As of today, Monday, October 1st, 2012, Burning Wish is now unrestricted in Vintage.
When the DCI restricted Burning Wish, I was devastated. Burning Tendrils, aka Long.dec, was my favorite deck of all time. Too few Vintage players actually knew how to play the deck, and despite my success with it, it had not exactly been tearing up Vintage tournaments. The final dagger was the fact that Randy Buehler actually posted my list (with my name on it) in citing why it needing restriction.
For nearly a decade, we were forced to work with poor substitutes in an increasingly hostile metagame. What we have now is a perfect convergence of factors: A counter-intuitively ripe metagame to key tactics, a series of great printings to bolster what this deck is trying to do, and a key unrestriction. The result is what I believe to be a top deck in the metagame.
Why, then, am I unveiling this now? Unfortunately, there are no tournaments anywhere near me scheduled in the near future here in Cali. Otherwise, I would have kept this deck bottled up to uncork on an unsuspecting metagame. It's time for Rituals to return. I believe my technology is the implement to that goal.
If you only buy one premium article from me this year, this is the one to buy. I have been furiously testing and tuning this decklist, and what you have here is a 25 page primer on how to play one of the most difficult decks in the format, but also the most rewarding and fun. You won't regret it.
My friends and I have been playing magic for a long time and we always have thought that the Vintage format is simply a coin toss of who gets a better starting hand. The matches seem to decide who has won so early that i can't infer anything from it. We always asked "Why would anyone invest so much money into a format where you barely get to play your deck?"
I feel that there has to be more to it than that. So please, tell me your opinions and reasons why Vintage is a fun format for people like me who want to play decently long, interactive games and think that vintage is just a format where you win if you happened to get the best starting hand.
This is easy: The best players consistently win. That's proof that Vintage is not a coin flip.
The first scenario poses the question of whether you would keep a hand with no blue mana, but Force of Will, Mental Misstep, Mindbreak Trap, and Ancestral Recall.
I got 2nd place at the Meandeck open with Remora Gush Control. Remora Gush Control is a list that I developed immediately after the Waterbury to combat the new Mental Misstep metagame. One of the key points in my article is that Remora is one of the best cards from which to proactively and abusively use Mental Misstep.
This is a Gush deck that can corral the Doomsday deck, and is well positioned to beat Snapcaster Control decks, and other Gush Control decks. I compare Remora Gush to Cobra Gush, Bob Gush, and other traditional Gush decks.
I build on alot of the ideas I developed over the year, especially since my Gush book. And, in some ways, this is a conclusion to my Gush book.
This is a metagame analysis, deck primer, and tournament report. But it's also just entertainment for folks who enjoy reading about Vintage magic.
Kevin Cron and Steve Menendian discuss Innistrad’s impact on the format as demonstrated by it’s first major event: The ManaDrain Open 15.
Segments:
- 00:01:15: Announcements
- 00:03:30: TMD Open results. 1st: Dredge
- 00:06:12: 2nd: Moon Man MUD
- 00:07:40: 3rd – 8th: Blue Decks
- 00:13:45: Anti-Dredge sideboarding
- 00:18:00: Countermagic in the T8 and the environment, going forward: Mental Misstep, Flusterstorm, REB, et al.
- 00:40:40: Fact or Fiction
- 00:43:30: Snapcaster Mage (and Riptide Laboratory)
- 00:48:15: Doomsday
- 01:08:40: Witchbane Orb
- 01:11:00: The post-Innistrad metagame
- 01:13:02: Question of the Week: Last episode – What is the most unrestrictable card in Vintage?
- 01:14:00: Question of the Week: ???
Contact us at @ManyInsanePlays on Twitter or e-mail us at [email]SoManyInsanePlaysPodcast@gmail.com[/email]
Your Host(s): Kevin Cron , Steve Menendian
Show’s Email: [email]SoManyInsanePlaysPodcast@gmail.com[/email]
Show’s Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ManyInsanePlays
Hot off a Top 8 at the Waterbury/TMD 15 Open playing Doomsday, Stephen Menendian has written a primer on this unusual and exciting archetype. In this primer Stephen explains optimal deck construction, Doomsday piles, and sideboarding options and plans. With over 15 different Doomsday scenarios analyzed with detailed graphics, this article is a treat for all Magic lovers!
Is Doomsday now the premiere Gush strategy with the printing of Innistrad’s Laboratory Maniac? How does this Doomsday puzzle work? Find out all of these answers and more in So Many Insane Plays – DOOMSDAY RETURNS!
Stephen Menendian takes an in-depth look at Doomsday and Laboratory Maniac, and how the two combine to form a ferocious and resilient combo deck in Vintage. He comprehensively examines card choices, interactions, and more than 15 various Doomsday stacks. This 21 page primer on Doomsday in modern Vintage is a must read for every serious aspiring Doomsday player, as there are so many insane options in this beast of a combo deck!
Back in the day, people really enjoyed my article on the Doomsday Scenarios. With the new combo kill, I've done it all over again.
This article is over 21 pages with tons of images. I hope you really enjoy this!
Stephen takes an in-depth look at Innistrad with this 40 page set review. He comprehensively examines every angle of Innistrad (and every card! -- although unplayables only receive a 1 sentence note) in his characteristically detailed style. This is the ultimate Innistrad set review. In addition, Stephen updates the Complete Vintage Checklist, a must-have for every serious Vintage player and collector!
Opening, Teaser Essay:
INVESTIGATING INNISTRAD
Originality is overrated. Just about everything that is possible in Magic was sowed in the seeds of Alpha, planted nearly two decades ago by Richard Garfield and his crew. How ironically appropriate that Richard Garfield should return, once more, to the design team of the game he created for its most recent expansion.
The Return to Mirrodin was not what we expected. Mirrodin originally was a bombastic, operatic block with an array of innovative mechanics (affinity, indestructible) and broken spells (Chrome Mox, Chalice of the Void, Thirst for Knowledge, Trinisphere, Crucible of Worlds, among many others). The Vintage format gained a plethora of weapons that continue to shape the format to this day in perceptible and imperceptible ways.
Although the Return to Mirrodin brought many new cards, what emerged from New Mirrodin were really two very different kinds of cards: huge monsters and madcap magical tricks. The initial impact of Mirrodin may appear to be very much like least exciting half of original Mirrodin: Mishra’s Workshop-fueled monsters like Steel Hellkite, Precursor Golem, and Wurmcoil Engine. Yet, what we left Mirrodin with looks very different: Mental Misstep proliferating for tempo plays, Surgical Extraction and Dismember as surprise sideboard cards, Gitaxian Probe providing valuable information for free, Leonin Relic-Warder jumping out of Aether Vials, the unheralded Slash Panther tearing into Jaces, Phyrexian Metamorph and Phyrexian Revoker giving Workshop decks more utility, and the most outrageous finisher ever, Blightsteel Colossus.
In comparison to these zany tactics, Innistrad offers a return to brass tacks. Innistrad is a recentering for Magic away from free spells, eccentric tactics and tricks, and towards simplified effects and normal spells. While this may strike some as boring, it actually comes as a relief. A sense of regularity has been restored.
While Vintage may be Magic’s oldest format, it is not immune to the winds of change. In a span of 12 months, Vintage has been bookended by two major unrestrictions, and buffeted by unrelenting introduction of new printings at a pace never before seen – from Scars of Mirrodin, Mirrodin Besieged, New Phyrexia, to Commander and M12. In between these printings has been the unrestriction of Gush, Frantic Search, and most recently Fact or Fiction. The format is running on a track that is not merely wet, but greased. Players accustomed to a deliberate pace of play and deck development may have difficulty getting their bearings, or find themselves lost without a compass.
One consequence of this inexorable and uncompromising march of new cards into the format is that potentially pivotal cards may become overlooked. It appears that Flusterstorm’s full potential took longer than expected to bear fruit, but what about cards like Leonin Relic-Warder? Has it realized its full potential, or is it just beginning to scratch the surface? What about cards that came out strong, but disappeared, like Mox Opal, Ratchet Bomb, or Steel Hellkite? What about sleepers like Leonin Arbiter, Grand Abolisher, or even Vedalken Certarch? What about solid tactics like Buried Ruin or Contagion Clasp? Or potential engine cards like Frantic Search or Riddlesmith? At what point do these cards deserve another look? More importantly, when do they get another look? Will they be lost perpetually in the metaphorical shuffle, or will they be brought into the realm of playability by their application with new printings, or to address metagame concerns?
The only scar left by the Scars block may be on the invisible subconscious of the Magic player, left with an array of dizzying tactics and no time to try them all out. In that context, we can thank the designers of Innistrad for returning Magic to brass tacks, and a return to “normalcy.” It is a set with solid tools, important plays, and a simplified design. There may be fewer overall playables in this block for Vintage, but those have the potential to be vital building blocks, not fringe answers, wild tactics, or broken finishers.
You may find these observations strange in a set that broke rules and created new ones with checklists and flip cards. These cards are merely a footnote for the Vintage player, whose implications lie beyond card play or deck design. These cards raise questions about the logistics of Magic player behavior, proxies, and card identity, but do not bear on the evolution of the format directly. As a set, and presumably, a block, the importance of Innistrad may be found in its spells, not its keywords, mechanics, or rules changes. And, for this, we may find some measure of respite. We can appreciate the design teams in R&D for their efforts to push the boundaries of Magic design in the last two years, but we can also thank them for guiding us back to calm waters.
While the flashback mechanic offers some of the most tantalizing possibilities to the Vintage designer, and may ultimately prove to be Innistrad’s most enduring legacy, both the greater portion of the set’s playables and the set as a whole read like a return to M10. Snapcaster Mage is the figurehead of Innistrad, but only because of its presence there. It is an ill-fitting symbolic representative to a set that otherwise serves a normalizing function.
More than anything else, Innistrad represents a realignment of the Magic card pool. It is not a shift in terms of efficiency or power levels. Rather, it is a realignment in terms of colors and abilities. Innistrad is a larger Planar Chaos, a reconfiguration of spells and creatures across the color pie, with modestly tweaked casting costs and effects. Old favorites have been printed in new colors (such as Null Rod, Coffin Purge, Krosan Reclamation, Faceless Butcher). Old enchantments have become artifacts (Spectral Cloak, All Hallow’s Eve, etc), as well as more recent ones (Leyline of Sanctity). And old artifacts/creatures have become enchantments (Millstone, Null Rod, Meddling Mage). A perusal of this set should stir memories, perhaps dim or even subconscious, but the perceptive mind will see in Innistrad much that is already found in Magic as a whole.
This is not a criticism. As I said, originality is overrated. The building blocks of Magic are simply designed cards creatively and synergistically utilized as tactical and strategic support options. The emergent properties of Magic are not to be found within individual cards, but from the interactions of cards within decks and across tables. Nevermore, Witchbane Orb, and Stony Silence will each see play in Eternal formats precisely because they offer important effects in elegant simplicity. This is true even of the marquee card in this set: Snapcaster Mage, which, as one of the more complex cards in the set, is nonetheless an elegant tactic that can be simply administered.
Innistrad may not offer as much for Vintage play as Scars of Mirrodin, but what it does offer is broader possibilities. This is the upside of simplicity. Simplicity does not always mean simple. The more basic the building block, the more applications it may have. Bricks will never go out of fashion. Innistrad offers them in spades.
*******
Also, if you haven't heard my podcast about the set, be sure to check it out:
Perhaps; but I don't think Oath will be the deck best positioned to abuse Fact. I think there are many possible Fact decks out there, but I don't think Oath is one of the better considerations.
Kevin Cron and Steve Menendian discuss Innistrad’s Vintage playables and the unrestriction of Fact or Fiction.
Segments:
00:01:05: Banned and Restricted Updates: Mental Misstep in Legacy, Fact or Fiction in Vintage
00:28:07: Innistrad Contact us at @ManyInsanePlays on Twitter…
This is my 16 page primer on the Bob/Gush Control deck, complete with Updated Decklist and SBing chart.
As I say in the article: "For those of you who have read my book, consider this an addendum. For those of you who haven’t read my book, consider this a peek into the world of Gush decks, and a snapshot into one of the most interesting areas of Vintage play and design."
Why do I always get the feeling that your just advertising stuff for people to buy?
Many of the links I've posted are to free articles or free podcasts. Most of these links aren't to premium content. if it seems like I'm posting just premium content, I apologize for that -- but it's not true. It may just be that the premium links are more salient in the mind, and encode in the memory more.
Agreed, I feel like the nature of this forum is to be able to give each other advice, and have healthy discussions without having to pay for it. Just my $0.02
Anyhow, I'd love to hear whatever you have to say about cobra gush that won't cost me...
Cobra Gush is insane, and it's even stronger than Bob Gush. The main reason is that with Cobra you get to play big mana bombs, not just because Bob has painful flips, but because Cobra expands your mana base. Cobra creates virtual card advantage with every land drop. It's really good
It depends: which formats seem to correlate most strongly with consistent player performance?
When the DCI restricted Burning Wish, I was devastated. Burning Tendrils, aka Long.dec, was my favorite deck of all time. Too few Vintage players actually knew how to play the deck, and despite my success with it, it had not exactly been tearing up Vintage tournaments. The final dagger was the fact that Randy Buehler actually posted my list (with my name on it) in citing why it needing restriction.
For nearly a decade, we were forced to work with poor substitutes in an increasingly hostile metagame. What we have now is a perfect convergence of factors: A counter-intuitively ripe metagame to key tactics, a series of great printings to bolster what this deck is trying to do, and a key unrestriction. The result is what I believe to be a top deck in the metagame.
Why, then, am I unveiling this now? Unfortunately, there are no tournaments anywhere near me scheduled in the near future here in Cali. Otherwise, I would have kept this deck bottled up to uncork on an unsuspecting metagame. It's time for Rituals to return. I believe my technology is the implement to that goal.
If you only buy one premium article from me this year, this is the one to buy. I have been furiously testing and tuning this decklist, and what you have here is a 25 page primer on how to play one of the most difficult decks in the format, but also the most rewarding and fun. You won't regret it.
http://www.eternal-central.com/?p=3164
Enjoy!
This is easy: The best players consistently win. That's proof that Vintage is not a coin flip.
Check it out and spread the word!!!
http://www.mtgcast.com/?p=21525
We deconstruct 5 different Vintage scenarios.
The first scenario poses the question of whether you would keep a hand with no blue mana, but Force of Will, Mental Misstep, Mindbreak Trap, and Ancestral Recall.
Listen...
I got 2nd place at the Meandeck open with Remora Gush Control. Remora Gush Control is a list that I developed immediately after the Waterbury to combat the new Mental Misstep metagame. One of the key points in my article is that Remora is one of the best cards from which to proactively and abusively use Mental Misstep.
This is a Gush deck that can corral the Doomsday deck, and is well positioned to beat Snapcaster Control decks, and other Gush Control decks. I compare Remora Gush to Cobra Gush, Bob Gush, and other traditional Gush decks.
I build on alot of the ideas I developed over the year, especially since my Gush book. And, in some ways, this is a conclusion to my Gush book.
This is a metagame analysis, deck primer, and tournament report. But it's also just entertainment for folks who enjoy reading about Vintage magic.
Enjoy,
Stephen
http://www.mtgcast.com/?p=21171
Let us know what you think!
Editor's Blurb:
Back in the day, people really enjoyed my article on the Doomsday Scenarios. With the new combo kill, I've done it all over again.
This article is over 21 pages with tons of images. I hope you really enjoy this!
Stephen
Editor's Blurb:
Opening, Teaser Essay:
INVESTIGATING INNISTRAD
Originality is overrated. Just about everything that is possible in Magic was sowed in the seeds of Alpha, planted nearly two decades ago by Richard Garfield and his crew. How ironically appropriate that Richard Garfield should return, once more, to the design team of the game he created for its most recent expansion.
The Return to Mirrodin was not what we expected. Mirrodin originally was a bombastic, operatic block with an array of innovative mechanics (affinity, indestructible) and broken spells (Chrome Mox, Chalice of the Void, Thirst for Knowledge, Trinisphere, Crucible of Worlds, among many others). The Vintage format gained a plethora of weapons that continue to shape the format to this day in perceptible and imperceptible ways.
Although the Return to Mirrodin brought many new cards, what emerged from New Mirrodin were really two very different kinds of cards: huge monsters and madcap magical tricks. The initial impact of Mirrodin may appear to be very much like least exciting half of original Mirrodin: Mishra’s Workshop-fueled monsters like Steel Hellkite, Precursor Golem, and Wurmcoil Engine. Yet, what we left Mirrodin with looks very different: Mental Misstep proliferating for tempo plays, Surgical Extraction and Dismember as surprise sideboard cards, Gitaxian Probe providing valuable information for free, Leonin Relic-Warder jumping out of Aether Vials, the unheralded Slash Panther tearing into Jaces, Phyrexian Metamorph and Phyrexian Revoker giving Workshop decks more utility, and the most outrageous finisher ever, Blightsteel Colossus.
In comparison to these zany tactics, Innistrad offers a return to brass tacks. Innistrad is a recentering for Magic away from free spells, eccentric tactics and tricks, and towards simplified effects and normal spells. While this may strike some as boring, it actually comes as a relief. A sense of regularity has been restored.
While Vintage may be Magic’s oldest format, it is not immune to the winds of change. In a span of 12 months, Vintage has been bookended by two major unrestrictions, and buffeted by unrelenting introduction of new printings at a pace never before seen – from Scars of Mirrodin, Mirrodin Besieged, New Phyrexia, to Commander and M12. In between these printings has been the unrestriction of Gush, Frantic Search, and most recently Fact or Fiction. The format is running on a track that is not merely wet, but greased. Players accustomed to a deliberate pace of play and deck development may have difficulty getting their bearings, or find themselves lost without a compass.
One consequence of this inexorable and uncompromising march of new cards into the format is that potentially pivotal cards may become overlooked. It appears that Flusterstorm’s full potential took longer than expected to bear fruit, but what about cards like Leonin Relic-Warder? Has it realized its full potential, or is it just beginning to scratch the surface? What about cards that came out strong, but disappeared, like Mox Opal, Ratchet Bomb, or Steel Hellkite? What about sleepers like Leonin Arbiter, Grand Abolisher, or even Vedalken Certarch? What about solid tactics like Buried Ruin or Contagion Clasp? Or potential engine cards like Frantic Search or Riddlesmith? At what point do these cards deserve another look? More importantly, when do they get another look? Will they be lost perpetually in the metaphorical shuffle, or will they be brought into the realm of playability by their application with new printings, or to address metagame concerns?
The only scar left by the Scars block may be on the invisible subconscious of the Magic player, left with an array of dizzying tactics and no time to try them all out. In that context, we can thank the designers of Innistrad for returning Magic to brass tacks, and a return to “normalcy.” It is a set with solid tools, important plays, and a simplified design. There may be fewer overall playables in this block for Vintage, but those have the potential to be vital building blocks, not fringe answers, wild tactics, or broken finishers.
You may find these observations strange in a set that broke rules and created new ones with checklists and flip cards. These cards are merely a footnote for the Vintage player, whose implications lie beyond card play or deck design. These cards raise questions about the logistics of Magic player behavior, proxies, and card identity, but do not bear on the evolution of the format directly. As a set, and presumably, a block, the importance of Innistrad may be found in its spells, not its keywords, mechanics, or rules changes. And, for this, we may find some measure of respite. We can appreciate the design teams in R&D for their efforts to push the boundaries of Magic design in the last two years, but we can also thank them for guiding us back to calm waters.
While the flashback mechanic offers some of the most tantalizing possibilities to the Vintage designer, and may ultimately prove to be Innistrad’s most enduring legacy, both the greater portion of the set’s playables and the set as a whole read like a return to M10. Snapcaster Mage is the figurehead of Innistrad, but only because of its presence there. It is an ill-fitting symbolic representative to a set that otherwise serves a normalizing function.
More than anything else, Innistrad represents a realignment of the Magic card pool. It is not a shift in terms of efficiency or power levels. Rather, it is a realignment in terms of colors and abilities. Innistrad is a larger Planar Chaos, a reconfiguration of spells and creatures across the color pie, with modestly tweaked casting costs and effects. Old favorites have been printed in new colors (such as Null Rod, Coffin Purge, Krosan Reclamation, Faceless Butcher). Old enchantments have become artifacts (Spectral Cloak, All Hallow’s Eve, etc), as well as more recent ones (Leyline of Sanctity). And old artifacts/creatures have become enchantments (Millstone, Null Rod, Meddling Mage). A perusal of this set should stir memories, perhaps dim or even subconscious, but the perceptive mind will see in Innistrad much that is already found in Magic as a whole.
This is not a criticism. As I said, originality is overrated. The building blocks of Magic are simply designed cards creatively and synergistically utilized as tactical and strategic support options. The emergent properties of Magic are not to be found within individual cards, but from the interactions of cards within decks and across tables. Nevermore, Witchbane Orb, and Stony Silence will each see play in Eternal formats precisely because they offer important effects in elegant simplicity. This is true even of the marquee card in this set: Snapcaster Mage, which, as one of the more complex cards in the set, is nonetheless an elegant tactic that can be simply administered.
Innistrad may not offer as much for Vintage play as Scars of Mirrodin, but what it does offer is broader possibilities. This is the upside of simplicity. Simplicity does not always mean simple. The more basic the building block, the more applications it may have. Bricks will never go out of fashion. Innistrad offers them in spades.
*******
Also, if you haven't heard my podcast about the set, be sure to check it out:
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=360563
Enjoy!
This is my 16 page primer on the Bob/Gush Control deck, complete with Updated Decklist and SBing chart.
As I say in the article: "For those of you who have read my book, consider this an addendum. For those of you who haven’t read my book, consider this a peek into the world of Gush decks, and a snapshot into one of the most interesting areas of Vintage play and design."
Many of the links I've posted are to free articles or free podcasts. Most of these links aren't to premium content. if it seems like I'm posting just premium content, I apologize for that -- but it's not true. It may just be that the premium links are more salient in the mind, and encode in the memory more.
Cobra Gush is insane, and it's even stronger than Bob Gush.
Merged double post - Urweak
http://www.eternal-central.com/?p=2151
Why did I play Cobra Gush after devising Bob Gush for the Vintage Champs? What is my list? Answers inside..,
I designed this deck for the Waterbury, but couldn't wait another month to play it. This is the best Gush deck in the metagame...
Actually, that's definitely not the case if you read the report. Vintage is extremely diverse -- and predominantly composed of blue decks, not Shops.