Your First Vintage Tournament

[Yare]

This thread is for the discussion of my latest article, Your First Vintage Tournament. We would be grateful if you would let us know what you think, but please keep your comments on topic.

[mondu_the_fat]

That being said, prize splitting is a very common occurrence in Vintage

This experience isn't universal.

In my experience, prize splitting rarely occurs at all. Its a source of pride that vintage players don't split the prize. Maybe its because our grand prize is usually 1 card, splitting is impossible, but even in cases where there are multiple prizes, its almost unthinkable that players do not play for them. My teammate has a saying: "Dangal ang pinaguusapan!" ("This is honor/pride we're talking about!"), and I agree with him.

I'd also like to add some advice for first time vintage players: stop whining when your eladamri's vineyard/stasis/ernhamgeddon deck goes 0-3-drop. The people who play vintage will be glad to help you out, but complaining about losing to power won't endear you to them at all.

[mada7]

This was quite a good read. I was under the impression that tournaments for the most part only allow proxies of cards you own. The reasoning being that you have such a valuable card you dont want to damage it but you can play with it if you really wanted to. 15-20 proxies seems like a fair amount as not all of the cards in a vintage deck were from alpha/beta, unlimited and early expansions and if theres 15 proxies for someone just getting into the format 9 of them would be fairly obvious.

A couple question I got about the format is it really as fast as people describe it i.e. are a lot of games decided by the coin toss or in turns 1 or 2?

also given that there is no real limit to the card pool is there a lot of variety in the decks because if everyone can play every card surely theres 1 deck that can beat anything and be prepared for anything or at least the bulk of the deck would be the same from person to person

[Yare]

Originally Posted by mondu_the_fat

This experience isn't universal.

In my experience, prize splitting rarely occurs at all. Its a source of pride that vintage players don't split the prize. Maybe its because our grand prize is usually 1 card, splitting is impossible, but even in cases where there are multiple prizes, its almost unthinkable that players do not play for them. My teammate has a saying: "Dangal ang pinaguusapan!" ("This is honor/pride we're talking about!"), and I agree with him.

If your country flag is correct, then I am not surprised. My understanding is that Vintage is perceived/played/governed very differently abroad relative to the United States. I guess Americans are just lazy. The mention of splitting was more to just raise awareness of the possibility rather than to say that it always happens; perhaps I shouldn't have said that.

Originally Posted by mada7

A couple question I got about the format is it really as fast as people describe it i.e. are a lot of games decided by the coin toss or in turns 1 or 2?

also given that there is no real limit to the card pool is there a lot of variety in the decks because if everyone can play every card surely theres 1 deck that can beat anything and be prepared for anything or at least the bulk of the deck would be the same from person to person

Well, I'll say that the format can be who wins the coin toss, but this is not the norm. Due to the extensive card pool, there are definitely games where someone just goes completely broken and wins on turn one or two. This happens. At the same time, however, there is disruption, in the form of Force of Will, Duress, Chalice of the Void, and the like, so disrupt these combos, sometimes completely ruining their entire game. It is really uber-power trying to stop other uber-power. While this may sound like someone will just lucksack and win a lot of the time, it is not the case. I really struggle to describe it beyond this, as there just isn't really a way to say it beyond seeing it or trying it. I must say, though, I am honestly surprised myself that the format has not degenerated into this with so many powerful cards running around. I guess that's ultimately where the Banned/Restricted List comes in. Though, you can read pages and pages and pages of B/R discussion/philosophy over on TheManaDrain.com.

There have been periods where there was one dominant deck, such as Psychatog fueled by Gush. With Gush's restriction, though, the deck was brought back into check and is largely nonexistent in the metagame now. Now, there is not "true" best deck, but if I had to put my finger on a particular one, I would choose Gifts (which wins using Gifts Ungiven searching for something really broken, such as: Yawgmoth's Will, Recoup, Tolarian Academy, and Black Lotus). That being said, the deck is in no sense "ready for everything." It too has issues with certain archetypes and can be disrupted at times. A lot of it has to do with the skills of the players involved...which is really the beauty of the whole thing.

[Lunar]

The turn 1 or 2 win thing is generally described something like so:

You will go broken 1 game, your opponent will go broken another, and the third game will be something utterly amazing....

while obviously this isnt always the case, it is on average true. People often give vintage a bad name when they see a player come in with 2-land belcher and win turn 1 against some casual deck...of course this looks ridiculous, but in a vast majority of games this is not the case. As yare said, you BOTh are playing really amazingly powerful decks so you WILL get into some really amazing games.

On the draw things...

Id say a good 90% of the tourneys in my area end in a split of some sort. This may be due to a select group of players dominating the meta, but even when others get into that top 4 a good majority of the time a split is worked out.

Beyond that...

Now is one of the best times ive ever seen to get into vintage (and ive played for a long time) With a variety of Fish decks floating around AND several versions of Ichorid out there budget minded players have rarely had such an opportunity to break into the format. Ichorid in particular is stupid cheap, heh.

But anyways...pretty good job on the article yare..its great to see somebody else writing on the subject.

[WhammWhamme]

Aaargh!

Pile shuffling is not a randomizer. Cutting is not a randomizer.


I've seen people define things oddly, so...

'flicking' shuffling, where you cut the deck in half, separate the halves, press one end of each half down onto the the table and 'flick' the other ends together, yes. While by the letter of the rules you have the right to do that, even to a fully powered black bordered SHINY T1 deck, it is damaging, and it's probably a better idea to avoid it.
The 'sidemash' shuffle, however, should be expected. Each player should shuffle their deck and their opponent's deck in this manner EVERY game.
(Sidemash - Cut deck, slide halves together. Repeat. Many times.)

[TeknoLink]

Originally Posted by WhammWhamme

Aaargh!

Pile shuffling is not a randomizer. Cutting is not a randomizer.


I've seen people define things oddly, so...

'flicking' shuffling, where you cut the deck in half, separate the halves, press one end of each half down onto the the table and 'flick' the other ends together, yes. While by the letter of the rules you have the right to do that, even to a fully powered black bordered SHINY T1 deck, it is damaging, and it's probably a better idea to avoid it.
The 'sidemash' shuffle, however, should be expected. Each player should shuffle their deck and their opponent's deck in this manner EVERY game.
(Sidemash - Cut deck, slide halves together. Repeat. Many times.)

While in casual tournaments(T1(unsanctioned), Emperor, etc) I don't shuffle the deck, but just cut it. Though, for PTQ and high-prize tournaments, I will riffle shuffle a lot. A player goes into a tournament knowing this, so they should be prepared for it.

[Tresserhorn]

Very good read Yare. I wish I could play in more Vintage tournaments in my area.

[dawgie]

Good read.

Mondu, I think I know who usually says that in our tournaments. I think he's a very good looking guy. Someone as good looking as me. lol :P

But as with mondu,splits rarely happen in our play area. Sometimes it does happen though when it is two teammates who face off in the finals and just 'splits' the prize meaning it goes to their card pool or something.

I do happen to say that its always about honor. And yes, I don't care about the prize layout as what other players think here. I really think its about the competition like how to break away from a losing game and then turn the game around. Mondu usually says that if his tech hits his opponent, that would have made his day. And I agree with him.

I don't know if we are the only ones who think like that here in our play area. But for us, it is more of the ingenious techs that we show out and how we play.

[fAkeality]

Can anyone direct me to a link where there are play-by-plays of popular decks?

[Lunar]

mm, your best bet for any play by plays these days would probably be on deck threads on www.themanadrain.com

[JayC]

Good article Yare, I liked it - a nice intro.