Vintage Magic Tournament!

Last Saturday marked my first ever entry in a Vintage Magic the Gathering tournament.  In short, Vintage is a format which allows the use of almost every card ever printed.  The most powerful cards are restricted to one per deck to keep things (somewhat) reasonable.  I entered the tournament with a Legacy format deck that I tweaked to include some of the most powerful cards that are not otherwise allowed in the Legacy format.  The following is the deck I ended up creating:

http://mtgvault.com/phillyp/decks/omniscience-vintage/

The deck relies ENTIRELY on finding and resolving a Show and Tell. With the inclusion of Mox's and a Black Lotus in the deck, it is capable of a turn 1 win.

A resolved Show and Tell usually means a win.  There are a few different options for cards to put into play with Show and Tell.  Ideally, Omniscience is the best card to choose when you play Show and Tell because it allows you to play everything else in your hand for 0.

 

After you play Omniscience, you can cast Emrakul, the Aeons Torn for 0 and generate an extra turn!  (Note:  You don't trigger the extra turn if you select Emrakul as your Show and Tell choice since this is not the same as casting it)

Another way to win is to play Burning Wish when Omniscience is in play.  This allows you to go get a Petals of Insight from your sideboard and put it into your hand.  You then cast Petals of Insight over and over again (cycling through your library) until you generate a massive storm count and find another Burning Wish.  You then can go get Grapeshot from your sideboard and cast it, taking advantage of the storm count for lethal damage.

 

The last option for Show and Tell / Omniscience is good old Griselbrand.  Griselbrand is amazing because of his "Pay 7 Life to draw 7 Cards" ability.  At first glance, it seems like a lot of life to pay but it is oftentimes worth it. 

The remainder of the deck is made up of:
A) Cards designed to help you find all of the "combo pieces" I've shown above. And,
B) Cards to protect the combo / slow opponents down (i.e. Counter magic and targeted discard).

Now onto the results!

Match 1:  I end up getting paired against a kid who I've played against before in other events.  We had an "incident" at a booster draft where he got all butthurt over me making a slow decision to counter one of his spells.  I REALLY want to win this one but he tells me he's been playing vintage for a long time and I know I'm probably screwed...

... I was correct in my assumption and lost game 1 pretty quickly.  He is using this broken combo to create infinite turns in his deck:

Despite the fact that Time Vault says "to untap it, you must skip a turn", this is allowed.  Wizards decided to make a rule change that allowed for it several years back.  Not suprisingly, Time Vault went from being a $35 card to being a $275 card as a result of this change. 

For game 2, I put a Pithing Needle into my deck from my sideboard.  I figure I can shut down his stupid combo with it.  Sure enough, I draw a pithing needle around turn 3 and I can see he has everything in place for his combo except the time vault.  Then for some STUPID reason I decide that I'm safe for one more turn and pass the turn without playing the pithing needle.  He plays Time Vault and generates infinite turns.  FML!

Loss 0-2

Match 2:
Play some guy who has a deck with the following broken combo:

 



Those two cards together generate infinite mana since you get three mana each time you sacrifice black lotus and you can get it back for only 2.  I don't even remember what he did with the infinite mana but it was something that put me from 20 life to 0 instantly. 

 

I actually managed to win a game against this guy but ultimately lost in 3.

 

Loss 1-2

 

Match 3:

For this match I play one of the store employees.  Suprisingly, his deck was pretty fair and just had lots of good removal, draw engines, and one big creature.  We split the first two games and he kindly concedes game 3 to me because he has to go do some work.  Nothing notable here.

 

Win 2-1 (concede)

 

Match 4:

I play a guy with the same stupid broken combo as my Match 1 opponent, fortunately for me he was never able to get it out.  He won game 1 by turning his two Mox cards into 5/5's with Tezzeret the Seeker, while I struggled to find a Show and Tell.

Game 2 I was able to find a show and tell quickly and got Emrakul into play for some face smashing.

 

Game 3...F'N game 3 is where I made the biggest mistake ever.  I get my combo together and even have some sweet counter magic to back it up.  Here's the following sequence of events:

 

Me: Tap all of my mana to play Show and Tell

 

Opponent: Taps all his mana (4) to play Mindbreak Trap

Me: Respond with Daze, returning an island to my hand:

Opponent can't pay 1, so Show and Tell resolves.    I put Omniscience into play.  I follow that up by playing Emrakul.  He responds to that with a second Mindbreak Trap, paying 0 for it because it was the third spell I cast that turn.  I wasn't expecting that!  This is the part where I go full retard....

 

I look at my hand and I have a Force of Will. 

 

My first thought is..."I don't have a blue card to pitch to it damnit!"

My second thought is..."I'm tapped out of mana so I can't pay for it"

My third thought is..."well at least I get an extra turn from Emrakul!"

 

I let his Mindbreak trap resolve...take my extra turn and draw land.  I draw land for the next 2 turns and eventually lose.

 

It wasn't until (much) later that I realized that I had a F'N Omniscience in play and I could have played Force of Will for 0 to counter his mindbreak trap!  Literally would have won the game AND match if I did that. 

 

Loss 1-2

 

Match 5:

I meant to drop out of the tournament before this round started but I didn't get to in time.  I decided I'll just play it out even though I'm pretty much in last place.  I play some kid who has a deck built around generating a big storm count and playing empty the warrens.

 

We split the first two games and then we move to game 3.  I have a crappy hand but I don't care much anymore so I choose to keep it.  On my first turn for some F'N reason I play a volcanic island (produces red or blue mana) rather than playing a fetchland (allows me to get an underground sea which produces blue and black).  I pass turn and he plays Duress...

My best card is vampiric tutor...I didn't want to use it now, but now I don't even have the option because I have no black mana. 

I could have played vampiric tutor in response to his duress, then I'd at least have a show and tell for my next draw...but I F'd up AGAIN!

 

Loss 1-2

 

Finished 1-4

 

I learned that it is very hard to stay focused over the course of 5 hours straight of magic.  I made several small misplays throughout the way but 3 really big ones (which I shared above).  I actually think my deck did pretty well considering it's not normal to the format.  Every single opponent was caught off guard with my deck just because it's not one of the ten "standard" decks that dominate the vintage format. 

Curt Schilling, Bloody Socks and 38 Studios' Red Ledger

This column can also be found on Omnicomic.

Curt Schilling is nothing if not outspoken. The man has cemented his legacy as a baseball player, staunch Republican and an avid MMOer. Throw in the fact that he's more or less a legend in Boston for helping the team win the 2004 World Series and you've got a man with lofty status.

Curt Schilling is also nothing it not cocky and brash, two traits that have paid dividends on the field, but haven't quite translated as well off the field.

The Providence Journal reported that 38 Studios—Schilling's pet project—defaulted on a May 1 loan payment of $1.125 million. The payment was on a $75 million loan issued by the state of Rhode Island to lure 38 Studios to Providence, RI, from Maynard, MA.

Now, Schilling is scrambling to save the studio, but things are looking bleak. Not just for him, but for the Kingdoms of Amalur universe and Big Huge Games.

The Walking Dead - Episode 1 impressions

Being a huge fan of the zombie genre, I was shocked to have The Walking Dead, by Telltale Games , slip past my notice and drop the other day on PC/Mac, PS3, and XBOX. Much to my delight though it came in at a very reasonable 400 MS points ($5) for the first episode of a planned 5 episode game. I, of course, wasted no time in picking it up and diving right into the action.

Yet more Diablo 3: Beta Impressions

I was lucky enough to get into the Diablo 3 Beta a few days before the massive failure of the Open Beta weekend. Thus, my experience wasn't marred by a lack of ability to play. It was marred more by a the lack of excitement the game provided to me.

Now, don't get me wrong. Diablo 3 is a beautiful game. The world is well crafted, and a nice extension from the previous incarnations. The classes are each well thought out and there are some very neat abilities spread between them. The enemies are numerous, and at times can be a challenge. But, the game feels no different than it's predecessors. There is not (at least that I've seen) anything innovative to Diablo 3 over 1 & 2.

Tearing it up in TERA

The lure of a new, fresh MMO is just something I can never seem to resist. Other than the fact that it’ll easily keep me engaged for hours at a time, I get to play with old friends that somehow always reunite for the next big release. I’ve played most MMOs worth playing, but it’s been quite a while since I’ve played a Korean-style one.

TERA has already been in ‘retail’ in Korea since January of last year and has had plenty of time for updates and polish; and so far that stands out in the first 25 or so levels of the North American version. This isn’t exactly your typical MMO though and it boasts an entirely different combat system. You don’t simply just tab to a new target and start hitting buttons and see numbers, but instead you have to aim your swings, arrows, or magic. There are a few lock-on type skills, but you still have to aim and hover over the target for a split second to get the lock-on and I did find myself trying to move away too quickly without fully locking on sometimes. Once you get the system down it feels really nice. The learning curve isn’t too steep, yet it will feel awkward for a while when you’re trying to adjust to it.

Diablo 3: Open Beta Impressions

BMini is a smart guy who plays lots of games, and writes up sometimes insightful and almost always entertaining reviews in our ongoing email chain during the day. He also refuses to write any of it up in this blog for us. He will have a permanent byline soon, but in the meantime I will just copy and paste his stuff from email to here. Enjoy!

My impression was very simple:  It took them 10 years to make this?

The Diablo format really isn't the freshest thing out there for gaming.  So many games have followed the random loot craze method that going back to Diablo just feels like a ho hum fantasy game.  The actual loot system is all white noise now because we all know how rare it is to get different types of gear under Blizzard's format. So that old excitement is shot...it needs to be supplanted with something new.  What Diablo needed to do was make the actual game aspect more compelling.  This could have been done in two routes, 1) more character customization/skill choice, or 2) better stories or a compelling quest line.  Given that most gamers have taken #2 and dropkicked it out the window with the grind society that we've become, #1 was the more viable option. 

Diablo 3: Open Beta Impressions

I'm going to have to disagree with my friend Alex on a couple of points, but I think that we will agree in the end on our overall impression of Diablo 3 after the open beta. I should also be noted that my opinions come after a clearly MORE than adequate TWO hours with the game. That's right. TWO.

So, the first interesting point of the weekend should be that anyone who expected a launch of a game, regardless of the name promoting it, that was specifically billed as a beta stress test to be stable is a fool. There was NEVER any chance of this happening without errors. This is a good thing. They will learn, and on May 15th the game will likely run much better for it. I am notoriously fickle when it comes to game testing. I don't have as much time as I used to that will allow me to wrestle with a game for hours in order to play it. I was strangely satisfied that I got even two hours in before stability led me to uninstall the beta. I got to spend enough time with the Barbarian and Wizard classes to come to some general conclusions, but I obviously can't sit here even as a hack writer and claim the game will be bad on so limited a play through.

After the jump are my thoughts.