is not only anecdotal, but also doesn’t provide the other side of the story.
Turn one Bob has a way of winning games in any deck with access to it. That’s not an argument for playing your deck, specifically.
On the issue of good paper pilots- first of all, there is a much greater card availability issue on MTGO than there is in unlimited proxy Vintage. People play under or unpowered Vintage on MTGO for budgetary reasons. Where I play, unlimited proxies are allowed. I would easily take the majority of people that I play with over the average MTGO opponent, but not knowing them I won’t try to sway you on that point, though I think you definitely overrate the average MTGO opponent. Average MTGO opponent is probably better than average brick and mortar store player, but when I talk about matchups I only refer to times that I play against opponents that I respect and I spend a good amount of time talking about alternate lines and cards that they could have drawn to beat me.
I’m not saying that the humans deck is inconsistent, I’m saying that it’s meta dependent.
I’m surprised to see referring to something as “the worst x by a country mile” not taken as hyperbole, as the expression “country mile” is just a funny concept, but nonetheless I apologize that my meaning was misunderstood.
It’s funny that you mention Mayor, because that’s one such card that, as you said, can crush against Shops (assuming they didn’t start taxing you first), but is going to be pretty close to a blank against combo decks, and decent to good depending on draws against other types of fair decks, and pretty foul against Dredge. Such inclusions are definitely high variance. To add context, this is coming from the perspective of a guy who only plays one Snapcaster Mage because sometimes you die with it in your hand. When I say something invites variance, I’m coming from the perspective that I always plan for the worst case scenario. Mayor being bad happens well before worst case scenarios.
As far as lists, I only have the cards that you’re suggesting and lists that exist from Dailies and scoured online from events around the globe.
I don’t mean to offend you as an individual when I make a negative comment about a deck. Far from it in fact. I don’t even know you! I’m just prone to exaggeration and opinionated- which I inflate in my speech and writing because, in my experience, many people find this entertaining. Minimally, it starts conversations.
If 4C Humans is your jam, that’s all you. I personally can’t imagine wanting to play it myself, and I have my reasons. I have a way of overstating things, but they’re grounded in logic, which I believe is sound.
The question I have for you, seeing as near as I can tell you haven’t conceded any weaknesses that your deck might have, is what matchups and/or situations do you find the deck struggles with? Are there slots that you vary based on expect metagames, or do you think there is a 75 that is just good in any Vintage scene?
Also, it has been my attention to make as clear as possible that I’ve only recently started playing Vintage. My writings on the format catalog my experience as I slog through the format for the first time, offering conclusions that my limited experience has drawn me to. If you read many of my articles, then I hope that it’s apparent that I’m always willing to concede when I have been wrong in the past. I don’t find your arguments especially compelling, but I’ll give your deck a try at a local event or two to see if playing from your side of things colors my opinion any differently.
Average MTGO opponent is Rich shay, zherbus, and a ton of other normals from the mana drain. I’d say they are high and above your average brick and mortar player, but given I haven’t experienced paper play, and you haven’t experienced MTGO player, it’s not worth it to comment further 😛
I realize you have a problem with anecdotal evidence, but when im the only one playing the deck online and putting up 3-1’s and 4-0’s in nearly every daily i entered, i cant be more consistent or show better evidence, im at my limits there. the fact that a low amount of people play the deck is not something it should be faulted for, people in vintage hate new things or change for the most part. they are some of the least accepting players i have met. nearly no one plays the deathblade vintage list that won the premier event but its a very good deck with few weaknesses.
so, while you have a problem with that, theres not much i can do to remedy it. whereas your generalizations are very much fixable or easily prevented ^^.
a lot of this is just difference of opinions, so its not worth debating . you dont find my arguments compelling, i dont find yours compelling, we dont get anywhere. i have been having success with my lists and i love it so much because i can go in so many directions and adapt easily, you love your style, thats great. I just didnt want you spreading false information with your generalizations.
magic is about tempo, i figured you would have realized this. thalia buys time, a lot of time, and completely neuters or stalls nearly every deck in the meta. because my humans deck is packed with powerful cards, thalia buying even a turn can mean the game.
you seems to hate on mayor a lot, but the fact is, has he been bad game 1 vs some matchups? yes, but the rest of my deck is sculpted to be strong vs those matchups, and my sideboard. you play cards like hurklys recall main ( which i think is really bad if your not storm ) , fire and ice, etc, yes these cards have there place, but just because they can be pitched to force does not mean they arent high variance cards. your list plays 1 ofs out the ass, i would be much more worried about playing a list with so many 1 ofs for consistancy then a deck with 4ofs that work well vs all of vintage decks (thalia, bob)
my deck has weaknesses, and i have flex spots for the meta for sure. i dont think there is ever an established 75 that is good in any vintage scene, and i thought if you looked over my thread/daily results you would of seem that i have tons of different versions of the deck.
the beauty of how i think vintage should be played is that a list should be adjusted constantly for the meta game, and, humans gives ME personally the best shell to do that with.
Also, humans has a thread here which features some of my styles as well :
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=45941.240
Several examples don’t establish averages… There’s plenty of dead money on MTGO.
4-0’s and 3-1’s feel great for the person making them, but one win doesn’t have the same value as another in terms of establishing the viability of a deck. It’s consistently working for you, and I can’t take that away from you, but are all of your wins specifically because you played your deck? Did your opponent play optimally, or even have a well-built deck? I by no means am trying to take this success away from you, but I need to know why your deck is better than other decks, not just that you’re winning with it.
When you say generalizations, correct me if I’m wrong but I believe we’re still referring to my initial hyperbole. If that’s the case, then I’ll ask the question at the root of the statement that I made- I was talking about how to build maindecks and sideboards for average Vintage metagames. Do you think more decks should commit more slots to beating Hatebears? What cards do you recommend?
As far as consistency in my deck, many of the one-ofs provide MORE consistency. I can’t play four Brainstorm. Believe me, I would if I could. Same with Ancestral Recall, and to a much lesser extent, Ponder. Vampire, Demonic, Merchant Scroll and Gifts all add consistency to the deck. Jace, Brainstorm and Force of Will all make the times when Fire/Ice and Hurks would be bad less relevant, though they do still suck sometimes, no argument there. Moxen, Sol Ring and Lotus all occupy the same space in the deck, though Lotus is obviously the best of the lot.
Magic isn’t all about tempo. It’s not all about any one thing. Sometimes, and more commonly than any other format, Vintage is all about raw power. Tempo is important, but it’s a resource like any other that can be sacrificed to improve one’s chances of winning.
Like I said, I’m willing to take your deck to some battles to see how I feel about it. What is your current list?
MTGO also doesn’t record all the results for daily events, which sucks, but we work with the best information we can. Also, as I explained above, the opponents on MTGO are top tier. I more often than not run into usuals on the mana drain and/or rich shay/zherbus/stephen men, etc, in practice, 2 mans, or dailies. I’m winning because I’m playing well with a deck that I constantly tweak and tune to the vintage meta game online.
I think Deluge is going to become better as we move into this creature centric Vintage. Even though it’s fairly expensive the card is just so good, I also like dismember as it can answer whatever decay cannot. Darkblast etc the usual will always be somewhere i’d imagine.
what decks do you play vs most commmonly in paper? the reason i have so much fun playing 4-5c humans is tweaking and tuning the decks flex spots for the meta.
i’m very jealous of a scenario where you can play proxy vintage 2-3 times a week, as i have absolutely 0 tournaments that i know of ever happening. ive been wanting to try to attend a vintage tournament in paper this/next year.
It’s a real crapshoot, honestly. We usually play four rounds and it’s usually four different decks. Gush Tendrils, a Dack Welder Brew, various forms of non-Gush Storm, Shops, Dredge, Delver, BUG Control, Hatebears… just about everything shows up now and again. I’ve probably played against Dredge more than anything, but even still that’s maybe 10% of the matches I’ve played. Maybe.
Mike Hawthorne basically decided that he wanted Vintage to start happening and a few locals were immediately on board and now we get a few new faces every week. If you want to get it started then my best advice to you is to utilize social media to gather interest and to partner with a local store owner or regular employee. In Minnesota there are a ton of Facebook pages pertaining to Magic, so it’s super easy to spread word of mouth. Not sure where you’re based out of but I assume there’s some similar resources available. They won’t just come if you build it, but if you build it and market it well they aught to.
http://imgur.com/CyaodMf
Here’s an image of a list I just cashed a daily event with this morning, it’s a rough version as there’s no perfect version for these decks, but this is a fine benchmark. i opted out of blue this time in favor of a bit more consistency, idk if its better or not yet
Cooper,
As one of the writers of vintage content I would like to put in my two cents, especially about the popularity of vintage. First who are you speaking for when you say “but a lot of people here don’t play vintage nor have any interest in it” Vintage is more popular in paper than it has been for quite a while. Eternal weekend produced the largest Vintage even in North American History at 233 participants, the NYSE open just had it’s second annual tournament with 90+ people at $100 entry fee and the Manadrain open, formerly known as the Waterbury, is coming soon and held the previous record for largest vintage tournament in North America at 202 participants. The team serious open series has expanded to multiple stores in the Ohio and Michigan area. Here in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area where vintage was maybe available once every 2 months, just a year ago, is now available 2-3 times a week with good turnouts and I’m sure there are more examples of this in the country. Vintage is as popular as it’s ever been.
Also I think that the articles that Ryan and I are writing related to vintage are helpful in terms of finance. Yes we aren’t giving specs to pick up on magic online or anything, but I think that many people are just discovering the format and one of the best ways to spot good specs is to know how a format works. I think that if we can give people a good base when it comes to vintage or as Ryan has been providing a look at what goes on in the mind of a relatively new vintage player, we give them the ability to spot cards that will be players in the format and therefore potentially a good investment. And maybe if the majority of the articles were strategy based it might be an issue, but I don’t think that is the case at the moment and I don’t think a little diversity is bad. Unless your issue is that they should be on the free side since they are strategy articles, then maybe that makes a little more sense. Also what has been redundant about the Vintage articles? The four articles that I have written, lumping the primer into one, are completely different, one being a primer, a tournament report, an article on choosing tinker and oath targets and an article about brewing in vintage. These are all completely different articles and far from redundant in my opinion so your statement confuses me. I also am not trying to come off as being harsh and am coming from a similar place as you in that I am defending something that I believe has merit.
I like to read about Vintage, but I also wonder why it’s on the paid side.
While they may not hold true for everyone I imagine some people think the following:
– Why am I paying for content that’s irrelevant to me?
– Why am I paying for non-MTG Finance content?
– I could never afford these cards! (Frustration).
These might be articles that Vintage enthusiasts would pay for, but how are they going to discover them? There is nothing on the free side that’s encouraging people that are not into MTG Finance to get a subscription. (In fact there currently is little on the free side that would encourage me to get a subscription).
To me QS is sendign a confusing message about what kind of site it wants to be.
Take this into account:
Insider wouldn’t be any cheaper if I wasn’t writing these articles.
Do you steel feel as strongly about the issue?
I purposely generalized it as “people think”: for starters I’ve been a member since the beginning and therefore have a special rate that’s never going to change, also I realize this won’t change the subscription fees, the question is, does everyone?
Mayor?
Pi summed up a lot of what I would of responded to you.
Cooper, which Mayor is this referring to, I saw no Mayors in your forum decklists.
Can you walk me through how turn 1 Mayor is good against Shops when they can just counter with turn 1 Lodestone? Do you just not cast spells after that and let it flip I guess?
yes, they cant deal with the endless supply of wolves, let them hit you with lodestone a few times while you builds up a few wolves. he also completely helps against tangle wire.
The strategy content on Insider has been circling around Vintage a lot more lately due to the popularity of Vintage Masters on MTGO. Vintage used to be incredibly niche–but it’s become a real format on MTGO now, and there happens to be a pretty active Vintage scene in Minneapolis (which is where Ryan and Scott hail from).
Even if you’re not into playing Vintage/Legacy/Modern/Standard, the insights gained from understanding the rationality behind card choices can still be applied to MTG Finance.
And glad you enjoyed the read. 🙂
The primary objective of these articles is to appeal to people interested in Vintage, yes, but as a player of any format absorbing as much information as possible is just good practice. Even when I only played Standard and Extended I always tried to learn about whatever facets of Magic that I could, and while what I encountered wasn’t always directly useful, I don’t think that the consumption of information (assuming that it’s good information) is ever harmful, and it’s often helpful.