There isnt anything in legacy thats really that expensive. People can rationalize $100 peace of cardboard for any format since Jace TMS. They just can't go over $200 per card. And you will have a rough time finding a beat up moxen at that price.
This isnt a legacy vs vintage debate. What does your comment provide to the actual conversation?
I think that playing the right type of cards can make the format challenging and interactive. The strategy and decision trees are incredibly diverse and challenging, it's a very skill challenging format, it's just so much faster and more explosive then the average player sees on any sort of daily basis. Especially when their starting progression, is Limited with Friends -> Standard at Friday Night Magic -> being exposed to unproxied power decks with typical first turns that can involve Land, Mox, Lotus, Sol Ring, Tinker into something really broken (backed up with counters).
Rogue decks do have a place in Vintage, it's just that they have to be built to deal with some of the shenangans that go on.
I got this idea from a thread Urweak posted earlier yesterday.
Would creating "official" proxies solve the whole reprint problem?
Instead of abolishing the reserve list, they can reprint the cards in a form that are not tournament-legal. The proxies would have bronze borders and a "PROXY" stamp on the front, but have normal backs. Here's an example:
Proxy Power Pack (20 card set, 10$MSRP):
1x Ancestral Recall
4x Bazaar of Baghdad
1x Black Lotus
1x Imperial Seal
1x Library of Alexandria
4x Mishra's Workshop
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Time Vault
1x Time Walk
1x Timetwister
One thing all of these cards share is that they are all on the reserve list. Force of Will and Mana Drain are not on the reserve list, so they may choose to reprint that at another time.
What these proxies would serve to do is:
1) Provide people with easy proxies for unsanctioned tournaments. Unsanctioned tournaments may start saying these are the only legal proxies.
2) Revitalize the interest in vintage! Who doesn't want to play with amazing cards? If these proxies are printed, there might be more vintage tournaments. Consequently, the increase in vintage popularity might actually increase those respective cards' prices, as people will eventually need real cards to compete in sanctioned tournaments.
3) Give you cards to proxies to use instead of your real cards! No more worrying about damage.
I seriously doubt they would reprint mana drain. It is an exceptionally powerful card. Standard tourneys would only have one color if they did. Or at least decks would be part blue.
I seriously doubt they would reprint mana drain. It is an exceptionally powerful card. Standard tourneys would only have one color if they did. Or at least decks would be part blue.
I dont know if I missed it, but why does reprinting Mana Drain mean it will be playable in standard?
I mean look at all the promos they do, the special sets they do. The commander decks, even the reprints in coldsnap like Brainstorm were done without making them standard legal.
Personally Id love to see them print textless tokens with some of the world champs art and just insert them into core set packs in the spots that are normally soldier or goblin tokens. Not standard legal, not actual reprints just a token I could use as a proxy if needed. I think it would be a heck of an olive branch/conversation starter if you opened a lotus token in a pack of m13 even if it had an advertisement on the back.
Well, my experience with standard players are that, they really hate powerful cards. This is the reason why a lot play in standard. I know at least 2 people that have power, but they play standard. We are talking about the same group of people that complain that Lightning Bolt is broken... Maybe it's just my local meta, but I swear I heard utterence of "Yay Shock!!, Bolt is too good."
IMO it would take something like SCG to start hosting Vintage opens around the country where in which the prizes would be more inclined towards cash or Power, heck even playsets of Mana Drain, Goyfs and what have you. It worked for Legacy. I am first and foremost a Legacy player. I remember when that format was pretty dull before SCG started the Monthly tournanments.
I dont know if I missed it, but why does reprinting Mana Drain mean it will be playable in standard?
I mean look at all the promos they do, the special sets they do. The commander decks, even the reprints in coldsnap like Brainstorm were done without making them standard legal.
Ok, they would never reprint it for viable use in standard. I could care less if they reprint it to just throw it in some promo.
If it would save Vintage... no. The problem with Vintage is not the card prices. It's the cards themselves.
I Love really powerful decks and powerful combos. Unfortunately I have to agree with phuture2k. Standard players in my area (even the ones that can seriously buy power tomorrow if they wanted to) hate strong cards like Lotus. They've told me before, "I love standard because the decks are weak". I think they are truly non-competative players. There are about 14 of us that get together to play Legacy on Saturdays, which is less than half of the average Standard player load out of 30 players every FNM. We always offer to loan them decks, like Tier 1 decks, if they come play on a totally different day. We even offer to waive their entry fee, trying to garnish higher player numbers. Since we moved our Legacy from Friday Night to Saturday at noon (months ago), we've had a grand total of 0 Standard players show up to even give it a chance. We even, and I say again offer to loan new players Tier 1 Legacy decks!. They always, ALWAYS say: "I don't want to play in a format that lasts 3 turns. I want to play the entire 50 minutes that we are allotted just as standard games. I really like the slow, weak cards." We even pointed out that Legacy lasts more than 3 turns. Stubborness just stops them. My point is, if the majority of new players feel this way, and are that stubborn about a very balanced format like Legacy, imagine how they feel about using the best cards ever printed... Go browse the modern forums even... almost every discussion breaks down into Tarmogoyf is overpowered and should be banned, blah blah blah... Some even say: "I refuse to play in a format where goyf is legal".
TL;DR: A lot of new players hate "fast formats", so they scrub out and stick to their slow decks even if they can afford to build Legacy/Vintage.
1. No Rouge! Good luck with this in vintage. If you aren't running dredge, you're running at least a few of the nines. If you're not, you're likely at a disadvantage.
Actually, there are a lot of rogue decks in Vintage. You have to remember, every single deck in every single format began as a rogue deck that began putting up good results and more people began picking it up and refining it. Dark Times (Vintage MBC w/ Helm+Leyline and Hexmage+Depths win condition) began as a rogue deck, and now it's a proven and popular deck. GW Aggro (or GW Hatebears) is another newly developed deck that is becoming popular and is powerful since it's design actually punishes people for playing Vintage.
2. Extremely cutthroat! I can win on turn 1 by getting infinite turns with 4 mana. And there are more than enough ways for me to do that.
Yes, turn 1 wins can happen in Vintage. But not as commonly as you seem to believe. Honestly, I'd say that Dragonstorm when it was in Standard had more frequent turn 1 wins than any given Vintage deck (including a turn 1 "win" using Vault/Key). I believe saying <5% of Vintage matches have a turn 1 win is fairly accurate.
3. Not fun. Players who try vintage on an online engine or with proxies realize that, when played right, vintage means saying no a lot then shoving your combo down your opponents throat as forcefully as possible. Thus, lots of players don't play. Ever beat someone with a card and then had them say, "That card is so broken..." even if it's just a simple Terra Stomper? Those players won't play. Because Vintage cards actually ARE broken.
In a vacuum or compared to Standard/Extended legal cards, yes - Vintage cards ARE broken. However, you need to take it in context. In a Vintage match, the brokenness of one deck is nullified by the brokenness of the opponent's deck.
Furthermore, Vintage is, by far, the most fluid and dynamic format there is. Aside from a few cases, there are absolutely no entrenched board positions where you can get complacent and make mistakes knowing your opponent cannot come back now. In the other Constructed formats, once you hit a critical mass board position, there is almost no chance your opponent can recover. That doesn't happen in Vintage. No matter what your board position is, one mistake can still cost you the match. You could be playing Stax and have a critical mass of control artifacts in play, and on your end step your opponent has enough mana to cast Hurkyl's Recall through all your Spheres and now you're stuck with no artifacts in play and you have to discard back down to seven in your hand.
4. No tournaments. Since no one would play even with 100% proxies allowed, stores aren't gonna give huge prizes to a few people actually good enough at Magic or knowledgeable enough of old cards to play Vintage. And why play a format dealing with all of THAT above when you can just play FNM and surprise everyone with a cheap rouge deck?
There are plenty of tournaments for Vintage, if you'd look. Hell, I can find 3-4 tournaments a month within reasonable driving distance of where I live. In fact, I just got a monthly Vintage series running in my area starting the 29th of October.
And that's not all! There are huge issues. If you reprint them as functional tournament cards they'd hit at LEAST $200 in no time flat, and even then old players who own functional copies would quit. Why bother collecting Magic cards when they'll FUNCTIONALLY reprint even the most scared cards of your collection? You can't even use the collector's edition cards in tournament and they're $50+ at LEAST. If you think you're gonna get into vintage from a reprint, it would have to be MASSIVE to where it wouldn't still be $4000 to get in.
And you may be one of the people who try it without proxying it first thinking it'll be fun, and then get absolutely destroyed when you realize that it's a quick as hell format with very little room for mistake.
Honestly, I don't think you've ever played Vintage - in any form. And I doubt you've ever seen anyone play Vintage. Or watched videos of a Vintage tournament. Yes, there is little room for mistake. But it's not as fast as you, and many others (unfortunately), think it is.
Most Vintage PLAYERS play for the love of the game. My view point among the community of Vintage PLAYERS isn't all that unique. I have my Power 9 (working on Betas now, got 2 so far). I have my Library. I have a Workshop. I have my duals. I got my Forces and Drains. I got my Time Vault. Hell, my current Vintage deck in it's current level of pimpness (pictures in the pimp thread on Magic General, except my Ancestral Recall is now Beta instead of Unlimited) is worth well over $8,000.
And I still support abolishing the Reserved List and reprinting anything they want in a non-Standard/Extended/Modern legal set. And every Vintage PLAYER I've talked to feels the same.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I was driven from this once-great site by abusive mods and admins, who create rules out of thin air to punish people for breaking them (meaning the rule does not exist under forum rules) and selectively enforce the rules that are written on the forum rules. I am currently lurking while deleting 6 years and 2 months of posting history. I will return when ExpiredRascals, Teia Rabishu and Blinking Spirit are no longer in power.
Standard players in my area (even the ones that can seriously buy power tomorrow if they wanted to) hate strong cards like Lotus. They've told me before, "I love standard because the decks are weak."
"I don't want to play in a format that lasts 3 turns. I want to play the entire 50 minutes that we are allotted just as standard games. I really like the slow, weak cards."
First off aaronc123 I know these are things that you have been told and are quoting and I want to say that this reply is based on those quotes and not your personal opinion.
I had to literally hang my head in shame and disgust when I read these quotes. Maybe I come from a different time...a time where people not only respected but idolized the p9. A time when some cards were good and some cards just sucked. Or perhaps Rosewater has created some kind of new baby-man-boy after he brainwashed players into thinking that there can be only a fair and just world of MTG where the color pie and each individual card is perfectly balanced,every game ends in a draw and a high-five and every player walks away happy.
At any rate, people that disprespect the history of Magic and Black Lotus like this do not deserve to ever touch a magic card again. They should really just give up magic for a simple and balanced game like go-fish or checkers.
I have heard similar things and this is why I no longer play magic or attend events. This is also why I believe eternal magic, especially t1, has no chance of ever making a real come back. The majority of players are just too closed minded and uninformed to ever really give it a chance.
I have heard similar things and this is why I no longer play magic or attend events. This is also why I believe eternal magic, especially t1, has no chance of ever making a real come back. The majority of players are just too closed minded and uninformed to ever really give it a chance.
I couldn't say it better. Me and a friend are working on getting a Vintage playgroup started, 4-5 at most in my area, for now. What you said is so true. I had people rage quit on me in Standard when I was playing Caw-blade (with JTMS + SFM)... They would get mad just when I played a JTMS... it's so sad. "that's not fair" mentality is what the problem is. You can reprint Black Lotus Tomorrow, I don't care, that won't help. All the Whiny little Standard scrubs will have their panties in a bunch and will be like: "I'm quitting until Lotus rotates or is banned from standard". They wouldn't care about Vintage or anything. Would T1 gain some players if they did a reprint like that? Yes, I'm sure there are a lot of budget minded players that simply don't play cause of $$$. Would it "fix" Vintage attendance completely? Probably Not.
Edit That's actually the type of guys my Legacy group are. They would love to play Vintage, they just can't afford it (most of the decks they use, they borrow from me). They are very big Standard Haters.
I believe someone said players rarely go to their first vintage tournament alone. That is exactly what I did and I had a blast. I do think the reserved list is a big issue but I doubt that WotC cares much about Vintage or Legacy.
My personal experience with Vintage players was that they were very friendly and truly loved the game. Even when losing to a brand new player they recognized great plays, got excited about them and earnestly congratulated me. This difference in the amount of fun they had whether winning or losing seemed smaller than what I have seen in Standard or especially Legacy.
I really just wanted to see the most powerful decks in history doing ridiculous things and I saw a bit of that but it was mostly just tight play with powerful cards. I only lost one game on turn 2, never on turn 1. I did have people scoop to a turn 1 Blood Moon, however. I played a game that went to at least turn 10 before a Blightsteel Colossus came out and killed me in two turns. It was a great day of Magic and I can't wait for the next Vintage tournament (though I can barely find 1 per month in my area).
Even though I am newer to the game I would say that I just truly love Magic in all forms. I play almost all forms of magic including standard > casual > legacy > limited (draft, sealed and cube) > modern > EDH > vintage in roughly that order of frequency. I really enjoy and appreciate the pinnacle of power in just about anything (Superman is my favorite superhero) so I do wish Vintage was first in that order. There are just a few issues making this hard:
1. I plan on buying more of the staples for vintage but even though I have a decent amount of money, they are still horribly expensive.
2. I plan on moving in a year to an area with even less access to tournaments (from Twin Cities, MN to Rapid City, SD).
3. I will play with proxies but I don't like doing it.
I am not optimistic about the future of vintage but I will do what I can to play it more, get the cards and get others into it.
Here's hoping for an abolished reserved list...
I don't know that my post contributed much to this thread other than musings and a couple stories. Oh well :D.
3. I will play with proxies but I don't like doing it.
I was never big on proxies at first. When I started playing Vintage, I played R/G beats because thats all I could put together. I even split for first and walked away with $100 that day.
But as time went on, I just accepted it. Maybe its because I put a little more time into making my proxies, then just using a sharpie and a Island. You might try that, take some time and make some really nice custom proxies. That way after you have invested some time and energy into making them, you might hold them in a better light.
I was never big on proxies at first. When I started playing Vintage, I played R/G beats because thats all I could put together. I even split for first and walked away with $100 that day.
But as time went on, I just accepted it. Maybe its because I put a little more time into making my proxies, then just using a sharpie and a Island. You might try that, take some time and make some really nice custom proxies. That way after you have invested some time and energy into making them, you might hold them in a better light.
I find that people who end up making custom art proxies (Ive seen someone put cards into the future sight frame-- which i find ugly but they loved) to really help with their enjoyment of playing with proxies.
Most of them, but not all, are Powerless. And the decks run a lot of "bears" (typically 2CMC cards, but some are more in this deck) that punish people for playing Vintage - such as Aven Mindcensor and Leonin Arbiter to combat tutoring, Gaddock Teeg to shut off Force of Will and Tendrils of Agony, and Kataki, War's Wage to shut down Moxes/Sol Ring/Mana Crypt/Mana Vault/Stax/etc. Some also run Leonin Relic-Warder to deal with Blightsteel Colossus, some have Qasali Pridemage for Exalted and artifact/enchantment removal. It's also one of the very few decks to main deck Swords to Plowshares (or Path to Exile).
I was driven from this once-great site by abusive mods and admins, who create rules out of thin air to punish people for breaking them (meaning the rule does not exist under forum rules) and selectively enforce the rules that are written on the forum rules. I am currently lurking while deleting 6 years and 2 months of posting history. I will return when ExpiredRascals, Teia Rabishu and Blinking Spirit are no longer in power.
Thanks you in advance for reading what I now look back upon and realize was an entirely too-long post. Thanks.
Hey, I've been playing for about a year now, and I've applied myself heavily to the game. I'm fresh but have a thorough understanding of the rules, and I play Legacy primarily with Standard, Modern, EDH and casual play as alternatives. I play a lot, when work permits.
I've been interested in Vintage, and would like to make some points as somebody who knows enough about the game to understand the investment, but is completely newbie to the idea of Vintage aside from lightly browsing the Vintage forum.
The biggest issue is the cost, and I don't think anyone has tried to argue outright that buying a fully powered Vintage deck is inexpensive. I understand that these cards are obvious collectors pieces and hold value. Also, don't think that I don't invest in Magic - I own most of the staples for Legacy in the Junk spectrum. The issue is, I can't reasonably warrant the amount of money I have to pay to become "powered", that all-too-important word that I immediately recognized as an idiom in your forums. It's a lot of cash. The attempt to mitigate this through proxy was a step in the right direction since it acknowledged that there's a problem. Bolded for importance regarding my stance on proxies. I highly dislike proxies since I dislike the idea of playing with fake cards, but players indicating that there is a problem through the institution of 15 proxy tournies shows admittance that there is indeed a problem. Now, I actually enjoy investing in Magic, I enjoy buying expensive widgets. The thing is, the expensive widgets I purchase can't be too expensive and need to have a solid future as a valued item, which are two issues that Vintage staples have. I'm not so worried about the later issue since I think there will be Vintage collectors for quite some time willing to rebuy and make these cards keep value, but the first issue is too obviously relevant. As a working student I cannot allow myself to make these purchases, they're simply too much for my budget.
The second issue is an issue entirely aside from proxies and I would like to say something about the Vintage metagame. There's several decks that are obviously top dog in Vintage, just like any format. My Johnny side yearns to be there, trying to create something new and competitive, even though logic tells me that people have been doing this for many years. Some have succeeded and created oddball lists they won a tourny with. The main main issue though is that the metagame as it stands now consists of a handful of decks that consist largely of the same cards, due to their vast power level. The including of power makes decklists look a little homogeneous, but there are aspects beyond that that exacerbate the issue; it seems every deck runs Tinker/Blightsteel, and every deck has a Tendrils wincon. Many deck's names seem to be derived from the third wincon that is run alongside the other two. This makes the format look boring to outsiders, we don't want to see the same deck with slight variations repeatedly. I refused to play standard the whole time of Cawblade dominance because it was boring. My friends refused to play Legacy during Survival of the Fittest, and I think I may have too. I'm really afraid that Vintage has hit a singularity where powerful competitive decks run the same core, and the core is a large part of the deck.
Those are really the two biggest issues keeping me out of Vintage. The idea of a format where I have to play with fake cards turns me off, hevily, along with most other people I know. The price is the biggest issue since I've played bad formats before (ehem Extended), and I have hopes that Vintage isn't as homogenizes and boring as it looks.
The biggest issue is the cost, and I don't think anyone has tried to argue outright that buying a fully powered Vintage deck is inexpensive. I understand that these cards are obvious collectors pieces and hold value. Also, don't think that I don't invest in Magic - I own most of the staples for Legacy in the Junk spectrum. The issue is, I can't reasonably warrant the amount of money I have to pay to become "powered", that all-too-important word that I immediately recognized as an idiom in your forums. It's a lot of cash. The attempt to mitigate this through proxy was a step in the right direction since it acknowledged that there's a problem. Bolded for importance regarding my stance on proxies. I highly dislike proxies since I dislike the idea of playing with fake cards, but players indicating that there is a problem through the institution of 15 proxy tournies shows admittance that there is indeed a problem. Now, I actually enjoy investing in Magic, I enjoy buying expensive widgets. The thing is, the expensive widgets I purchase can't be too expensive and need to have a solid future as a valued item, which are two issues that Vintage staples have. I'm not so worried about the later issue since I think there will be Vintage collectors for quite some time willing to rebuy and make these cards keep value, but the first issue is too obviously relevant. As a working student I cannot allow myself to make these purchases, they're simply too much for my budget.
No argument there. The initial investment to get into Vintage is ridiculously high. Vintage isn't a format like Standard or Extended that you get into, play for a year or two, and then move on. In the long run though, Vintage "pays for itself" with how much you save per set on staples (unless, of course, to play Standard as well). To stay competitive in Vintage in comparison to Standard is pennies, sometimes fractions of a penny, on the dollar. Look at New Phyrexia (since Innistrad is still being evaluated). When NPH came out, I needed 3 playsets of cards - 4x Slash Panther, 4x Mental Misstep, and 4x Phyrexian Metamorph. So NPH cost me, as a Vintage player, less than $10 to get what I needed to keep up with the format. I doubt many Standard players paid that little to get everything they needed from NPH to stay competitive. It's a trade off - high initial investment with minimal maintenance costs, or low initial investment with high maintenance costs.
The second issue is an issue entirely aside from proxies and I would like to say something about the Vintage metagame. There's several decks that are obviously top dog in Vintage, just like any format. My Johnny side yearns to be there, trying to create something new and competitive, even though logic tells me that people have been doing this for many years. Some have succeeded and created oddball lists they won a tourny with. The main main issue though is that the metagame as it stands now consists of a handful of decks that consist largely of the same cards, due to their vast power level. The including of power makes decklists look a little homogeneous, but there are aspects beyond that that exacerbate the issue; it seems every deck runs Tinker/Blightsteel, and every deck has a Tendrils wincon. Many deck's names seem to be derived from the third wincon that is run alongside the other two. This makes the format look boring to outsiders, we don't want to see the same deck with slight variations repeatedly. I refused to play standard the whole time of Cawblade dominance because it was boring. My friends refused to play Legacy during Survival of the Fittest, and I think I may have too. I'm really afraid that Vintage has hit a singularity where powerful competitive decks run the same core, and the core is a large part of the deck.
At first glance, that seems right. However, it isn't. Vintage is an extremely diverse format, possibly as diverse as Legacy and definitely more diverse than Modern, Extended, and Standard. Since you brought them up, I'll address them. Tinker/Blightsteel and Tendrils are pretty much exclusive to the blue-based control decks as win conditions. The differences are in how the decks operate before going for their win conditions. They have different methods of control, different draw engines, and different metagame choices in the main deck. Just because a deck has the same win conditions as another deck doesn't mean they play the same.
And there are plenty of non-BSC/non-Tendrils decks in Vintage. You have the million flavors of MUD, which range from a complete prison deck to an extremely fast aggro deck. You have the mono-colored decks such as Dark Times (MBC w/ Helm+Leyline and Hexmage+Depths win conditions), Goblins (fast aggro, arguably some combo in the R/g Food Chain Goblins lists), and Elves (creature-based Storm combo with Grapeshot, or a hard cast Emrakul). Various highly successful "Fish" lists such as BUG Fish (recently placed 8th at Vintage Worlds) and Noble Fish. You have graveyard based combo such as Dredge and Dragon. And there are the four most common varieties of Oath - Tyrant/Gush Oath, Elephant Oath, Fast Oath, and Demon Oath. All with distinctly different win conditions and game plans. You even have some dark horse decks like Painter and Bomberman.
And if you don't own Power, don't consider yourself out of the format. There are plenty of non-Powered decks that win by forcing their opponents to play on their terms. Decks such as GW Aggro (also called GW Hatebears or GW Haterator), Christmas Beatings, and The Mountains Win Again. These decks run no Power typically (some use on-color Moxes), and run cards that punish people for playing Vintage - cards like Aven Mindcensor, Leonin Arbiter, Leonin Relic-Warder, Gaddock Teeg, Kataki, War's Wage, Ancient Grudge, Nature's Claim, Blood Moon, etc., etc.
Those are really the two biggest issues keeping me out of Vintage. The idea of a format where I have to play with fake cards turns me off, hevily, along with most other people I know. The price is the biggest issue since I've played bad formats before (ehem Extended), and I have hopes that Vintage isn't as homogenizes and boring as it looks.
It most certainly is not as homogeneous and boring as it looks at times. I, personally, hate using proxies. But at the same time, my love of the format makes me have no issues playing against opponents with proxies. I would rather play against someone with a 75 proxy deck in Vintage than not play Vintage at all.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I was driven from this once-great site by abusive mods and admins, who create rules out of thin air to punish people for breaking them (meaning the rule does not exist under forum rules) and selectively enforce the rules that are written on the forum rules. I am currently lurking while deleting 6 years and 2 months of posting history. I will return when ExpiredRascals, Teia Rabishu and Blinking Spirit are no longer in power.
Thanks for taking the time to read and respond to my post, yo.
Well that was certainly a truckload of information, a lot of it information that doesn't seem easily available on this site. I know a lot of people that use MTGSalvation as their primary resource on formats and their metas... perhaps a revamp of the competitive section is in order? These deck threads have their most recent post having been made months ago, sometimes a year or more back - I don't know what's still relevant and what isn't. Some decks, like Dragon, only have one thread and it seems an off-flavor of the deck. There's lots of archives with no current thread posted. I also see a lot of threads discussing a decklist that is relevant to the subsection on the site but with no 'base' decklist for me to reference.
Maybe if you or someone else were to go through the forums and open some new discussion topics. Not just for the sake of it, but honest deals like "Whats the meta in your area and how do you deal with it?" and stuff like that. I'd do it myself but I'm too unknowledgeable in the format, I fear. It seems like the Type 1 Vintage forums are used more as a reference than anything else, and as much traffic as it may get it looks stagnant and I'm at a loss for what's relevant and what isn't.
If I were to play, I'd almost certainly have to proxy any sort of power included in my decklist, but I'd be sure to make 'proper' proxies rather than sharpie my Islands. I appreciate you taking the time to address my issues with the format, I'll have to do more research and see what deck fits my midranged playstyle.
Well that was certainly a truckload of information, a lot of it information that doesn't seem easily available on this site. I know a lot of people that use MTGSalvation as their primary resource on formats and their metas... perhaps a revamp of the competitive section is in order? These deck threads have their most recent post having been made months ago, sometimes a year or more back - I don't know what's still relevant and what isn't. Some decks, like Dragon, only have one thread and it seems an off-flavor of the deck. There's lots of archives with no current thread posted. I also see a lot of threads discussing a decklist that is relevant to the subsection on the site but with no 'base' decklist for me to reference.
Maybe if you or someone else were to go through the forums and open some new discussion topics. Not just for the sake of it, but honest deals like "Whats the meta in your area and how do you deal with it?" and stuff like that. I'd do it myself but I'm too unknowledgeable in the format, I fear. It seems like the Type 1 Vintage forums are used more as a reference than anything else, and as much traffic as it may get it looks stagnant and I'm at a loss for what's relevant and what isn't.
If I were to play, I'd almost certainly have to proxy any sort of power included in my decklist, but I'd be sure to make 'proper' proxies rather than sharpie my Islands. I appreciate you taking the time to address my issues with the format, I'll have to do more research and see what deck fits my midranged playstyle.
For an idea about the variety of decks, check out TC Decks. That covers all the larger events for every format. Some of the stuff is categorized oddly though...like they have a GW Haterator section, but it's pretty sparse because more of the GW Aggro/Hatebears got classified under Fish.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I was driven from this once-great site by abusive mods and admins, who create rules out of thin air to punish people for breaking them (meaning the rule does not exist under forum rules) and selectively enforce the rules that are written on the forum rules. I am currently lurking while deleting 6 years and 2 months of posting history. I will return when ExpiredRascals, Teia Rabishu and Blinking Spirit are no longer in power.
Maybe if you or someone else were to go through the forums and open some new discussion topics. Not just for the sake of it, but honest deals like "Whats the meta in your area and how do you deal with it?" and stuff like that. I'd do it myself but I'm too unknowledgeable in the format, I fear. It seems like the Type 1 Vintage forums are used more as a reference than anything else, and as much traffic as it may get it looks stagnant and I'm at a loss for what's relevant and what isn't.
If I were to play, I'd almost certainly have to proxy any sort of power included in my decklist, but I'd be sure to make 'proper' proxies rather than sharpie my Islands. I appreciate you taking the time to address my issues with the format, I'll have to do more research and see what deck fits my midranged playstyle.
I try and update what I can when I have time. When I post deck lists they have usually won a tournament, but I also put the date, so that people know how current said deck list is. Other then that, its up to the users of this site to post questions and threads. We just dont have very many people here discussing the format. So if you have questions about a deck, just post it in its respective area.
Vintage TOs are amongst the most generous as far as prize support is concerned - something certainly fantastic for attracting more players.
So, what's the problem?
I think a good analogy is smoking. A large influence in one's decision to smoke is seeing and interacting with others who smoke. Vintage gets new players as people see and interact with vintage players.
It explains why vintage is so regional dependent. The expense is not that much of an issue because if someone really looked into vintage they could see it's not THAT expensive to build a 10/15 proxy deck. But they wouldn't look into it if just no one played it in their area.
Yes, some fancy proxy or some such could certainly break the regional dependency and expand the player base world-wide; people won't pay when there's nowhere to play.
Perhaps running some unlimited proxy tournaments could draw people into the format. At that point, they may learn that a 10-15 proxy deck isn't really so expensive. Perhaps do weekly unlimited proxy vintage alongside monthly (higher stakes) 10/15 proxy vintage.
building a really good vintage deck with some variations is cheaper than buying all your cards when they launch over a few years, AND they will last in that format forever, they won't be useless after two years max.
I Love really powerful decks and powerful combos. Unfortunately I have to agree with phuture2k. Standard players in my area (even the ones that can seriously buy power tomorrow if they wanted to) hate strong cards like Lotus. They've told me before, "I love standard because the decks are weak". I think they are truly non-competative players. There are about 14 of us that get together to play Legacy on Saturdays, which is less than half of the average Standard player load out of 30 players every FNM. We always offer to loan them decks, like Tier 1 decks, if they come play on a totally different day. We even offer to waive their entry fee, trying to garnish higher player numbers. Since we moved our Legacy from Friday Night to Saturday at noon (months ago), we've had a grand total of 0 Standard players show up to even give it a chance. We even, and I say again offer to loan new players Tier 1 Legacy decks!. They always, ALWAYS say: "I don't want to play in a format that lasts 3 turns. I want to play the entire 50 minutes that we are allotted just as standard games. I really like the slow, weak cards." We even pointed out that Legacy lasts more than 3 turns. Stubborness just stops them. My point is, if the majority of new players feel this way, and are that stubborn about a very balanced format like Legacy, imagine how they feel about using the best cards ever printed... Go browse the modern forums even... almost every discussion breaks down into Tarmogoyf is overpowered and should be banned, blah blah blah... Some even say: "I refuse to play in a format where goyf is legal".
TL;DR: A lot of new players hate "fast formats", so they scrub out and stick to their slow decks even if they can afford to build Legacy/Vintage.
i prefer standard over vintage/legacy because the format rotates often, and is always shifting. yes, this happens in legacy also, but it's much slower. think jupiter's orbit compared to earth's.
vintage however, i would never touch. i've played a few t1 games before, never enjoyed it. got turn 2 killed so consistently that i gave up playing with my friend's decks (made entirely of proxies)
the real problem with vintage isn't the cost; it's the fact that it's so stale. has vintage changed dramatically in the past year?
has legacy?
has standard?
changed yes. dramatically? not really.
btw. standard being slow and weak isn't a bad thing.
by that logic who would EVER play limited?
i prefer standard over vintage/legacy because the format rotates often, and is always shifting. yes, this happens in legacy also, but it's much slower. think jupiter's orbit compared to earth's.
vintage however, i would never touch. i've played a few t1 games before, never enjoyed it. got turn 2 killed so consistently that i gave up playing with my friend's decks (made entirely of proxies)
the real problem with vintage isn't the cost; it's the fact that it's so stale. has vintage changed dramatically in the past year?
has legacy?
has standard?
changed yes. dramatically? not really.
btw. standard being slow and weak isn't a bad thing.
by that logic who would EVER play limited?
Vintage changes almost monthly. Here, let me give you some information (keep in mind this website is very generalized, and often doesn't differentiate between different decks with similar engines):
Meandeck Open 15 - 76 players - October 2011
1) Mana Ichorid
2) MUD
3) Oath
4) Almost Broken (Undefined "rogue" deck)
5) TPS
6) Gush Storm
7) Snapcontrol (brand new archetype created with Snapcaster Mage)
8) Snapcontrol (brand new archetype created with Snapcaster Mage)
The Council Open #9 - 24 players - September 2011
1) Gush Storm
2) Noble Fish
3) UR Stax
4) Landstill
5) Gush Storm
6) Jace Control
7) Mana Ichorid
8) Classic Fish
N.Y.S.E. XVII - 17 players - September 2011
1) Minus Six
2) MUD
3) Gush Storm
4) Minus Six
5) MUD Marinara
6) MUD Marinara
7) Mana Ichorid
8) Cat Stax
Blue Bell Game Day #17.5 - 32 players - September 2011
1) Landstill
2) Cat Stax
3) Gush Bob Control
4) Mana Ichorid
5) Mana Ichorid
6) Mana Ichorid
7) Mana Ichorid
8) Gush Control
Team Serious Open - 26 players - September 2011
1) Cobra Gush Storm
2) Cobra Gush Storm
3) Gush Storm
4) TPS
5) MUD
6) Gush Control
7) Gush Storm
8) Gush Oath / Tyrant Oath
These are just the five most recent events in the Pennsylvania/Ohio/New York region of the United States. Each Top 8 was distinctly different, with no deck winning more than one tournament (if you umbrella all the Gush Storms into one deck, then Gush Storm won two - but one was using the Dark Confidant engine and the other was using the Lotus Cobra engine and they both play distinctly differently).
Vintage experiences dramatic shifts in the metagame on a regular basis. It's easily the most fluid and dynamic format in regards to the metagame. It's not like Standard, or even Legacy at times, where a deck rises to dominance and stays there until rotations or bannings unseat it.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I was driven from this once-great site by abusive mods and admins, who create rules out of thin air to punish people for breaking them (meaning the rule does not exist under forum rules) and selectively enforce the rules that are written on the forum rules. I am currently lurking while deleting 6 years and 2 months of posting history. I will return when ExpiredRascals, Teia Rabishu and Blinking Spirit are no longer in power.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
This isnt a legacy vs vintage debate. What does your comment provide to the actual conversation?
BUWGRChilds PlayGRWUB
BUWGR Highlander GRWUB
UBSquee's Shapeshifting PetBU
BW Multiplayer Control WB
RG Changeling GR
UR Mana FlareRU
UMerfolkU
B MBMC B
I think that playing the right type of cards can make the format challenging and interactive. The strategy and decision trees are incredibly diverse and challenging, it's a very skill challenging format, it's just so much faster and more explosive then the average player sees on any sort of daily basis. Especially when their starting progression, is Limited with Friends -> Standard at Friday Night Magic -> being exposed to unproxied power decks with typical first turns that can involve Land, Mox, Lotus, Sol Ring, Tinker into something really broken (backed up with counters).
Rogue decks do have a place in Vintage, it's just that they have to be built to deal with some of the shenangans that go on.
I seriously doubt they would reprint mana drain. It is an exceptionally powerful card. Standard tourneys would only have one color if they did. Or at least decks would be part blue.
I dont know if I missed it, but why does reprinting Mana Drain mean it will be playable in standard?
I mean look at all the promos they do, the special sets they do. The commander decks, even the reprints in coldsnap like Brainstorm were done without making them standard legal.
BUWGRChilds PlayGRWUB
BUWGR Highlander GRWUB
UBSquee's Shapeshifting PetBU
BW Multiplayer Control WB
RG Changeling GR
UR Mana FlareRU
UMerfolkU
B MBMC B
Currently looking to buy miscut Homelands, (my wife thinks I'm crazy too).
Semper Gumby (Always Flexible)
IMO it would take something like SCG to start hosting Vintage opens around the country where in which the prizes would be more inclined towards cash or Power, heck even playsets of Mana Drain, Goyfs and what have you. It worked for Legacy. I am first and foremost a Legacy player. I remember when that format was pretty dull before SCG started the Monthly tournanments.
Thank you mchief111, great sig
Lvl 37 Planeswalker
Current:
Legacy:
:symu::symb::symr::symw::symg: TES | Spiral Tide | MUD | :symu::symb::symg: Lands | Burn | :symr::symbg: Goblins | Elf Combo
Vintage:
:symb::symu: Titan Dredge | :symb::symu::symw: Bomberman
Modern:
:symu::symr: Kiki-Twin | :symr::symg: Tron
Standard:
Wip
EDH:
:symb::symu::symw: Zur
Ok, they would never reprint it for viable use in standard. I could care less if they reprint it to just throw it in some promo.
FTFY
I Love really powerful decks and powerful combos. Unfortunately I have to agree with phuture2k. Standard players in my area (even the ones that can seriously buy power tomorrow if they wanted to) hate strong cards like Lotus. They've told me before, "I love standard because the decks are weak". I think they are truly non-competative players. There are about 14 of us that get together to play Legacy on Saturdays, which is less than half of the average Standard player load out of 30 players every FNM. We always offer to loan them decks, like Tier 1 decks, if they come play on a totally different day. We even offer to waive their entry fee, trying to garnish higher player numbers. Since we moved our Legacy from Friday Night to Saturday at noon (months ago), we've had a grand total of 0 Standard players show up to even give it a chance. We even, and I say again offer to loan new players Tier 1 Legacy decks!. They always, ALWAYS say: "I don't want to play in a format that lasts 3 turns. I want to play the entire 50 minutes that we are allotted just as standard games. I really like the slow, weak cards." We even pointed out that Legacy lasts more than 3 turns. Stubborness just stops them. My point is, if the majority of new players feel this way, and are that stubborn about a very balanced format like Legacy, imagine how they feel about using the best cards ever printed... Go browse the modern forums even... almost every discussion breaks down into Tarmogoyf is overpowered and should be banned, blah blah blah... Some even say: "I refuse to play in a format where goyf is legal".
TL;DR: A lot of new players hate "fast formats", so they scrub out and stick to their slow decks even if they can afford to build Legacy/Vintage.
Thank you mchief111, great sig
Lvl 37 Planeswalker
Current:
Legacy:
:symu::symb::symr::symw::symg: TES | Spiral Tide | MUD | :symu::symb::symg: Lands | Burn | :symr::symbg: Goblins | Elf Combo
Vintage:
:symb::symu: Titan Dredge | :symb::symu::symw: Bomberman
Modern:
:symu::symr: Kiki-Twin | :symr::symg: Tron
Standard:
Wip
EDH:
:symb::symu::symw: Zur
Let's address these "problems" you say Vintage has.
Actually, there are a lot of rogue decks in Vintage. You have to remember, every single deck in every single format began as a rogue deck that began putting up good results and more people began picking it up and refining it. Dark Times (Vintage MBC w/ Helm+Leyline and Hexmage+Depths win condition) began as a rogue deck, and now it's a proven and popular deck. GW Aggro (or GW Hatebears) is another newly developed deck that is becoming popular and is powerful since it's design actually punishes people for playing Vintage.
Yes, turn 1 wins can happen in Vintage. But not as commonly as you seem to believe. Honestly, I'd say that Dragonstorm when it was in Standard had more frequent turn 1 wins than any given Vintage deck (including a turn 1 "win" using Vault/Key). I believe saying <5% of Vintage matches have a turn 1 win is fairly accurate.
In a vacuum or compared to Standard/Extended legal cards, yes - Vintage cards ARE broken. However, you need to take it in context. In a Vintage match, the brokenness of one deck is nullified by the brokenness of the opponent's deck.
Furthermore, Vintage is, by far, the most fluid and dynamic format there is. Aside from a few cases, there are absolutely no entrenched board positions where you can get complacent and make mistakes knowing your opponent cannot come back now. In the other Constructed formats, once you hit a critical mass board position, there is almost no chance your opponent can recover. That doesn't happen in Vintage. No matter what your board position is, one mistake can still cost you the match. You could be playing Stax and have a critical mass of control artifacts in play, and on your end step your opponent has enough mana to cast Hurkyl's Recall through all your Spheres and now you're stuck with no artifacts in play and you have to discard back down to seven in your hand.
There are plenty of tournaments for Vintage, if you'd look. Hell, I can find 3-4 tournaments a month within reasonable driving distance of where I live. In fact, I just got a monthly Vintage series running in my area starting the 29th of October.
Honestly, I don't think you've ever played Vintage - in any form. And I doubt you've ever seen anyone play Vintage. Or watched videos of a Vintage tournament. Yes, there is little room for mistake. But it's not as fast as you, and many others (unfortunately), think it is.
Most Vintage PLAYERS play for the love of the game. My view point among the community of Vintage PLAYERS isn't all that unique. I have my Power 9 (working on Betas now, got 2 so far). I have my Library. I have a Workshop. I have my duals. I got my Forces and Drains. I got my Time Vault. Hell, my current Vintage deck in it's current level of pimpness (pictures in the pimp thread on Magic General, except my Ancestral Recall is now Beta instead of Unlimited) is worth well over $8,000.
And I still support abolishing the Reserved List and reprinting anything they want in a non-Standard/Extended/Modern legal set. And every Vintage PLAYER I've talked to feels the same.
First off aaronc123 I know these are things that you have been told and are quoting and I want to say that this reply is based on those quotes and not your personal opinion.
I had to literally hang my head in shame and disgust when I read these quotes. Maybe I come from a different time...a time where people not only respected but idolized the p9. A time when some cards were good and some cards just sucked. Or perhaps Rosewater has created some kind of new baby-man-boy after he brainwashed players into thinking that there can be only a fair and just world of MTG where the color pie and each individual card is perfectly balanced,every game ends in a draw and a high-five and every player walks away happy.
At any rate, people that disprespect the history of Magic and Black Lotus like this do not deserve to ever touch a magic card again. They should really just give up magic for a simple and balanced game like go-fish or checkers.
I have heard similar things and this is why I no longer play magic or attend events. This is also why I believe eternal magic, especially t1, has no chance of ever making a real come back. The majority of players are just too closed minded and uninformed to ever really give it a chance.
I couldn't say it better. Me and a friend are working on getting a Vintage playgroup started, 4-5 at most in my area, for now. What you said is so true. I had people rage quit on me in Standard when I was playing Caw-blade (with JTMS + SFM)... They would get mad just when I played a JTMS... it's so sad. "that's not fair" mentality is what the problem is. You can reprint Black Lotus Tomorrow, I don't care, that won't help. All the Whiny little Standard scrubs will have their panties in a bunch and will be like: "I'm quitting until Lotus rotates or is banned from standard". They wouldn't care about Vintage or anything. Would T1 gain some players if they did a reprint like that? Yes, I'm sure there are a lot of budget minded players that simply don't play cause of $$$. Would it "fix" Vintage attendance completely? Probably Not.
Edit That's actually the type of guys my Legacy group are. They would love to play Vintage, they just can't afford it (most of the decks they use, they borrow from me). They are very big Standard Haters.
Thank you mchief111, great sig
Lvl 37 Planeswalker
Current:
Legacy:
:symu::symb::symr::symw::symg: TES | Spiral Tide | MUD | :symu::symb::symg: Lands | Burn | :symr::symbg: Goblins | Elf Combo
Vintage:
:symb::symu: Titan Dredge | :symb::symu::symw: Bomberman
Modern:
:symu::symr: Kiki-Twin | :symr::symg: Tron
Standard:
Wip
EDH:
:symb::symu::symw: Zur
BUWGRChilds PlayGRWUB
BUWGR Highlander GRWUB
UBSquee's Shapeshifting PetBU
BW Multiplayer Control WB
RG Changeling GR
UR Mana FlareRU
UMerfolkU
B MBMC B
My personal experience with Vintage players was that they were very friendly and truly loved the game. Even when losing to a brand new player they recognized great plays, got excited about them and earnestly congratulated me. This difference in the amount of fun they had whether winning or losing seemed smaller than what I have seen in Standard or especially Legacy.
I really just wanted to see the most powerful decks in history doing ridiculous things and I saw a bit of that but it was mostly just tight play with powerful cards. I only lost one game on turn 2, never on turn 1. I did have people scoop to a turn 1 Blood Moon, however. I played a game that went to at least turn 10 before a Blightsteel Colossus came out and killed me in two turns. It was a great day of Magic and I can't wait for the next Vintage tournament (though I can barely find 1 per month in my area).
Even though I am newer to the game I would say that I just truly love Magic in all forms. I play almost all forms of magic including standard > casual > legacy > limited (draft, sealed and cube) > modern > EDH > vintage in roughly that order of frequency. I really enjoy and appreciate the pinnacle of power in just about anything (Superman is my favorite superhero) so I do wish Vintage was first in that order. There are just a few issues making this hard:
1. I plan on buying more of the staples for vintage but even though I have a decent amount of money, they are still horribly expensive.
2. I plan on moving in a year to an area with even less access to tournaments (from Twin Cities, MN to Rapid City, SD).
3. I will play with proxies but I don't like doing it.
I am not optimistic about the future of vintage but I will do what I can to play it more, get the cards and get others into it.
Here's hoping for an abolished reserved list...
I don't know that my post contributed much to this thread other than musings and a couple stories. Oh well :D.
Standard: UWR
Modern: RDW, Twin
Legacy: I am 3 Candelabra of Tawnos from being able to build almost any tier 1 or 1.5 deck. Here are the ones I care about right now:
-Aggro: UWR/RUB/WUB/RUG/UR Delver; Affinity; Burn
-Control: Stoneblade; UWr Miracles; UB Tezzeret
-Combo: Hive Mind; Combo Elves; Omni Tell; T.E.S.
Vintage: Grixis Painter
EDH: Rith, the Awakener
I was never big on proxies at first. When I started playing Vintage, I played R/G beats because thats all I could put together. I even split for first and walked away with $100 that day.
But as time went on, I just accepted it. Maybe its because I put a little more time into making my proxies, then just using a sharpie and a Island. You might try that, take some time and make some really nice custom proxies. That way after you have invested some time and energy into making them, you might hold them in a better light.
BUWGRChilds PlayGRWUB
BUWGR Highlander GRWUB
UBSquee's Shapeshifting PetBU
BW Multiplayer Control WB
RG Changeling GR
UR Mana FlareRU
UMerfolkU
B MBMC B
I find that people who end up making custom art proxies (Ive seen someone put cards into the future sight frame-- which i find ugly but they loved) to really help with their enjoyment of playing with proxies.
Make the cards look good.
Legacy:WUBG Jace Rock
Trade thread
Sig by: heroes of the plane studios
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/tipo.php?archetype=GW%20Haterator&format=Vintage
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=6510&iddeck=47145
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=6334&iddeck=45914
Most of them, but not all, are Powerless. And the decks run a lot of "bears" (typically 2CMC cards, but some are more in this deck) that punish people for playing Vintage - such as Aven Mindcensor and Leonin Arbiter to combat tutoring, Gaddock Teeg to shut off Force of Will and Tendrils of Agony, and Kataki, War's Wage to shut down Moxes/Sol Ring/Mana Crypt/Mana Vault/Stax/etc. Some also run Leonin Relic-Warder to deal with Blightsteel Colossus, some have Qasali Pridemage for Exalted and artifact/enchantment removal. It's also one of the very few decks to main deck Swords to Plowshares (or Path to Exile).
Hey, I've been playing for about a year now, and I've applied myself heavily to the game. I'm fresh but have a thorough understanding of the rules, and I play Legacy primarily with Standard, Modern, EDH and casual play as alternatives. I play a lot, when work permits.
I've been interested in Vintage, and would like to make some points as somebody who knows enough about the game to understand the investment, but is completely newbie to the idea of Vintage aside from lightly browsing the Vintage forum.
The biggest issue is the cost, and I don't think anyone has tried to argue outright that buying a fully powered Vintage deck is inexpensive. I understand that these cards are obvious collectors pieces and hold value. Also, don't think that I don't invest in Magic - I own most of the staples for Legacy in the Junk spectrum. The issue is, I can't reasonably warrant the amount of money I have to pay to become "powered", that all-too-important word that I immediately recognized as an idiom in your forums. It's a lot of cash. The attempt to mitigate this through proxy was a step in the right direction since it acknowledged that there's a problem. Bolded for importance regarding my stance on proxies. I highly dislike proxies since I dislike the idea of playing with fake cards, but players indicating that there is a problem through the institution of 15 proxy tournies shows admittance that there is indeed a problem. Now, I actually enjoy investing in Magic, I enjoy buying expensive widgets. The thing is, the expensive widgets I purchase can't be too expensive and need to have a solid future as a valued item, which are two issues that Vintage staples have. I'm not so worried about the later issue since I think there will be Vintage collectors for quite some time willing to rebuy and make these cards keep value, but the first issue is too obviously relevant. As a working student I cannot allow myself to make these purchases, they're simply too much for my budget.
The second issue is an issue entirely aside from proxies and I would like to say something about the Vintage metagame. There's several decks that are obviously top dog in Vintage, just like any format. My Johnny side yearns to be there, trying to create something new and competitive, even though logic tells me that people have been doing this for many years. Some have succeeded and created oddball lists they won a tourny with. The main main issue though is that the metagame as it stands now consists of a handful of decks that consist largely of the same cards, due to their vast power level. The including of power makes decklists look a little homogeneous, but there are aspects beyond that that exacerbate the issue; it seems every deck runs Tinker/Blightsteel, and every deck has a Tendrils wincon. Many deck's names seem to be derived from the third wincon that is run alongside the other two. This makes the format look boring to outsiders, we don't want to see the same deck with slight variations repeatedly. I refused to play standard the whole time of Cawblade dominance because it was boring. My friends refused to play Legacy during Survival of the Fittest, and I think I may have too. I'm really afraid that Vintage has hit a singularity where powerful competitive decks run the same core, and the core is a large part of the deck.
Those are really the two biggest issues keeping me out of Vintage. The idea of a format where I have to play with fake cards turns me off, hevily, along with most other people I know. The price is the biggest issue since I've played bad formats before (ehem Extended), and I have hopes that Vintage isn't as homogenizes and boring as it looks.
No argument there. The initial investment to get into Vintage is ridiculously high. Vintage isn't a format like Standard or Extended that you get into, play for a year or two, and then move on. In the long run though, Vintage "pays for itself" with how much you save per set on staples (unless, of course, to play Standard as well). To stay competitive in Vintage in comparison to Standard is pennies, sometimes fractions of a penny, on the dollar. Look at New Phyrexia (since Innistrad is still being evaluated). When NPH came out, I needed 3 playsets of cards - 4x Slash Panther, 4x Mental Misstep, and 4x Phyrexian Metamorph. So NPH cost me, as a Vintage player, less than $10 to get what I needed to keep up with the format. I doubt many Standard players paid that little to get everything they needed from NPH to stay competitive. It's a trade off - high initial investment with minimal maintenance costs, or low initial investment with high maintenance costs.
At first glance, that seems right. However, it isn't. Vintage is an extremely diverse format, possibly as diverse as Legacy and definitely more diverse than Modern, Extended, and Standard. Since you brought them up, I'll address them. Tinker/Blightsteel and Tendrils are pretty much exclusive to the blue-based control decks as win conditions. The differences are in how the decks operate before going for their win conditions. They have different methods of control, different draw engines, and different metagame choices in the main deck. Just because a deck has the same win conditions as another deck doesn't mean they play the same.
And there are plenty of non-BSC/non-Tendrils decks in Vintage. You have the million flavors of MUD, which range from a complete prison deck to an extremely fast aggro deck. You have the mono-colored decks such as Dark Times (MBC w/ Helm+Leyline and Hexmage+Depths win conditions), Goblins (fast aggro, arguably some combo in the R/g Food Chain Goblins lists), and Elves (creature-based Storm combo with Grapeshot, or a hard cast Emrakul). Various highly successful "Fish" lists such as BUG Fish (recently placed 8th at Vintage Worlds) and Noble Fish. You have graveyard based combo such as Dredge and Dragon. And there are the four most common varieties of Oath - Tyrant/Gush Oath, Elephant Oath, Fast Oath, and Demon Oath. All with distinctly different win conditions and game plans. You even have some dark horse decks like Painter and Bomberman.
And if you don't own Power, don't consider yourself out of the format. There are plenty of non-Powered decks that win by forcing their opponents to play on their terms. Decks such as GW Aggro (also called GW Hatebears or GW Haterator), Christmas Beatings, and The Mountains Win Again. These decks run no Power typically (some use on-color Moxes), and run cards that punish people for playing Vintage - cards like Aven Mindcensor, Leonin Arbiter, Leonin Relic-Warder, Gaddock Teeg, Kataki, War's Wage, Ancient Grudge, Nature's Claim, Blood Moon, etc., etc.
It most certainly is not as homogeneous and boring as it looks at times. I, personally, hate using proxies. But at the same time, my love of the format makes me have no issues playing against opponents with proxies. I would rather play against someone with a 75 proxy deck in Vintage than not play Vintage at all.
Well that was certainly a truckload of information, a lot of it information that doesn't seem easily available on this site. I know a lot of people that use MTGSalvation as their primary resource on formats and their metas... perhaps a revamp of the competitive section is in order? These deck threads have their most recent post having been made months ago, sometimes a year or more back - I don't know what's still relevant and what isn't. Some decks, like Dragon, only have one thread and it seems an off-flavor of the deck. There's lots of archives with no current thread posted. I also see a lot of threads discussing a decklist that is relevant to the subsection on the site but with no 'base' decklist for me to reference.
Maybe if you or someone else were to go through the forums and open some new discussion topics. Not just for the sake of it, but honest deals like "Whats the meta in your area and how do you deal with it?" and stuff like that. I'd do it myself but I'm too unknowledgeable in the format, I fear. It seems like the Type 1 Vintage forums are used more as a reference than anything else, and as much traffic as it may get it looks stagnant and I'm at a loss for what's relevant and what isn't.
If I were to play, I'd almost certainly have to proxy any sort of power included in my decklist, but I'd be sure to make 'proper' proxies rather than sharpie my Islands. I appreciate you taking the time to address my issues with the format, I'll have to do more research and see what deck fits my midranged playstyle.
Your best bet would be The Mana Drain. Also Eternal Central and Quiet Speculation have a good supply of valuable information.
For an idea about the variety of decks, check out TC Decks. That covers all the larger events for every format. Some of the stuff is categorized oddly though...like they have a GW Haterator section, but it's pretty sparse because more of the GW Aggro/Hatebears got classified under Fish.
I try and update what I can when I have time. When I post deck lists they have usually won a tournament, but I also put the date, so that people know how current said deck list is. Other then that, its up to the users of this site to post questions and threads. We just dont have very many people here discussing the format. So if you have questions about a deck, just post it in its respective area.
Also, to go along with the links posted above, http://www.morphling.de/ is a good resource.
BUWGRChilds PlayGRWUB
BUWGR Highlander GRWUB
UBSquee's Shapeshifting PetBU
BW Multiplayer Control WB
RG Changeling GR
UR Mana FlareRU
UMerfolkU
B MBMC B
building a really good vintage deck with some variations is cheaper than buying all your cards when they launch over a few years, AND they will last in that format forever, they won't be useless after two years max.
i prefer standard over vintage/legacy because the format rotates often, and is always shifting. yes, this happens in legacy also, but it's much slower. think jupiter's orbit compared to earth's.
vintage however, i would never touch. i've played a few t1 games before, never enjoyed it. got turn 2 killed so consistently that i gave up playing with my friend's decks (made entirely of proxies)
the real problem with vintage isn't the cost; it's the fact that it's so stale. has vintage changed dramatically in the past year?
has legacy?
has standard?
changed yes. dramatically? not really.
btw. standard being slow and weak isn't a bad thing.
by that logic who would EVER play limited?
Vintage changes almost monthly. Here, let me give you some information (keep in mind this website is very generalized, and often doesn't differentiate between different decks with similar engines):
Meandeck Open 15 - 76 players - October 2011
1) Mana Ichorid
2) MUD
3) Oath
4) Almost Broken (Undefined "rogue" deck)
5) TPS
6) Gush Storm
7) Snapcontrol (brand new archetype created with Snapcaster Mage)
8) Snapcontrol (brand new archetype created with Snapcaster Mage)
The Council Open #9 - 24 players - September 2011
1) Gush Storm
2) Noble Fish
3) UR Stax
4) Landstill
5) Gush Storm
6) Jace Control
7) Mana Ichorid
8) Classic Fish
N.Y.S.E. XVII - 17 players - September 2011
1) Minus Six
2) MUD
3) Gush Storm
4) Minus Six
5) MUD Marinara
6) MUD Marinara
7) Mana Ichorid
8) Cat Stax
Blue Bell Game Day #17.5 - 32 players - September 2011
1) Landstill
2) Cat Stax
3) Gush Bob Control
4) Mana Ichorid
5) Mana Ichorid
6) Mana Ichorid
7) Mana Ichorid
8) Gush Control
Team Serious Open - 26 players - September 2011
1) Cobra Gush Storm
2) Cobra Gush Storm
3) Gush Storm
4) TPS
5) MUD
6) Gush Control
7) Gush Storm
8) Gush Oath / Tyrant Oath
These are just the five most recent events in the Pennsylvania/Ohio/New York region of the United States. Each Top 8 was distinctly different, with no deck winning more than one tournament (if you umbrella all the Gush Storms into one deck, then Gush Storm won two - but one was using the Dark Confidant engine and the other was using the Lotus Cobra engine and they both play distinctly differently).
Vintage experiences dramatic shifts in the metagame on a regular basis. It's easily the most fluid and dynamic format in regards to the metagame. It's not like Standard, or even Legacy at times, where a deck rises to dominance and stays there until rotations or bannings unseat it.