GP Portland 2017: Vintage Side Event

I just got back from Vintage at GP Portland 2017. I walked away at 1-3, but my 1 "win" was a bye. That's right: I didn't win any matches in 4 rounds of swiss. In fact, I did even win any games in all four rounds. But, it was so worth it.



I cast Ancestral Recall on myself in competitive play for the first time in forever!

The grand plan to go into the day with underpowered Fenton Oath was, upon reflection, maybe not the greatest idea. I thought slamming down Griselbrands with Oath or Show was going to get there. It's just such a powerful thing to do. But, my match ups didn't give me many windows for that.

Round 1 vs. Adam
He's on Paradoxical Storm Tendrils and wins both games with it. Game 1 was pretty quick. Game 2 was interesting. I kept him off the storm kill with lots of strategic countering, but never drew a way to get the demon into play. We were 10+ turns in before he finally put it together.

Round 2 vs. Eric
There was another guy there named Eric, who was also playing Oath. He had the bomberman combo in there, along with some other spice. I saw the Scarab God at one point, too. We had the typical Oath-on-Oath battle of keeping creatures at parity. Game 1 and 2 played out similarly. He had the edge and stopped me from Showing out the demon. We both had to mull to 5 on the second game. I finally get an Oath into play with 4 cards left in my library after he hits me with the Jace ultimate.

Round 3 vs. Bye
A bye in this kind of event is no fun. I was there to play, but we had an uneven number of players. I think the count was 13 or possibly 15. I sat this round out and watched a few other games. I saw a sweet Skullclamp Elves deck, Tangle Wire Shops, Grixis, and a couple of other Oath decks. As it turns out, the guy I got paired up with in Round 4 provided at least 3 of the decks I saw at the tables. Deep collection, I guess.

Round 4 vs. Tim
Tim seemed like a really cool guy that I had played some Legacy against on a visit to a local game store. He had loaned out his Shops and Oath deck to some other players so that they could enter Vintage. His deck was a Grixis Thieves/Big Blue monstrosity. 2 Dacks, 2 JTMS, 1 Tezz, 2 Snaps, Vault/Key, Tinker/Blightsteel. That kind of stuff. Plus, it just looked cool. He had spent quite a lot of time (and probably money) on putting these cards together. Game 1, he plays a land, some moxes, and a crypt, then passes. I drop a Library and pass back. On his upkeep, I activate Library to draw. He responds with Notion Thief. It got worse from there. He ended up Twisting us and drew 14 cards because of Notion Thief. Game 2 was just value town on his side, resulting in Tezz for Vault/Key and Snapcaster beats.


Vintage is still my favorite format, and I'm glad for the times I can play in person. The things that happen are so silly that you can't help but laugh. I think I heard more laughter from this group of Vintage players than any other time I've played competitively.

When I get the chance to play again, possibly at GP Seattle next year, I will likely sleeve up a UBr list. I have better cards for it and it couldn't hurt to play a Mana Drain or two.

GP Vegas 2017: The Dinner Bracket, Legacy UB Reanimator, Artist Signatures, and Old School Magic

Just got back from GP Vegas 2017. Good times!

So many Magics, So many Vents

Ben, Drew, and I made the trek to GP Vegas this year. Spirit Air FTW. I played 7 rounds of Legacy with UB Reanimator against a massive field of players, going 4-3 drop.

I'm calling it the Dinner Bracket.

You know, when you drop so you can go get dinner. The dude was throwing shrimp tails up onto his hat and made a volcano out of onion slices.

Round 1 - Delver (Brian)
Record: Win 2-1
Notable: I showed up late and was given a game loss. Show up on time, kids.

Round 2 - Sneak n' Show (Rik)
Record: Win 2-0
Notable: Game 1 was an early Griselbrand. Game 2 we locked each other out. He had two Cages in play. I had a Needle on Sneak and countered all of his Shows. Ended up winning with a hardcast Grave Titan.

Round 3 - Storm (Ross Merriam)
Record: Loss 1-2
Notable: Beat him game 1 with a triple Force of Will turn, which is apparently the level of craziness needed to beat Storm because I lost the next two games.

Round 4 - Stoneblade (Brandon)
Record: Loss 1-2
Notable: Screwed myself Game 1 when I didn't draw 7 in response to him killing Griselbrand.

Round 5 - BUG Delver (Stephan)
Record: Loss 0-2
Notable: Got hosed here. Really, really bad.

Round 6 - UR Delver (Mike)
Record: Win 2-1
Notable: Lost game 1, but came back in the next two games with sideboard cards.

Round 7 - Patriot (Felix)
Record: Win 2-0
Notable: He was Swords-ing everything. But I boarded in the Angels, so I had too many targets for him to control.

Round 8 - Dinner (Benihana)
Record: Win
Notable: Sat with the guys who produced the crazy Hour of Devastation reveal show.

I also got a few cards signed while I was there. There's some real progress happening on my Old School 93/94 deck. I even got the first card at the GP signed by Jeff A. Menges (Swords to Plowshares). Drew Tucker signed the Plateau with the wrong art, with the words, "I didn't draw this" on top of the signature. (He asked me first.) Let's see if I can get the actual artist to sign it, too. Fingers crossed.

Speaking of Old School, I watched the first couple rounds of Old School at the GP. Hippies, Sink Holes, and Juzams galore. Moxes, and Ancestrals, and Time Walks, Oh My! Nothing quite like shooting the breeze with Randy Buehler with $50k+ of cards on the table.

A Long Time Gone: Commander 2016, Deckbuilding Cube, Duel Decks, Legacy, and more!

Commander 2016



The Magical Christmasland Gods have been good to the playgroup this year. Commander 2016 has given us the Atraxa deck (Breed Lethality) and the Yidris deck (Entropic Uprising). These decks play very differently from each other, but both are powerful and fun. The thing I'm most impressed about is how consistent the mana is for casting the four-color commanders. I only remember one game where Atraxa was stuck in the command zone past turn 5. More commonly, Atraxa was on the board on turn 3, 4, or 5! Ydris' Oprah-like granting of cascade to all your spells after he whacks someone makes for some crazy, crazy turns.

Commander Deckbuilding Cube / Aether Revolt



The more I mess around with this idea of a Commander Deckbuilding Cube, the more I like it. I played with the Brago deck for a while. It does some impressive stuff when it gets going! But, as usual, I wanted to switch it up. Boom, enter the deckbuilding cube. I stripped Brago for parts, reached into the box, and slapped together a BR Grenzo deck with artifact-graveyard shenanigans and scrying. Oh, man. It's a whole different kind of fun when it works. There's not much like swapping Scuttling Doom Engine and Spine of Ish Sah with Darreti and Goblin Welder.



We also got the full Aether Revolt spoiler to look at and woah, there are tons of great cards in there for Commander. I added them to "the waiting list," but in a new section. Here's to crossing my fingers that the prices will come down when the cards (Robots!) eventually rotate out of Standard. Patience, padawan.

Duel Decks / Planeswalker Decks



I try to live a simple life. I get it. Friends and family aren't sure what to buy for me. My birthday is mid-October and then there's Christmas. The good news is, Target sells pre-constructed decks. So, that makes it easy. This year, I was blessed to get the Ob Nixilis vs. Nissa duel deck for my birthday and the Chandra planeswaker deck for Christmas. That's a lot of planeswalkers to join my collection of duel decks! We put those decks to good use, facing off against planeswalker decks of Christmas past. Kiora is always a favorite.

Drafting Conspiracy



Finally, finally after a couple of years of half-hearted planning and missed appointments, I had a chance to actually meet up with some of the guys from work to draft. One of the guys bought a box of the Conspiracy: Take the Crown set, so we did a multiplayer draft. I didn't pull anything too crazy, but good times were had by all. I also had the chance to play some co-op Horde Magic while I was there, and we even fit in a game of Commander. If you haven't tried Horde Magic, you should check it out!

Brian Weissman



Shout out to Brian for posting some more Commander videos. Check out his channel on YouTube to watch him wreck people with Nin, the Pain Artist, one-on-one and multiplayer this time.

VSL

If you want to watch more Magic action online, Season 6 of the Vintage Super League is up and running, too. Watch the first two weeks of play-in tournaments on YouTube, then tune-in live every week. If you are a fan of drawing three cards for one blue mana, I can't say enough good things about the VSL series. Watch it!

Legacy Reanimator / Delver / GP Vegas



If the fates are kind, I plan to travel to GP Vegas this year with some friends to play some competitive Legacy. I will likely play Reanimator again because, well, you know, Griselbrand! Good old Scoop Hands himself! But, I've had a chance to play a few games with Grixis Delver, and hope to do some more testing between now and then.

Wow! That's a lot of Magic.

Commander Cube: The Commander Overhaul

Over the past few years, I've dialed it back from going to the shop for "competitive" Commander. At the same time, a couple of guys in my regular play group have started to get into Commander. The Commander 20XX decks that get released every year have made getting into the format simple. If they sell it at Target, and you can ask for it for Christmas, getting Magic-related gifts from non-Magic players is real.

With that in mind, I dusted off my Deckbuilding Commander Cube and made significant changes today. You can see the blog of changes and a current list here over at CubeTutor.com.

If you play a lot of commander, building your own deckbuilding cube is actually pretty cool. It's not only fun to think about a limited number of slots and how each card can support more than one archetype, but it gives you the ability to make new decks while reusing all those great cards.

In my cube, I am trying to keep each individual card in the $1-$3 range. This helps to retain that old school commander feel and keeps me competitive with my more casual friends. I will go above that number if it's a foil or if the card has great utility in lots of archetypes, but not much higher than that.

I build two-color decks. They are easier to assemble than three-color decks, but provide more variability than the stronger one-color decks. Someday, I'll map out what all the two-color combinations are supposed to do in the cube. For now, I just build around the legendary creatures.



Unlike drafting cubes, where you have to worry about balance between the colors, this cube is for deckbuilding and so isn't constrained the same way. Blue, for example, is really strong. That's okay because it's up to me what cards go into the decks that I am building. It's not like everyone at the table is going to be competing for blue in the draft.



The other thing is just how much color-fixing and ramp has come along since I started playing Commander. There are so many fixing lands and ramping artifacts out there that filling in a cube with cost-effective ($) cards that get the job done is easy now.

So, I put together a Blue/White Brago deck for the Commander game tonight. It's not tuned. It's not perfect. But it works. And when I want to try something new, I can sort it all back out and pick another two-color combination to try.

Deck in Pictures: Dragon Toolbox, 5 Color Scion of the Ur-Dragon Commander

Continuing with my Deck in Pictures series, take a look at my 5 color Scion of the Ur-Dragon deck.

One of the great things about building Commander decks is that you can set boundaries or additional "rules" for deck construction to help hold a theme together. This can keep a deck from devolving into a pile of theme-less good cards. For this deck, here are my deck construction "rules:"

1) No Scion combo.

There's nothing wrong with combo, but that wasn't what I was going for here. So, no poison or easy pump kills.

2) Only multicolored, legendary dragons.

You'll see a couple of exceptions to this in the pictures below, but I didn't want to just jam every good dragon ever printed into this deck. I also didn't want to jam good non-dragon creatures and lose the dragon theme.

3) No individual cards over $10 TCG low.

All I care about on this one is to set a financial limit to what cards can be used in this deck. If I happen to have a fancy version of a card that is worth more than $10, that's fine. The limitation is more about if a card is available at that price, even if it is a different printing.

4) No tutors, except for cards that find land.

It's too easy to put in tutors and take the randomness about of the format, especially with a 5 color deck that has access to every tutor. That's not what I wanted to do here.

5) No double mana symbols of any one color.

In other words, no GG or UU, or anything like that. Multiple colors in a single spell is fine, just not multiples of the same color.

6) As many full art or textless cards as I could reasonably justify.

This is more of a soft rule, but I filled slots with textless or full art cards when possible. There are some full art cards that break one of the above rules, so those are out. There are others that just don't work well in the deck. Those are out, too. But, there are good number of textless cards represented in the deck.

7) Keep the deck as balanced as possible between the 5 colors and still remain playable.

Same deal here. This is more of a soft rule, but by counting mana symbols, the deck is nearly balanced between the colors.


Even with all those restrictions on cost, expense, creature types, and tutors, this deck works pretty well. This is the deck I bring to the table for a casual game of commander where no one is trying to combo or control the game into oblivion.

Behold! Here be dragons.

The deck includes the five Invasion 3 color dragon legends, along with the five Planar Chaos 3 color dragon legends. Also included are the five Tarkir dragon legends, foil prerelease promos. The two exceptions to my "rules" are the foil prerelease promo Dragonmaster Outcast (not a dragon, but makes dragons) and the foreign Steel Hellkite (not a legend, but is a dragon). No original Elder Dragons because they break my double-mana-symbol rule.

Behold! Removal, removal, removal.

Almost all of the spot removal spells are full art, including the three textless promos and two foil Game Day cards. Anguished Unmaking is has impressive foil artwork. Beast Within is the "Vindicate" replacement, but less expensive to try to stay within the rules. It is also instant speed and only one color, so in some situations it is better than Vindicate.

Behold! The 5 color crew.

I wanted a handful of cards that "cared" about this being a 5 color deck. This deck includes the foil prerelease promo Obelisk of Alara, a foil foreign Door to Nothingness, and a foreign Legacy Weapon. Cromat is here because if I am playing with a new group, I swap him in for Scion so that I don't get ganged up on and pummeled.

Behold! Utility.

I wanted some version of Sarkhan in the deck. This version fit the best. Otherwise, these are the spells that offer the deck utility to solve particular problems that the spot removal spells can't handle. Textless Fireball and Negate, portal Earthquake, foreign Mimic Vat and Gaea's Blessing, and a Beta Regrowth.

Behold! Sweet enchantments.

Sadly, I can't run all of the "siege" enchantments because several break the "no double mana symbols" rule, but Outpost Siege does a good job and has sweet dragon artwork. Dragon Tempest replaces the "white" enchantment in the group because, well, it's Dragon Tempest and also has sweet dragon artwork. Judge foil Oath of Druids and foreign Collective Restraint round out the group.

Behold! Deck manipulation and card drawing.

A necessary evil. If I'm not running tutors, there are too many times I get stuck with the wrong cards or the wrong colors. The top 4 cards help smooth things out. The bottom 4 cards help dig me out. Textless ponder with the guy pointing is sweet. Foreign Rhystic Study, foil promo Fact or Fiction with Hanna and Squee trying to figure things out. Foil Rush of Knowledge.

Behold! Ramp.

The deck needs lots of mana in lots of different colors. This is how I get there. Textless Rampant Growth and Harrow. Promo foil Cultivate and Darksteel Ingot. Foreign Chromatic Lantern.

Behold! Non-basic lands.

I like about 38 lands in my commander decks. Five 5 color lands including a signed foreign City of Brass, five 3 color lands, all foreign, five Panorama lands, all foil, five cycling lands, two basic land fetches, including the foil promo Evolving Wilds, and a foreign Halimar Depths.

Behold! Basic lands?!

The heart of the deck. Three each of the Unglued full art basic lands. I liked these lands the second I laid my eyes on them and I used to dig through the commons boxes at the card shops I visited and pick them out. Over the years, I grabbed quite a few of these lands out of those boxes.

If you want to zoom in on any of these pictures, check out the photo album.


This deck isn't perfect. There are a least a few other full art cards that could be swapped in here. For example, the full art Expeditions version of Mana Confluence would be sweet. I also like the idea of a "X" spell for each color to go along with Earthquake/Fireball. I have a full art foreign foil Killing Wave that could help push me in that direction. It's not a great card in most situations, but the artwork is amazing! I would also like a cycle of 2cmc enchantments, one for each color. It's just that as weaker cards get swapped in, it can turn a fun, playable deck into a deck that no longer puts up a fight.

Deck in Pictures: The Usual Suspects, Mono-Black Commander

Just because I mostly play Commander online through MTGO doesn't mean I stopped collecting physical cards. I've been collecting Magic cards for almost 20 years. I'm a sucker for foreign cards, signed cards, promos, and anything that just looks cool! There's something about shuffling, tapping, and drawing physical cards that is a unique and special part of the experience.

I thought it might be fun to start a series to show some of the cool cards I've collected over the years. Up first, take a look at my mono-black commander deck, The Usual Suspects.

Hold up for a note about the card sleeves before we get to the pictures. I am using the earlier version of the Ultra Pro textured sleeves, where the clear front of the card sleeve is also textured. This tends to make the foils look muted and reduces the reflection.

Behold! Sheoldred.

Foreign, foil, promo, with alternate art. All that, and she locks down games like a boss. Has trouble fitting through doorways.

Behold! The small creatures.

Lot's of foreign cards. Love 'em. The Titan is a foil promo, alternate art. The Sangromancer is foil. Don't be fooled. She is incredible.

Behold! The Demon squad.

More foreign cards. More foils. More promos! All foil except for the Rune-scarred and Lord of the Void.

Behold! The 'walkers.

A bunch of powerful planeswalkers. Vess is foreign. Explaining her abilities to the other people at the table is a fun mini-game!

Behold! Crazy enchantments.

Artist Mark Tedin signed the Necropotence for me with a white pen. Looks sweet.

Behold! Colorless creatures.

A couple promos. Foreign, foil, promo, alternate art Steel Hellkite. Don't be fooled. Steel Hellkite is a savage beating. It wins games.

Behold! Removal.

The closest I get to running spot removal is Ashes to Ashes. The difficult to read card (glare) is the full-art, foil, promo, textless, Damnation. This is a beautiful card. The full-art, promo, Black Sun's Zenith is a close second.

Behold! Tutoring and Card Drawing.

The foreign black-bordered (FBB) Demonic Tutor with original art is quite a looker. Ambition's Cost is the foil 8th edition with a black border. Yawgmoth's Will is signed in gold pen by artist Ron Spencer. I have a Pete Venters signed Demon Token for the Promise of Power.

Behold! Ramp and Utility artifacts.

More foreign cards. More signatures. Artist Mark Tedin signed FBB Sol Ring, original Mana Crypt, and Mana Vault. Foil, alternate art, promo Lightning Greaves look even faster. Foreign Memory Jar. Artist signed original Sensei's Divining Top.

Behold! Ramp and Utility lands.

Artist signed original art Maze of Ith, FBB Strip Mine, Foreign Volrath's Stronghold and Deserted Temple. Foreign Cabal Coffers. Lots of fun stuff here.

Behold! Basic Lands!?

Matching John Avon, full-art, Unhinged basic Swamps. When these were released in the Unhinged Set, I lost my mind. The art is amazing. The effect on the battlefield when I play Swamp after matching Swamp is so cool. It took me forever to collect enough of these to finish the deck! Second best Swamp in all of Magic, right behind the Japanese, MPS, foil promo. (I'll post a picture with my other deck, later.)

If you want to see larger versions of these pictures, click here for the album. Zoom!

I also have some cool tokens and lots of other cards that I sometimes put in the deck, other foreign cards, other promos. This isn't the best deck in the world, but I always feel amazing dropping huge demons onto the battlefield and drawing tons of cards. When it works, it works. And it looks good doing it.

Two Years of Commander on MTGO

A couple of years ago, I stopped going to my friendly local gaming store to play Commander. Instead, I started playing more on magic online through MTGO. It was a time and money thing.

I will admit, up front, that playing commander on MTGO does not capture the feel of sitting down with a couple of other people and smashing creatures into one another across the table. There's something missing when you need to topdeck that one card to win the game - and you do! - and there's no one there to share the moment with.

Sad face.



A couple of guys from work play magic, so we've been able to get together every once in a while for a game in a bar that is dark as sin. At that point, it's playing magic by feel more than actually being able to see the cards. And a couple of guys that I game with regularly will do me a solid a throw a game or two my way once in a while, too. It's not that I never play paper commander anymore, I just don't actively develop my decks for it.

Online, though. Online, I make new decks all the time.



It is so, so much faster to throw something together online than it is in paper. And once I have the new deck built, I'm just a few clicks away from testing it out live against an exciting, unknown opponent!

Another development over the past couple of years is that duel commander (1vs1) is way more forgiving, for me anyway, than sitting through the full multiplayer experience. I do feel like it's drifting further from what "commander" really is without the multiplayer dynamics, but the deck construction and play is similar. The games are also over alarmingly sooner.

Shorter games are good and bad.

There are many, many times in multiplayer commander where I am doing nothing just hoping to get back into the game. I'm not so bad off that I should concede, which no one likes anyway, but not well off enough in the game to make an impact. And the games takes hours! Hours of sitting there, effectively ineffective.

But, online there are clocks.

Sweet, sweet clocks.



And when the clock times out, the game is over. I've been on the losing side of this several times, but it's so worth it.



The other thing about 1vs1 is that games that are going horribly for me are typically over soon enough to start another game or even two or three in the same amount of time that I would have been grinding out another ineffective multiplayer loss.

Strangely, the MTGO client does not have built-in rules for duel commander. So, I typically end up against someone that is following the multiplayer deck construction banlist. The multiplayer list is more permissive with allowed cards because it can fall back on the multiplayer dynamic to even things out. A card like Mana Crypt, for example, is incredibly strong in 1vs1 because it creates a massive advantage for the player that has one early. This is not unlike the Vintage format.

And here's where things get interesting.

Duel Commander (1vs1) with the multiplayer banlist reminds me a lot of Vintage. I call it Vintage Light, since many of the traditional "power" cards are banned, but other powerful cards like Mana Crypt and Sol Ring are totally legal.



But unlike actual Vintage, the games are more random due to the larger deck size and more restrictive banlist.

And because many of the powerful cards, like Mana Crypt, are staggeringly expensive in paper but cheap online, it's not as financially unreasonable to get into Vintage Light.



For comparison, as of 8/3/2016, a Mana Crypt from Eternal Masters is about $70 at TCGPlayer, while a Mana Crypt online is about $2 from Eternal Masters online at MTGOTraders.

So, there you go, a $68 difference for that card.



For another comparison, as of 8/3/2016, a Mishra's Workshop is about $750 at TCGPlayer, while the same cards online is about $4 at MTGOTraders.

Many of the cards you would want to play to be competitive or to make your deck explosive are available online at reasonable prices. And they can be easily slotted into multiple decks at the same time because of the way that MTGO works. Let's see you do that in paper!

Don't get me wrong, though. Not every card is cheaper (or cheap) online.



Consider Liliana of the Veil. Paper price for a moderately played Lili? About $80 on TCGPlayer as of 8/3/2016. Online price? $106 at MTGOTraders.

Hey, they can't all be winners, folks.