Archive for March, 2010

This Saturday I’m finally gonna be able to play the weekly Legacy tournament that is being held at the Black Lotus Shop in Barcelona. To be honest, I expect this tournament to be really crowded. Most students are off from school (Easter holidays) and that, in the past, has made the attendance to go sky rockets. I’m guessing we’ll hit a turn out of 60 players, maybe more.

I’ll probably be playing Affinity or ANT. Both decks are really fun to play while being very different. Affinity is like playing Pokemon (you know, standard and that kind of sh*t. R.E.S.T.E.C.P!). Kids play Pokemon, and even though I’m almost 30, I still consider myself a kid so I do have an excuse (not to mention kids don’t play full foil japanese). On the other side, playing ANT is more stylish. Real men play combo and winning with Storm is lot more satisfying than beating with insignificant creeps.

The deck I’ve sleeved up is this one:

I ain’t 100% sure about the sideboard! At the last Black Lotus tournament, two decks with the Thopter/Sword combo reached the Top8, and that added to the amount of dredge players and other decks playing Life from the Loam has made me wonder if I should play Leyline of the Void again (with the obvious 2nd Ill-Gotten Gains). Adding Leyline will also mean I could add a Helm of Obedience as an alternative win condition to storm. Winning with da Helm is even more stylish!

The other sideboard I was thinking about would be like this:

4 Dak Confidant
4 Tombstalker
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Tendrils of Agony

This sideboard ala “french-style” is awesome against Counterbalance decks or any kind of deck packing blue. But the obvious downside is that once you’ve won few people, everybody knows what your secret tech is…

Anyways, I’ll give it some thoughts and playtest a little bit. If you also want to play this Saturday at the Black Lotus Shop, you gotta be there at 10:30. This is where:

Bigger map!

We’ve talked and discussed a lot about the reprinting of old cards, the WotC policy, etc… Well, the solution to the problem is to force collectors such as Dioup77 from Solo Moxen to sell some of his stuff. Check this out!

More duals?!

The March tournament of the Third Catalan Legacy League (LCL3) was held in Badalona (town near Barcelona) with a turnout of 98 players (February it was 92). As usual, Enric Luzán brings us some videos from the Top8. All I can say is THANK YOU for the amazing work you put together with the videos.

Top 8 (winners in bold):

• Enric Bisbe (aka Equinozio) (Faestalker) – Jorge Almeida (aka Devian) (Bant without Progenitus but with Stoneforge Mystic)
• Rubén Medina (ProBant without Countertop) – Joan Antón Mateo (Countertop Progenitus)
• Adrián Moreno (Countertop Progenitus) – Adrià Romero (aka Dead_Style) (Supreme Blue)
• Iván López (Ugr Faeires) – Daniel Rodríguez (aka Elfeir) (Enchantress)

Top 4:

• Jorge Almeida (aka Devian) (Bant Agro) – Adrià Romero (aka Dead_Style) (Supreme Blue)
• Iván López (Ugr Faeires) – Joan Antón Mateo (Countertop Progenitus)

Final:

• Iván López (Ugr Faeires) – Jorge Almeida (aka Devian) (Bant Agro)

Congratulations to Iván López, who came all the way from Madrid, for the win!

Vídeos:

Top 8: Rubén Medina (ProBant sin Countertop) – Joan Antón Mateo (Countertop Progenitus)

Top 8 LCL3 March – Juan Antón Mateo vs. Rubén Medina G1

Top 8 LCL3 March – Juan Antón Mateo vs. Rubén Medina G2

Top 4 LCL3 March – Adrià Romero vs. Jorge Almeida G1

Top 4 LCL3 March – Adrià Romero vs. Jorge Almeida G2

Top 4 LCL3 March – Adrià Romero vs. Jorge Almeida G3

I’ll add more games as soon as Enric uploads them. Same with the Top8 lists. So stay tunned!

This new section is meant to help people find cool stuff over eBay. We do this because we know how difficult it can be sometimes to track certain stuff or hard-to-find items. The stuff1 we’ll post is stuff that we could categorize under the “pimp” label. But we won’t just post cards, so keep your eyes wide opened!

Let’s get started by playing some music! DJ Co-ma and some of his awesome drum & bass!

First of all, we’d like to show you a very cool altered by artist Fred Fields Mutavault playset.

Click to go to eBay and zoom in on each card

Next! We all know the hype about the new Jace, the mind sculptor. Here there’s a bunch of shiny staples for you:

Click on the side arrows to navigate and click on a single item to visit the eBay auction

The next 2 cards ain’t specially cheap at all. It’s getting hot in here! Spring has just arrived but we talking about Summer Edition, of course!

Click to go to eBay to know more about this Summer Edition Regrowth

OHH YEAAH!

Click on this link to know more about this Summer Edition Hurricane

Not a bad start eh? Guess you ran out of music by now already. So let’s play another one! DJ Shadow – The Organ Donor. Can’t stop listening this hit!

The following is stuff that isn’t commonly searched due to it’s extreme rarity. Have you heard about Uncut Sheets? Check it out!

There’s 2 other more uncut sheets right now on eBay, one is the FTV: Exiled and the other is the already framed 1996 Arena promos uncut sheet.

To end this first What’s hot on eBay we’d like to share few more cards. Misprints and miscuts are always hot for some collectors and players. Here there’s a bunch of Miscuts for you to choose from:

Hope you guys have some happy shopping!

In Magic: The Gathering, as in many other aspects of our lives, there are many different levels of how we do the things we do.  The beginnings are always tough and complicated, but it only takes a little time and dedication to end up reaching any personal goals you’ve set. Today’s article will talk about a man who’s passion for collecting (MtG) has reached such a level that is really hard to imagine the process he’s been through. Years and years invested to get cards you might not even know they existed. The man I’m talking about is Favian Poh.

I met Favian few days ago, when I contacted him after he posted some of his cards at MTG The Source. I was quite impressed by the beauty of his cards and specially by the difficulty of gathering that many impressive and very (VERY) rare staples together. So, it occurred to me that maybe I could interview him so he could tell us a bit about himself, his collection and about magic in general.

We’ll start with an interview and after that, he’ll explain us a bit about some specific cards he’s very proud of.

(Be aware, lots of pimp stuff are included in this article, so you’d better sit properly if you don’t want to fall off the chair)

PROFILE:

• Name: Favian Poh
• Nickname(s) on forums: Occam on The Source and Salvation, Twol84 on Scg and Motl, Ouallada on the libraries
• Country: Singapore
• Age: 25, 26 end of the year
• Profession: Banking Sector
• Year you started with MtG: 1994/1995

TP: Favian, could you please tell us the story behind your nick name(s)?

Favian: And we’re off to a relatively weird start. I wish I could say that my usernames are derived from some cool and obscure piece of information, but that is unfortunately not the case. Occam is derived from Occam’s Razor (by William of Occam) — the latter is something I generally believe in, and even though Occam is a place, I could not very well name myself William, could I? Ouallada is an ode to Juzam Djinn, which was one of my favourites back in the day, and still is one of my favourites now.

TP: Are you currently playing any format? If so, what deck(s) are you playing at the moment?

Favian: I mostly play legacy these days, sometimes Vintage and Extended. I usually play online (with an anonymous name) as I can get too busy to commit myself to paper tournaments. I play a wide range of legacy decks, from NLS to tempo Bant to 5/3. For extended, I used to play a rockish Doran build until the current extended format got inundated by Thopter-Foundry and Marit Lage. For Vintage, I play workshop aggro, although I have a soft spot for Cerebral Assassin, which is sadly not very viable these days.

TP: We’ve seen pretty cool stuff from your personal collection. When did all begun?

Favian: I have to say that I was pretty young when I started out in the game, but I was lucky enough to purchase all the right cards back then, in decent quantities as well. Most of what I do post online these days would be rarities, as most people have the P9, beta duals etc covered already. My foray into rarities started in 1999/2000, when I read about summer magic and was rightfully entranced by the summer hurricane. I managed to buy into summer before the price boom early in the nighties, and the affair with summer magic has carried on since.

As for test prints, it all began the first time I saw a textless lightning bolt get sold on eBay about a decade ago. It ended easily in the four digits, and I tried to find all the information I could on a card that I thought shouldn’t even have existed. Even though I didn’t actually get into collecting test prints until a couple years later, I treat that as the time I first sat up and took notice of test prints and how undeniably unique and beautiful they were. It was also about then that I decided that any rarities I have would be clean, never signed nor altered in any way. Sorry if this flies in the face of what most people prefer, but rarities to me are already unique, and there is no reason to customize them any further.

TP: I guess the new Official Reprint Policy must have been great news for such a collector. What do you think about the recent announcement and the controversy that has generated between players and collectors?

Favian: I kind of expected to get a question like this, to be honest, and it could not have come at a worse time, especially as the vitriol over the revised reprint policy still lingers strong in the air.

I am going to have to slightly turn my back on my fellow collectors on this issue. It is going to take a very long piece to fully articulate my thoughts on the revised reprint policy, and I do not want this session to be dominated by that. I was disappointed that Wizards pretty much slammed the door shut on the notion of possible future reprints, as while I don’t believe that legacy will ever become as stagnant as vintage, I do believe that having a flagship eternal format is one of the best things possible for the game, and the ever-increasing prices continually erode that possibility.

As for the public disagreements between players and collectors, I completely understand where both camps are coming from. The future of legacy is the foremost concern of players, while the slippery slope that reprints lead Magic to is the foremost concern of collectors. Neither side has the right to arbitrarily impose its views on the other, but judicious reprints could have created a satisfactory solution for all parties involved. As an example, when we have a public company that engages in research and development, what the company essentially does is funnel revenues and cash reserves into R&D, which may or may not pay off in the future. Thus, there is a good chance that the company’s shareholders (Magic collectors) are worse off if the R&D expenses come to nothing as no new product or innovation is created. However, R&D expense may be a necessary route for the company to take to ensure its future competitiveness (which is what legacy players are arguing for), and the shareholders need to be able to see that and call for judicious R&D expenditure.

On a side note, public outcries that Underground Seas will soon exceed $100 each does not do any good, as it is due to the presence of a culture of fear like that which leads to people bidding up the prices of Underground Seas right now to hedge against future price rises. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and does legacy no good right now.

TP: Do you consider collecting MtG as a long term investment? Are you afraid of your cards losing value over the time?

Favian: Yes and no. I would not like to blow a few grand on a set of beta power and have it be worth nothing tomorrow, and I believe that everyone shares the same sentiment to an extent. At the same time, I don’t mind taking some paper losses on some purchases if it ensures the longevity of the game. It’s all about one’s priorities, and as long as those priorities aren’t to make money, I’m sure most people can agree with that. The ability to recoup money from the game upon exit and liquidation is in my opinion one of the strongest selling points of the game, though, and cannot be stressed enough.

I’m not worried at all about various rarities and alpha/beta cards going down in value, as the only way their value gets blown out is if Wizards mass-released summer tomorrow, or if the bottom falls away from the Magic barrel. I do not expect that either will happen anytime soon, but the risk, however minute, is there and I accept it.

(Jordi: I believe this article needs more images!)

TP: What’s the card in your collection you are most proud of, and why?

Favian: My current favourite card in my collection is actually this:

It is not the most expensive card I have, but it has certain personal resonance. I quote a fellow libraries member: “Magic collectors are always broke”, and want to emphasize that the statement is absolutely true. When a once-in-a-lifetime rarity appears, you need to cough up for it or accept that you may never get a second chance. When this was first placed on eBay (and I believe it was covered on your site too), it provoked a huge reaction because it looked different with Parallax Tide’s picture, and was pretty much the first time foil 8ed test prints were revealed.

I wanted it badly too, but ended up the second highest bidder for the one on eBay because I was broke, so to speak. I immediately regretted not winning it, and as only 2-3 of each foil 8ed print exists, the chance that I would see another one was abysmal. As fate would have it, I was hunting for a bunch of other stuff when I came into contact with someone who happened to have one for sale, and purchased it without much question. Unlike most collectors and missed chances, I had a second go at the island above, and it has a personal significance for being destined to be part of my collection, so to speak.

That said, I do treasure most of the cards in my collection, and rarely see the need to sell rarities away. I am working on several projects which are currently unscanned, including a playset of another of the Exodus test prints, a couple of other 5D prints, some UD prints, summer, my dark ritual / Beeble global sets (for which I need plenty of help for the European languages) and hopefully a Fraternal Exaltation/Splendid Genesis. Look out for them!

TP: I understand you can’t reveal the sources that provided some of the stuff you own, but, what would you recommend to someone who would like to start collecting? Who should he/she contact first?

Favian: Jordi, I think you would agree with me when I say that with rarities, beauty really exists in the eyes of the beholder. I would encourage any new budding rarity collector to get familiar with the rarities that exist out there, from albinos to other color-based misprints, from miscuts and crimps to test prints and summer, and from unofficial cards to rare tokens. Sites like the librarities have an extensive pictorial gallery which provides some information about the rarities as well. Nano’s site http://www.nextftp.com/nano/ has a lot of different colour-based misprints, and Squt’s site http://squt.tripod.com/MainError.html has an exhaustive list of misprints and errors too. Then, each person needs to make his or her own decision as to which rarities appeal most, for reasons that differ from individual to individual.

As for who a new rarity collector should contact, building relationships on forums is usually a great starting point. When someone comes across as knowledgeable or as a large collector of a certain rarity, chances are he or she would have access to certain rarities, and could introduce one to a range of contacts too. For rarities, who you know is a lot more important than what you know. Due diligence is extremely important.

TP: Is eBay trustworthy when it comes to hard-to-find cards? (We ain’t talking about Alpha/Beta rares here, we are talking about real-hard-to-find stuff like misprints, test prints, summer rares, etc…)

Favian: The problem with eBay with regards to rarities is not one of fraudulent intentions, but usually that sellers themselves may have misconceptions about certain misprints, although the two concepts could be interlaced. For example, a lot of albinos and colour misprints on eBay need to be taken with a pinch of salt, as many of them are actually sun-faded. For summer magic and test prints, the market for these cards is minute, with very few collectors actually being very active in these areas. Chances are that if a large seller of summer or test prints is on eBay, some other collector of summer or test prints would know of him or her, and could verify the veracity of the cards. Having a subject matter expert (and there are definitely people who know a lot more about rarities than I do) to eyeball certain questionable auctions never hurts.

In the end, caveat emptor still takes precedence on eBay. The normal precautionary measures need to be taken for rarities as well. Bidders should try to bridge the informational gap by searching for information about certain misprints online before jumping in where angels fear to tread, and keep in mind that a deal that is too good to be true is probably just that.

TP: I know you don’t like to use the word “pimp” to describe this high-end collecting movement, but, If you’d have to list the top10 of your pimp scale, what would it be?

Favian: For me, the ten most expensive cards in the game are as follows (excluding cards like Proposal, 1996 World Champion, Shichifukujin Dragon and graded Lotuses):

10) Summer Shivan Dragon / Summer Sol Ring

9) Summer Demonic Tutor

Splendid Genesis

6) Summer Birds of Paradise / Top tier foil test prints

5) Other Summer Blue Duals

4) Summer Mana Vault

2) Summer Hurricane / Underground Sea

1) Summer Serendib Efreet

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And now let’s move on and see some of the stuff from Favian’s collection. First of all, some images and then he’ll talk about his CoTs (City of Traitors), Saga textless, Island (8e prints) and the EE (Engineered Explosives).

You’d ask yourself what’s wrong with the EE? He’ll explain more about this card later. And the Underground Sea? It’s partly albino!

City of Traitors Exodus Test prints

Favian: I’ve received a lot of PMs from various people across various forums in which I have posted the recent scans containing the foil Cities or Traitors, so I feel obligated to speak a bit about what these cards are all about. My definition of a test print is an aesthetic proxy that Wizards uses to test different design features and processes, be it a foiling process, different frames, usage of space on a card, where the P/T box should be and so on. The Exodus test prints are arguably the most important test prints ever, as they were the backbone on which the foiling process was tested before being rolled out in Urza’s Legacy. Urza’s Legacy was released in 1999, and test prints are typically created 1-2 years beforehand, which is why Exodus cards were chosen. Note that it is highly likely that these cards were already in the process of being tested even before Exodus was released in June 1998.

One card of each colour and type was chosen from Exodus. A land (City of Traitors), a white card (Oath of Lieges), a blue card (Mana Breach), a red card (Fighting Chance), a black card (Plaguebearer), a green card (Survival of the Fittest), a gold card (Pygmy Hippo from Visions as no gold card exists in Exodus) and an artifact card (Memory Crystal). All of these are available either silver-bordered (testing not just the foiling, but Unglued borders) or black-bordered. Both the silver-bordered (no foil star) and black bordered (most have the foil star) ones have different variations (lighter/darker), and the black bordered ones have a test number on the right side of the card to indicate the intensity of the foiling and colouring. The black-bordered ones are also unique in that they have different colours for textboxes, although only the Cities of Traitors were tested for this.

A closer look so you can appreciate the details.

I do not have scans for this, but there are also other non-foil test prints from Exodus (Bequeathal, Angelic Blessing etc) which have the foil star and with the symbols made from the same material as the foil star. They were likely created to test how the foil star would look like.

Exodus test prints are not as rare as the newer test prints, but a lot of people hold them in awe as they were after all the first bona fide test prints the game had, and because two of the cards are so widely played. Whatever it is, Exodus test prints are an integral part of the game’s history, and should be respected as such. I own a couple of silver bordered Exodus prints, but I generally only go for the black bordered ones. When I picked up the first CoT, the one with the black symbol and black textbox, which is also my favourite of the lot, I spoke to a friend of mine and was basically told to never half-ass a collection, especially when the possibility of a playset existed. I thought about it, agreed, and the rest is basically history. I’m not sure whether another playset exists out there, with all the huge unnamed collectors around, but this one is pretty special to me.

Parallax Island:

Favian: I have already stated that I like this card very much, and I hope its story did not bore anybody. Just a quick comment on 8ed test prints. There are between two to three of each foil variation (some have light/dark variations), and there are non-foil versions too. Some people have stated that they are actually 6ed prints, as they use 5ed art, but this is untrue. These were printed in 2001, after the release of 7ed, and the island above has the art of parallax tide, when Nemesis was released in 2000. As can be seen from the Counterspell, 8ed prints were a bit idiosyncratic with the way certain aesthetics were tested, with P/T boxes on spells.

8e foil test prints are also very arguably the most prestigious set of test prints, with the value of the worst common (not all cards in 8ed were tested, though) being close to a grand and the value of the high-end cards, rares like Adarkar Wastes, approaching two grand.

Textless Saga:

Favian: I actually had two slots on my recent scan occupied by two other nice rarities, but I managed to make a deal for the textless cradle and bolt, and those two are auto-includes in any scan that has rarities. Textless saga has an almost mystical aura as the saga prints are extremely well known like the Exodus test prints, but are much rarer than the latter, and were actually leaked out in product. The full saga test print complement consists of 11 cards, namely Pouncing Jaguar, Lightning Bolt, Serra Avatar, Thran Quarry, Gaea’s cradle, Rewind, Skittering Skirge, Duress, Stroke of Genius, Karn and the textless, all black foil filler with the star. The filler was there to make up a modular sheet component of 11, with sheet size of 110 cards. As you might be able to already tell, all these cards were essentially test prints for various Arena and Judge promos that were given out, besides the filler, of course.

Textless Saga was followed by textless Destiny, and the latter was quite a bit rarer as none was leaked out through product. Unlike Saga, every Destiny card is available as a textless foil test print. I was lucky enough to pick up a textless Beeble for part of my collection, as well as some other textless UD commons/uncommons that aren’t in any of my current scans. The hunt for some of the rare textless UD cards continues.

Engineered Explosives:

Favian: In every forum where I posted the recent scan, I stated very clearly that the Engineered Explosives was the cream of the scan’s crop. It is not an attempt to boast or to big the EE up – a test print EE, from a set of test prints that are all likely the only copies of their kind around, can easily be concluded to be a huge hitter, certainly one of those mysterious expensive cards that no one has heard about. I basically dragged out the deal to purchase the EE for a few months as I kept getting sidetracked by other smaller rarities and test prints, but it was always going to be a part of my collection eventually. The focus on the EE in the scan is also in the hope that 5D prints are brought into public perception just like the rest of the existing test prints, and that another person who sees the EE and who has information about 5D prints can step forward.

For the back-story of the 5D prints, they were created to test sunburst foiling for the JS range promos, which is why the EE is foiled like that. Like the Exodus test prints, the EE scans poorly but looks excellent in real life. The EE is a very favoured card in my collection and will never be sold, but hopefully everyone out there enjoys what was a previously unknown piece of magic history.

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From Team Pataners we appreciate the effort that Favian Poh has done in order to help us understand and discover how marvelous collecting MtG can really be when you have the passion, the time, the will and the money (of course)!

Big thanks again Favian!

My friend Eddy Wee, aka Grandeurmotl, has released on eBay this wonderful Ron Spencer alteration featuring Mark Tedin’s Sol Ring.

Click here to go to the eBay auction!

By the way, I’m gonna be starting soon a new weekly section to keep you updated with what’s hot on eBay that week. That way you’ll be able to keep track of the cool stuff that’s being hosted at the auction site. This section was very successful in the past, so I believe you guys deserve to have it again. This is the header for the future section:

I’m not sick, you’ve read the tittle right! Tomorrow I’ll be playing the Extended PTQ San Juan in Barcelona. Why? I’ve been convinced by some friends to go there instead of playing Legacy at the Black Lotus Shop. I thought it was a good chance to disconnect from all the things going on recently in Eternal.

My knowledge of the Extended format is absolutely zero. I’m going there to have fun with my friends and laugh over all the cards I’m gonna be facing. I’ll be playing my Legacy Affinity deck adapted for Extended, so no clue if it’s a good deck or not. This is the list:

Can you find Wally? Click image to zoom in.

I can’t imagine myself winning this PTQ or doing top8, but, ff that ever happens, fear the report!

March 19 2010 DCI Banned & Restricted List Announcement

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So, no changes to any kind of format. I guess my wet dreams of restricting Workshop, Wasteland, Null Rod and bannning Time Vault were just that, a dream.

XMTG, the web comic that comes every Monday and Thursday at the Mana Nation, shows how the Reserved list decission was taken.

So true!

The 12th – 13th – 14th of March took place in Firenze (Italy) a huge eternal event: The DDAY 3. 170 players gathered for each of the Legacy and Vintage tournaments to fight for the glory!

Quarterfinals:

• Zerbino VS Ciuccatosti -> Zerbino (2-0)
• Mastini VS Sanz -> Mastini (2-0)
• Hernandez VS Baruffaldi -> Hernandez (2-1)
• Ronzo VS Ceconi-> Ronzo(2-1)

Semifinals:

• Zerbino VS Mastini -> Zerbino (2-0)
• Ronzo VS Hernandez -> Ronzo (2-1)

Final:

• Ronzoi VS Zerbino -> Ronzoi (2-1)

The following are the lists from the Top8 of the Vintage event:

RONZO GIAMPIERO – Winner of DDAY 3

4x Sphere of Resistance
4x Thorn of Amethyst
1x Trinisphere
4x Lodestone Golem
3x Karn, Silver Golem
3x Triskelion
4x Metalworker
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Tangle Wire
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Pearl
1x Black Lotus
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
2x Sword of Fire and Ice
4x Mishra’s Workshop
4x Ancient Tomb
2x City of Traitors
1x Tolarian Academy
1x Strip Mine
2x Mishra’s Factory
4x Wasteland

SIDE

3x Razormane Masticore
2x Crucible of Worlds
3x Relic of Progenitus
2x Duplicant
2x Sculpting Steel
2x Tormod’s Crypt
1x Platinum Angel

PIERLUIGI ZERBINO – Finalist of DDAY 3

1x Swamp
2x Island
4x Underground Sea
4x Polluted Delta
2x Flooded Strand
1x Tolarian Acaemy
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Pearl
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Vault
1x Lotus Petal
1x Mana Crypt
1x Black Lotus
4x Dark Ritual
4x Duress
3x Dark Confidant
2x Tendrils of Agony
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Necropotence
1x Yawgmoth’s Will
1x Yawgmoth’s Bargain
4x Force of Will
3x Repeal
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Hurkyll’s Recall
1x Brainstorm
1x Ponder
1x Gift’s Ungiven
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Time Walk
1x Timetiwster
1x Mistical Tutor
1x Sensei’s Divining Top
1x Mind’s Desire
1x Merchant Scroll

SIDE

2x Annul
2x Pithing Needle
2x Hurkyll’s Recall
1x Ravenous Trap
1x Deathmark
2x Massacre
2x Spell Pierce
1x Tinker
1x Tormod’s Crypt
1x Sundering Titan

Rest of the decks:

RICARDO SANZ DE ARINO

3x Tezzeret the Seeker
4x Mana Drain
4x Force of Will
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Time Walk
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Bury
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Pearl
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Vault
1x Mana Crypt
1x Time Vault
1x Hurkyll’s Recall
1x Rebuild
1x Echoing Truth
1x Voltaic Key
1x Sensei’s Divining Top
1x Tinker
1x Brainstorm
7x Island
1x Library of Alexandria
2x Underground Sea
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Tolarian Academy
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Yawgmoth’s Will
1x Darksteel Colossus
2x Misty Rainforest
2x Polluted Delta
1x Scalding Tarn
4x Spell Pierce
1x Mindbreak Trap
1x Merchant Scroll
1x Gift Ungiven
1x Fact or Fiction
1x Thirst for Knowledge
1x Black Lotus

SIDE

1x Razormane Masticore
2x Sower of Temptation
1x Darkblast
3x Spell Snare
2x Hurkyl’s Recall
2x Ravenous Trap
1x Yixilid Jailer
1x Tormod’s Crypt
1x Vendilion Clique
1x Trinisphere

ALESSANDRO CECCONI

4x Noble Hyerarch
4x Cold-Eyed Selkie
4x Quasali Pridemage
3x Tarmogoyf
3x Trygon Predator
1x Brainstorm
1x Ancestral Recall
4x Force of Will
3x Daze
3x Spell Pierce
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Echoing Truth
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Misdirection
1x Regrowth
1x Time Walk
3x Null Rod
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Pearl
1x Misty Rainforest
2x Flooded Strand
2x Polluted Delta
3x Tundra
3x Tropical Island
1x Island
1x Strip Mine
4x Wasteland

SIDE

1x Energy Flux
1x Hurkyll’s Recall
1x Curfew
2x Umezawa’s Jitte
3x Wheel of sun and Moon
1x Tarmogoyf
3x Kataki,War’s Wage
3x Ethersworn Canonist

BENITO HERNANDEZ ALVAREZ

4x Misty Rainforest
1x Scalding Tarn
7x Island
2x Underground Sea
1x Tropical Island
1x Library of Alexandria
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Ruby
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Crypt
4x Force of Will
4x Mana Drain
4x Mindbreak Trap
3x Meditate
3x Vendilion Clique
4x Mistic Remora
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Time Walk
1x Tinker
4x Repeal
1x Hurkill’s Recall
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Brainstorm
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Yawgmoth’s Will
1x Sphinx of the Steel Wind

SIDE

4x Tarmogoyf
1x Razormane Masticore
1x Tormod’s Crypt
3x Ravenous Trap
1x Yixilid Jailer
2x Hurkyll’s Recall
2x Sower of Temptation
1x Forest

LUCA BARUFFALDI

4x Mishra’s Workshop
4x Ancient Tomb
2x City of Traitors
4x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
1x Tolarian Academy
1x Mishra’s Factory
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Vault
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Pearl
4x Metalworker
4x Lodestone Golem
3x Triskelion
2x Karn, Silver Golem
1x Razormane Masticore
1x Trinisphere
4x Sphere of Resistance
4x Tangle Wire
4x Chalice of the Void
3x Crucible of Worlds
4x Smokestack
1x Thorn of Amethyst
1x Ghost Quarter

SIDE

3x Duplicant
1x Razormane Masticore
2x Thorn of Amethyst
3x Relic of Progenitus
3x Ravenous Trap
2x Powder Keg
1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell’s Vale

PAOLO CIUCCATOSTI

2x Windswept heath
3x Verdant catacombs
2x Savannah
2x Bayou
2x Scrubland
1x Plains
1x Forest
1x Swamp
4x Wasteland
1x Strip mine
1x Mox pearl
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Jet
1x Lotus Petal
4x Dark Confidant
4x Tarmogoyf
3x Gaddock Teeg
3x Aven mindcensor
3x Ethersworn canonist
3x Qasali pridemage
3x Elvish spirit guide
3x Duress
3x Thoughtseize
1x Demonic tutor
1x Vampiric tutor
2x Sword to plowshares
2x Diabolic edict
3x Null Rod

SIDE

2x Choke
2x Engineered plague
1x Darkblast
2x Tormod’s crypt
2x Umezawa’s jitte
4x Nature’s claim
2x Extirpate

STEFANO MASTINI

4x Underground Sea
3x Polluted Delta
2x Flooded Strand
2x Swamp
2x Island
1x Tolarian Academy
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Pearl
1x Lotus Petal
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Vault
1x Mana Crypt
4x Dark Ritual
3x Dark Confidant
4x Duress
4x Force of Will
2x Tendrils of Agony
1x Necropotence
1x Yawgmoth’s Will
1x Yawgmoth’s Bargain
1x Impulse
1x Time Walk
1x Timetwister
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Hurkyll’s Recall
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Merchant Scroll
1x Mind’s Desire
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Bainstorm
1x Ponder
1x Night’s Wispers
1x Sensei’s Divining Top
1x Gift’s Ungiven
1x Repeal

SIDE

1x Sundering Titan
1x Inkwell Leviathan
1x Tinker
2x Massacre
2x Pithing Needle
1x Tormod’s Crypt
2x Hurkyll’s Recall
3x Mistic Remora
1x Darkblast
1x Echoing Truth

Lately, the community (specially eternal players) has been worried about reprints due to the crazy increase of the prices of some cards. We’ve seen lots of rumors about the possibility of power 9 or dual lands being reprinted to boost eternal formats. But today, Wizards of the Coast has spoken and clarified their oficial reprint policy and the revised reprint policy.

These are the two links where they explain the new (or not so new) changes:

Oficial Reprint Policy

Revised Reprint Policy

So, the rules are quite clear now!

On the other hand, tomorrow we’ll hope to get a review on the Banned & Restricted lists. Besides of the needed changes to Vintage, I believe that some changes to Legacy might be needed as well. What do you guys think?

Use the comments to discuss whether or not Legacy needs some changes. You know how I feel, right?

Related article on TP:

Thoughts on breaking the reserved list – By JACO

If you are a Vintage player you should know by now that the Catalan Vintage League, aka LCV, is probably the biggest Vintage league in the world. During the past 5 years, the LCV has done nothing but grow. This is a thing that we’ve been really proud of, as we’ve proven how solid a community can be year after year. We’ve never allowed the use of proxies and that has never turned against us.

Last Saturday the folks who organized the LCV6 March Tournament in Igualada made an excellent effort to organize one of the nicest tournaments I’ve been around lately. Excellent prizes, good place to play, legacy side event, good menu for lunch and more. All their efforts were rewarded with the pretty low participation of 52 players.

We were used to have 70 to 90 players per tournament during the past years, but 52 seems to be the best we can do so far this year.

So, why is the participation at Vintage tournaments dropping?

The answer to that question is actually one of the hot topics being discussed in many forums. I’m not the one that has the exact answer and solution to the problem, but I do have my own opinion and I believe some things need to change as soon as possible.

First of all, I believe that the format sucks. Why is that? Well, no matter where you looked last Saturday that all you would be able to contemplate was Fish, MUD, Tezzeret & Confidants. (Of course there were few rogue decks and few Oath & Dredge players around).

Fish is too fast and too powerful. The “Selkie” deck has great elements of disruption while being able to put you a decent clock thanks to the new Exalted mechanic. The release of cards like Spell Pierce has improved their strategy to slow you down combined with others like Daze, Null Rod or Wasteland.

MUD is overpowered thanks to Lodestone Golem. You can’t stop a first turn Golem unless you have Force of Will. Sure you can pack your main deck with cards like Ancient Grudge, Hurkyl’s Recall, Lightning Bolt or Ingot Chewer, but none will actually save your ass efficiently against Lodestone Golem. If you actually manage to survive the 1st turn Golem, then get ready for what’s coming after it.

Saturday, Joe Gallego won the tournament with MUD.

Then we find Time Vault/Voltaic Key/Tezzeret the Seeker as the 3rd contender to the throne. This archetype can’t compete with the previously mentioned ones unless they get good hands. Control decks can’t really control the games anymore. The amount of restricted spells combined with the lack of drawing abilities to find answers makes it really hard for players to rely on this strategy. I’m not saying that Tezzeret decks aren’t good, all I’m saying is that you need lots of good hands in order to succeed in a tournament like the LCV. Mana Drain isn’t what it used to be. There are games that you’d probably win if you reach the second turn. Problem is that, nowadays, being able to cast a turn 2 Mana Drain is almost impossible.

When asking around to other players what’s their opinion about Vintage now, they all agree that Vintage sucks and that it needs a wash. I do agree that we need something fixed to make Vintage funny to play again. We are losing players that are actually bored of this format and prefer to play Legacy.

The obvious call is to review the banned and restricted list.

If the rumors are right and they print this:

---

Eldrazi´s Temple
Land
Tap: Add one coloress to your mana pool.
Tap: Add two coloress to your mana pool. Use this mana only to cast coloress spells.

---

With that card printed MUD needs something restricted. The cards that come to my mind that could be restricted are:

• Mishra’s Workshop
• Wasteland
• Null Rod

Restricting Mishra’s Workshop wouldn’t be such a problem as they’d replace those 3 slots probably with the new land. Still, there should be a cut on the amount of x2 x3 mana producers if you don’t want to have consistently first turn menaces landing the board.

Restricting Wasteland would allow the control/combo players to be able to consistently get the third producer and cast answers to golems/spheres (Hurkyl’s Recall or Ancient Grudge). By restricting Wasteland, we also reduce the power of Fish.

Restricting Null Rod alone would mostly hurt fish and allow control/combo players to fight against them in better conditions.

What else should be done? Well, we can’t just simply make MUD and fish worse when we have a 2 card colorless combo that wins for four mana. So…

Banning Time Vault in Vintage is safe if the previously mentioned restrictions take place. Without 4 Null Rod, 4 Wasteland and 4 Mishra’s Workshop I believe the right call would be to ban Time Vault. We need to slow down the format by not abusing the stupidly good cards.

We saw Brainstorm, Gush, Ponder, Merchant Scroll and Flash being restricted all at the same time. That made a HUGE change to the format. We adapted and we learned how to play under the new circumstances. I believe now is the right time for another big change if we want Vintage to be more appealing to the players, specially the ones coming from Legacy, that will probably try Vintage some day.

This Friday the new Banned and Restricted list should be announced and I hope something changes, else we shouldn’t expect nothing but the fall of Vintage. Which makes me sad.

(I know, I know! The poster rocks!)

On the other hand, I think the problem isn’t just about restricting or banning some cards. I believe Wizards of the Coast should actually do something bigger in favor of Vintage. I’m not asking for a Vintage GP (although that would actually rock and gather more players than some standard GP’s…), but they should find the way to organize the Vintage tournaments around the world on a similar level than other formats. If Standard gets PTQ’s, GP’s, PT’s, etc…, Extended gets PTQ’s, GP’s, etc…, Legacy gets GPT’s & GP’s, why Vintage get no official tournaments?

Of course it’s hard to have Vintage as a competitive format, but I’m not asking for that exactly. I’m asking for a better organization of the Vintage events. C’mon! They’ve got great minds working at WotC, and I’m sure they could come up with something! We’ll have to wait few days and see what happens…

Regarding my performance at the tournament, I did pretty bad even though I had a deck prepared to beat MUD and Fish. My pairings went like this:

Round 1: 0-2 VS David Carbó playing  BWG Fish

Round 2: 0-2 VS Ramón Romero playing Faeries Fish

Round 3: 2-0 VS Juan Espinosa playing Noble Fish

Round 4: 2-0 VS Leticia Sevilla playing BG Dark Depths

Round 5: 1-1 VS Lluís Perea playing UB Tezzeret (featuring Thada Adel, Acquisitor on SB…)

Round 6: 0-2 VS Arnau Rovira playing Dark Tezzeret (Got killed G1 on first turn with FoW back up, and G2 second turn…)

The Top8 players and decks were:

• Tomas Winand (Iona Oath) vs Àlex Delgado (Dark Remora)
• Joe Gallego (MUD) vs Narcís Mir (URB Tezzeret)
• Rubén González (Dark Remora) vs Omar Nieto (Wizards Fish)
• Angel Gorriana (Tezzeret) vs unknown player (Dredge)

I don’t know how the semifinals went, but I can tell you that Joe Gallego won the tournament. So congratz to him!

This past weekend the omnipresent store Star City Games organized another $5K event in Indianapolis. As usual, on Saturday took place the Standard event (not so interesting for us, but you can find top16 decks here), and on Sunday near 300 people showed up to play for the big pot.

The winner of the event is Chris Woltereck who played 43 land (!) against Nicholas Montaquila with mono red Goblins. You can read the full final report here:

Finals: Chris Woltereck vs. Nick Montaquila

The top8 brackets looked like this:

These are the decks from the Top16 players:

Title	Finish	Player	Event	Date	Location
43 Land Blue	1st place	Chris Woltereck	StarCityGames.com $5,000 Legacy Open	2010-03-14	Indianapolis, Indiana, United States
Goblins	2nd place	Nicholas Montaquila	StarCityGames.com $5,000 Legacy Open	2010-03-14	Indianapolis, Indiana, United States
Team America	3rd place	William Nichols	StarCityGames.com $5,000 Legacy Open	2010-03-14	Indianapolis, Indiana, United States
Merfolk:	4th place	Sean Gray	StarCityGames.com $5,000 Legacy Open	2010-03-14	Indianapolis, Indiana, United States
Monoblack Control	5th place	Craig Wostratzky	StarCityGames.com $5,000 Legacy Open	2010-03-14	Indianapolis, Indiana
Landstill	6th place	Michael Bernat	StarCityGames.com $5,000 Legacy Open	2010-03-14	Indianapolis, Indiana, United States
Reanimator	7th place	Jason Terry	StarCityGames.com $5,000 Legacy Open	2010-03-14	Indianapolis, Indiana, United States
Tezzerator	8th place	Peter Smutko	StarCityGames.com $5,000 Legacy Open	2010-03-14	Indianapolis, Indiana, United States
Merfolk	9th place	Joshua Cowen	StarCityGames.com $5,000 Legacy Open	2010-03-14	Indianapolis, Indiana, United States
Counter-Top Survival	10th place	John Penick	StarCityGames.com $5,000 Legacy Open	2010-03-14	Indianapolis, Indiana, United States
Charbelcher	11th place	Cedric Phillips	StarCityGames.com $5,000 Legacy Open	2010-03-14	Indianapolis, Indiana, United States
Eva Green	12th place	Joe Bernal	StarCityGames.com $5,000 Legacy Open	2010-03-14	Indianapolis, Indiana, United States
Reanimator	13th place	Michael Trent	StarCityGames.com $5,000 Legacy Open	2010-03-14	Indianapolis, Indiana, United States
Counter-Top Natural Order	14th place	Nathanael Love	StarCityGames.com $5,000 Legacy Open	2010-03-14	Indianapolis, Indiana, United States
Merfolk	15th place	Thomas Farrer	StarCityGames.com $5,000 Legacy Open	2010-03-14	Indianapolis, Indiana, United States
Team America	16th place	David Gleicher	StarCityGames.com $5,000 Legacy Open	2010-03-14	Indianapolis, Indiana, United States

Congratz to all the Top16 players and specially to Chris Woltereck for the win!

This Saturday I’m going to play the LCV (Catalan Vintage League), finally! The guys from Igualada have prepared an excellent tournament with an awesome prize support, so I couldn’t fail to their effort. I hope the turnout of the tournament goes as they expected!

I expect a metagame with tones of Golem MUDS and Fish (Noble and UW), some Tezzeret decks (Dark Tezz, MUC, URB, etc…), some Storm Combo (Nauseam and DT), some rogue decks and few Dredge players.

For that, and with the precious help from Jason, I’ve build up this deck:

TP Chewer attack! v1.0, 13th March 2010. By Jordi Amat

Main deck:

2 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
4 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
3 Island
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring

(24 producers)

1 Inkwell Leviathan
2 Sower of Temptation
3 Ingot Chewer

(6 creatures)

4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
3 Spell Pierce
1 Tinker
1 Voltaic Key
1 Time Vault
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth’s will
1 Fire/Ice
1 Lighting Bolt

(30 Business spells)

Sideboard:

3 Ravenous Trap
1 Extirpate
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Greater Gargadon
1 Claws of Gix
2 Duress
1 Razormane Masticore
1 Sundering Titan
2 Rack and Ruin
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Trickbind

A visual view of the deck:

(sorry for the bad quality… iPhone camera ain’t the best to do this type of pics and I was too lazy to scan the deck)

The deck is designed to have good match ups against Noble and MUD. According to Jason, Ingot Chewer is the best main deck answer against MUD while it works also great against many other decks like fish, dredge, or even at the mirror. The fish match we got it well covered maindeck also, as we are playing 2 Sower of Temptation, 1 Lighting Bolt, Fire/Ice and Tinker + Inkwell Leviathan.

The rest of the deck is designed to be solid. No Library of Alexandria to avoid suspicious hands and to be able to have a first turn Spell Pierce or a turn 2 Mana Drain. The 4 Volcanic Island allow me to play without having to worry for the red sources against MUD or Fish. I can easily lose one or two volcanics and the deck will still be able to cast Ingot Chewer, Lighting Bolt, etc…

Anyways, I’m not going to unveil all the secrets and reasons behind the card choices now. If the deck turns out to be competitive, I might write a longer article about it. So far, I’ll be testing it today and playing it tomorrow.

If you want to follow my performance at LCV tomorrow, you can follow me at Twitter (@piZZero). And on Monday I’ll hopefully have the report of the tournament finished. So, stay tunned!

Ladies and gentlemen Legacy is on fire! GP Madrid has beaten any previously attendance record and that’s something Spain is really proud of. Well, we (eternal players) should all be proud of! Every now and then, the attendance records gets beaten but that ain’t new. What’s new and surprising is that GP Madrid was played under the Legacy format. Obviously Wotc never expected GP Madrid to be such a success. Their constant work to improve the game, has forced them to implement Legacy for Magic Online. With that many players playing Legacy on Real Life™ it was an obvious movement to release Legacy for the online fans.

The announcement came published yesterday (9th of March) on their official website.

Ron Spencer has always delighted us with his excellent Yawgmoth’s Will alterations, but he does other cool stuff worth watching and commenting. One of the most amazing things I’ve seen from Ron Spencer are his playsets of altered swamps. What makes these swamps special is that they usually connect one to each other to create a combined alteration. Last year (2009) he commissioned one playset to Dan (owner of the store Hobby Town USA, in Lincoln – NE) which is simply spectacular!

(Click on the image to zoom in)

This other alteration (whose owner I don’t know), isn’t as spectacular as the first one but it’s definitely very cool looking and well executed. No matter how you connect the swamps, they always connect between them!

(Click on the image to zoom in)

Maybe I should get a swamp altered, or two, or three, or four! (on the floor!)

In the world of Legacy Storm combo there are a handful of shells and options available to the Real Men Who Play Combo. There are speed versions of Ad Nauseam Tendrils (ANT), versions with the powerful Burning Wish as a tutor (which also give you the power of Empty the Warrens), and other unique creations such as Jordi Amat’s Ill-Gotten Gains Tendrils deck (IggyPop 2.0). The version that I think offers the best balance of power, stability, and flexibility right now is a hybrid of Ad Nauseam and Doomsday strategies, or as we’ll call it ANT-Doomsday Hybrid.

ANT decks are typically only running 1-2 copies of Ad Nauseam, along with a lot of fast mana, protection, tutors, and deck manipulation spells. They’re pretty straight forward, and ideally would like to kill the opponent somewhere between the second and fourth turn. Just set up by digging or tutoring for whatever you don’t have from these components, and then fire off a piece of protection (often in the form of Duress or Orim’s Chant) and then away you go with your fast mana spells and either Ad Nauseam or Infernal Tutor. Outside of a nearly full hand of cards and the ability to do an Infernal Tutor into Ill-Gotten Gains loop, much of the time ANT will seek to use its life as a resource to power up a game winning Ad Nauseam.

But what if you don’t have a lot of life? Legacy decks are faster and more disruptive than ever, and you can easily be at only 13 life or less on turn 2 when facing a Zoo player (Steppe Lynx you for 4, Chain Lightning and/or Lightning Bolt you for 3, fetchlands, etc.). In these cases, or the cases that you facing down a quick Tarmogoyf and your first spell or three were countered, you can’t necessarily leverage the power of Ad Nauseam to generate enough of a Storm count to kill your opponent with Tendrils of Agony. This is where the card Doomsday shines. It doesn’t require a lot of life to win the game.

Doomsday Demystified
A lot of people seem to be hesitant to include Doomsday or look at it as a viable alternative in Storm decks because they either don’t feel comfortable or knowledgeable enough to abuse it. Brandon Adams (known as emidlin online) and Michael Seubert (known as cheeseburger online) have co-authored a handy guide to using and creating Doomsday piles, and have done a fantastic job at providing a list of many options and even arithmetic formulas to teach you how to craft the perfect pile for whatever scenario you’re in during a game. Victor Martinez (known as gocho online) took this a step further and used those lists to make a convenient spreadsheet available to the public.

I won’t go into all of the details of each pile because there are so many variants and Brandon and Michael have already done a great job of explaining them, but being uncomfortable with Doomsday should not be an excuse for you in the future if you read these. Doomsday is an extremely powerful and important weapon that provides the Storm player with another path to victory that doesn’t depend on a lot of life as a resource, which is often very critical in Legacy if things don’t go according to plan early in the game.

Protection
The reason to play ANT variants over something like Goblin Charbelcher is that it has a more stable manabase and offers better forms of protection in the face of counterspells and other hate. Here is a brief rundown of the commonly seen protection spells and why you might use them:
Orim’s Chant – at a cost of 1 White mana you prevent your opponent from being able to play any spells for the turn, and in rarer situations can be used to prevent combat damage if kicked; has the added bonus of being great against opposing combo
Silence – similar to Orim’s Chant without the kicker ability, this shuts off opponent’s spells for the turn and can’t be Misdirected or Diverted
Abeyance – costs and additional mana beyond Chant or Silence, but also cantrips, and more importantly prevents the opponent from interacting at all by preventing activated abilities
Duress – strips away a potential counterspell or Counterbalance, or can give you precious information about the contents of opponent’s hand
Thoughtseize – can strip away problematic counterspells, permanents, and the added bonus of creatures, but at the cost of two life
Pact of Negation – a free counterspell, but has the liability of having a cost on the next upkeep that you most likely won’t be able pay; really only great when protecting a spell to go off
Xantid Swarm – at the investment of only a single Green mana, you can effectively Orim’s Chant your opponent every turn; the disadvantage of this is that it validates any common main deck removal, so it is best relegated to the sideboard unless you are in an extremely Blue-heavy metagame

In Tomoharu Saito’s build of ANT that he piloted to a Top 8 birth at GP Madrid 2010 he chose to use a combined 6 Duress and Thoughtseize effects as his disruption suite, in order to stay primarily Black and Blue (he had no White) and presumably to gain information about his opponent’s hand. The debates about which disruption cards you choose can go on forever, but Orim’s Chant provides an ultimate finality if resolved, and if you resolve one before attempting to combo off you should win 95% of your game or more. The same cannot be said for Duress, as the opponent with other non-Force of Will spells can still interact with you, which you want to ultimately avoid.

The other advantage of playing Orim’s Chant is its usefulness against other combo matches. While Duress is certainly nice at stripping away a key spell, it does nothing in the face of Brainstorm or Mystical Tutor, and by allowing your opponent to cast a few spells and then casting Orim’s Chant you have actually made them expend or waste Storm and mana resources, which is often better and will lead to more victories for the player packing Chant. For these reasons I strongly advocate Orim’s Chant as the top choice, and your additional disruption slots can be composed of whatever you think is best.

Tutoring and Deck Manipulation
Mystical Tutor – at a cost of only 1 Blue mana you can find any of your combo pieces, protection, or removal; this is the most efficient tutor available, but comes at the cost of card disadvantage
Infernal Tutor – the restrictions of Internal Tutor are removed when you sacrifice a Lion’s Eye Diamond or two in response, but this card is great as the game goes on at fueling a number of different ways to win (sometimes by chaining multiple Infernal Tutors if you have tons of mana)
Grim Tutor – gets you any card you want for 3 mana and 3 life this is somewhat attractive, but the price is probably too steep to pay in this deck
Burning Wish – if you are into a Red splash Burning Wish allows you to create even more Doomsday piles (including pass the turn piles where you needn’t win that turn), and also unlocks access to Empty the Warrens
Sensei’s Divining Top – you want this to be your first turn play every time if possible, as it allows for reusable searching and deck manipulation and is fantastic in conjunction with Doomsday and Mystical Tutor
Brainstorm – this is on color, cheap, and can both dig for cards you need and shuffle away cards you don’t need; in short, it’s insane in here
Ponder – this is probably the second best first turn play, as it allows you see up to four cards to find whatever you need (land, Dark Ritual, tutor, protection, etc.) and you can also shuffle away the cards if you don’t like them (reducing your potentially dead draws the next couple of turns)

Most ANT decks will run a number of the cards above, but with the ANT-Doomsday hybrid deck Sensei’s Divining Top is extremely good. It is a great first turn play that can filter your draws as the game goes on, dig for mana to ensure you hit your land drops, and works extremely well with Mystical Tutor and Doomsday.

The Mana Sources
Many decks (especially game 1) are serious underdogs to your storm deck no matter what shell you are using, so it makes sense to build to also be as strong as possible against those matches that are tougher. When playing this deck you really want have as many cards in hands as possible (to generate storm) and to be able to hit your land drops. To this end you want to reduce mulligans and to make your opening hands as consistent and keepable as possible, so in this regard having more lands rather than less will be better, as will having fewer cards like Chrome Mox in your opening hand. Playing a stable manabase and hitting your land drops will strengthen your matchups against decks with Wasteland and decks with counterspells, so having the strongest manabase possible while still being able to play your powerful spells should be your goal when building this deck. So let’s jump in to building the manabase.
Chrome Mox – some people will advocate playing more of these and/or Mox Diamonds, but you really only want to see this card when going off with Ad Nauseam and you don’t want it in your opening hand too often, so after a lot of testing I’d recommend two, as this will often be one of the first cards you sideboard out against control decks
Lotus Petal – a free spell that provides any color mana is pretty good, even though it is only a single shot use
Lion’s Eye Diamond – aside from the drawback of discarding your hand (not a big deal when going off), getting 3 mana of any color for free is a huge boon to however you are trying to combo out, and this is why LED is a staple of storm combo decks of all forms
Dark Ritual – another fantastic bargain by providing 3 black mana for the cost of 1, Dark Ritual is one of the best cards in the deck
Cabal Ritual – sometimes better (with Threshold), but usually slightly worse, Cabal Ritual is still pretty good but you only need so many mana sources, so 2-3 of these are generally all you need

I tend to fetch out basic lands whenever possible to play around Wasteland (and other non-basic hate), so even though we have four colors in this deck I recommend keeping the dual lands to a minimum and including as many basic lands as you have room for. Saito’s GP deck had only one basic land, but for a deck like this you always want stable mana. Some people will question the inclusion of many basic lands or of a maindeck Plains, but this again goes back to building your deck to playing against tougher matchups (such as Canadian Threshold). You really want basic lands to keep being able to reliably cast your important spells (such as Orim’s Chant), and there’s enough extra mana sources like Lotus Petal and Lion’s Eye Diamond that you don’t really have to worry much about having the correct mana when comboing out. There is also a good amount of colorless mana in many of your spells (Meditate, Sensei’s Divining Top, Cabal Ritual, Infernal Tutor, etc.), so keep in mind you can always use your Plains or whatever White mana source to help in casting those (or with activating Sensei’s Divining Top nearly every turn) if you aren’t using it for Orim’s Chant. You’re probably going to destroy other matchups that can’t disrupt your manabase and interact with you, so this doesn’t matter too much there.

With these options in mind, here’s what I would recommend right now.
ANT-Doomsday Hybrid 20101Q1.4, by Jaco 02-15-2010
Business (28)
4 Orim’s Chant
2 Silence
1 Wipe Away/Krosan Grip
4 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
4 Mystical Tutor
2 Infernal Tutor
1 Doomsday
1 Meditate
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ad Nauseam

Mana Sources (32)
2 Chrome Mox
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
2 Cabal Ritual
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
2 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
1 Tropical Island
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Plains

Sideboard (15)
1 Bayou
1 Doomsday
1 Sadistic Sacrament
3 Xantid Swarm
2 Krosan Grip
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Rushing River
1 Slaughter Pact/Deathmark
3 Carpet of Flowers

The sideboard above consists of options for dealing with problematic permanents, more disruption against counterspells, and the ability to switch to the Doomsday kill as your primary kill. Xantid Swarm single-handedly invalidates a lot of hate, and I think it is great for the Green splash, which you’re already probably going to have to be able to play either Krosan Grip or Reverent Silence. Dark Confidant was also seen in both Saito and David Do Anh’s sideboards in their GP lists, and I think that has merit and is worth heavily considering if Sadistic Sacrament catches on as a sideboard card. You can tailor this to meet your needs, but here is a brief rundown of how I would attack many common matchups with the deck and sideboard above.

Playing and Sideboarding Against Merfolk
Merfolk’s only real hard counter is Force of Will, but you still have to take Daze and Cursecatcher into account when doing the math before trying to combo out. Sensei’s Top shines in this match to help you dig for more Chants and to hit your land drops. Keep in mind they may have Stifle in their deck, but if you manage to resolve a Xantid Swarm or Chant effect you can obviously ignore this. Another thing to keep in mind is that they may be boarding in Spell Pierce. Here’s how I’ve been sideboarding:
-2 Chrome Mox
-1 Ad Nauseam
-1 Wipe Away/Krosan Grip
-2 Lotus Petal
-1 Lion’s Eye Diamond
-1 Mystical Tutor
+1 Bayou
+1 Doomsday
+3 Xantid Swarm
+3 Carpet of Flowers

Playing and Sideboarding Against Ad Nauseam Tendrils
There’s not too much thinking about this matchup, and you probably won’t encounter it very often. Orim’s Chant and Silence are key here in allowing you to combo out unimpeded, and also to prevent your opponent from going off. As mentioned above, it may be worth changing the sideboard around slightly to accommodate 3-4 Dark Confidants if Sadistic Sacrament or Extract starts seeing more play. Sideboarding currently looks like this:
-1 Wipe Away/Krosan Grip
+1 Sadistic Sacrament

Playing and Sideboarding Against Dream Halls
Like the ANT matchup, you want to use your Chant effects to stop them from comboing out and to allow you to. I tend to side in Xantid Swarm here, but that’s up to you and if you feel comfortable siding out any mana sources:
-2 Chrome Mox
-1 Silence
-1 Wipe Away/Krosan Grip
+3 Xantid Swarm
+1 Chain of Vapor

Playing and Sideboarding Against Naya Zoo
The Zoo player will seek to aggressively burn you out, and will most likely be bringing in some combination of hate cards in the form of Gaddock Teeg and/or Ethersworn Canonist, and maybe even Mindbreak Trap, so I tend to ditch the Ad Nauseam plan and leave in a few Chants for the protection from Mindbreak Trap and them holding a lot of burn for after your resolve Doomsday. You will have to manage your Mystical Tutors and dig spells appropriately. I tend to side like this:
-1 Ad Nauseam
-2 Silence
-1 Lotus Petal
+1 Doomsday
+1 Chain of Vapor
+1 Rushing River
+1 Slaughter Pact

Playing and Sideboarding Against Goblins
Most Goblins players can’t do a whole lot to interact with you, especially game 1. After sideboarding they may have Thoughtseize or Cabal Therapy, or possibly Pyrostatic Pillar. I like to board in better bounce and an additional mana source here to help fight against Wasteland and Rishadan Port:
-1 Wipe Away/Krosan Grip
-2 Silence
+1 Chain of Vapor
+1 Rushing River
+1 Bayou

Playing and Sideboarding Against CounterTop
When battling CounterTop the ultimate goal is to combo off without a Counterbalance in play, so to accomplish this I’ve been rotating back and forth between a main deck Wipe Away and Krosan Grip. Krosan Grip is the best at dealing with Counterbalance or the occasional main deck Chalice of the Void you’ll run into (from AggroLoam, for example), but Wipe Away can also hit a Reanimated Iona or some other problematic permanent, so that’s currently what I’m playing main. In the sideboard I have access to a couple more copies of Krosan Grip. An argument can be made for Reverent Silence in this slot because it costs nothing to play, but the problem is that the CounterTop player can still just Force of Will it, whereas they have almost no answer to Krosan Grip other than constantly floating a card with converted mana cost equal to 3 on top of their deck. In this matchup I also tend to ditch the Ad Nauseam plan, because you have are brining in cards that cost more mana which equals more life lost to Ad Nauseam, not to mention the fact that you’re probably going to be staring down a Tarmogoyf or something else nibbling at your life while you try to deal with Counterbalance. That’s debatable though, so here are a couple of different sideboard plans:
-2 Chrome Mox
-2 Lotus Petal
-1 Lion’s Eye Diamond
-1 Mystical Tutor
-1 Ad Nauseam
+1 Doomsday
+1 Bayou
+2 Krosan Grip
+3 Xantid Swarm

Playing and Sideboarding Against Canadian/Tempo Threshold
The Ad Nauseam plan against Threshold is a struggle, as they often have a quick clock in the form of Tarmogoyf, along with Lightning Bolt, Fire/Ice, Nimble Mongoose, and sometimes things you’ll have to play around like Vendilion Clique (when Sensei’s Divining Top tricks are most important). After sideboarding they’ll often be bringing in something like Red Elemental Blast and/or Spell Pierce (more common now), but these can still be invalidated by Xantid Swarm. Because of this they may be forced to keep in their removal against you, and I would definitely force the issue because if they don’t have removal your Xantid Swarms are going to win you the game. You’ll have to battle through Stifle, Force, Spell Snare, and more so Xantid Swarm and Chant effects are the best path to victory. Another key resource here is Carpet of Flowers, which Wizards’ recently changed the Oracle text for during the January 2010 Update Bulletin. The new wording is as follows:
“At the beginning of each of your main phases, if you haven’t added mana to your mana pool with Carpet of Flowers this turn, you may add up to X mana of any one color to your mana pool, where X is the number of Islands target opponent controls.”

So this allows you to cast Carpet of Flowers during your first main phase and then get the mana during your second main phase the same turn. This is incredible, and it gives you multiple mana every single turn (albeit without upping your Storm) for a one time investment of a single Green mana. This can prove critical in playing around their mana denial plan, as will all of the basic lands we’ve conveniently included. With the battle raging for mana resources and the fight to resolve spells against Threshold I’ll often sideboard out temporary mana sources in favor of more protection and permanent mana sources like this:
-2 Chrome Mox
-1 Wipe Away/Krosan Grip
-2 Lotus Petal
-1 Lion’s Eye Diamond
-2 Cabal Ritual
+1 Doomsday
+1 Bayou
+3 Carpet of Flowers
+3 Xantid Swarm

Playing and Sideboarding Against Bant Aggro (ProBant)
This is an interesting matchup for you, because their deck can be all over the board. They may have Wasteland, Stifle, Daze, Force, or they may eschew the mana disruption plan altogether for stuff like Spell Snare. They can have a quick clock in the form of Tarmogoyf or Rhox War Monk, not to mention Progenitus if they find a Natural Order before you’re able to kill them. I can’t give you a solid sideboarding suggestion here, because a lot of it will come down to what you’ve seen from their deck. You’ll want Slaughter Pact/Deathmark for any potential hate creatures they may have (Meddling Mage, Ethersworn Canonist, Gaddock Teeg), or even to deal with a quick Rhox War Monk. You can look at the Threshold and CounterTop matchups for tips if you’re really clueless, but Xantid Swarm, Carpet of Flowers, and the Doomsday plan all have merit here depending on you’ve seen or suspect they might have, so play this one by your gut.

Playing and Sideboarding Against Dredge
I used to have random cards like Mindbreak Trap or Extirpate in my sideboard to Mystical Tutor for, but after testing against many different versions of Dredge I just found it unnecessary after a while. They will have Cabal Therapy and possibly Iona, Shield of Emeria as a Dread Return target main deck to interact with you, and that’s about it. After sideboarding they could have stuff like Mindbreak Trap, Force of Will, or Unmask, so I like to leave my Chant effects in just in case, which can also act as Time Walks against them and buy you more turns if necessary. Unless I see something really weird from their deck this is usually my plan:
-1 Plains
-1 Wipe Away/Krosan Grip
-1 something else you don’t care about (depending on what you’ve seen from them)
+1 Bayou
+1 Chain of Vapor
+1 Slaughter Pact (if they don’t have Iona this probably isn’t justified)

Playing and Sideboarding Against Lands.dec
This is a pretty good matchup in general, and outside of an absolute bomb draw by them you should defeat them game 1 without problem, as they can’t interact with you outside of Wasteland and Rishadan Port. If you’re playing the list above you have 4 basic lands main deck so this isn’t much of an issue. The Lands player will know they are a massive underdog to combo, and will likely have some combination of Mindbreak Trap and Chalice of the Void, and if they’re really desperate they could try to bring in Leyline of the Void too, but they probably don’t have enough slots to side out for that many additional cards. For this reason I’d advocate keeping in most Chant effects to hedge against Mindbreak Trap, and I also board in some bounce like this:
-1 Wipe Away/Krosan Grip
-2 Chrome Mox
+1 Bayou
+1 Chain of Vapor
+1 Hurkyl’s Recall

Rather than hoping to be able to tutor or draw for Ad Nauseam and the accompanying Angel’s Grace after sideboard against a lot of decks where life is an issue, you can simply use the mana and Storm instead to leverage the power of Doomsday. I highly recommend reading Brandon and Michael’s Doomsday primer in the link provided earlier. I feel that this hybrid strategy is currently the best way to pilot a Legacy Storm deck, given what we’ve been seeing from late 2009 into early 2010. You can expect to face Zoo and Merfolk and a myriad of other decks in each tournament you attend, so this approach allows you to have a consistent manabase and to be able to easily shift your plan of attack. Doomsday is an important and powerful piece of the Storm players’ repertoire that should not be overlooked, and works exceptionally well in the context of this deck.

On the weekend of Grand Prix Madrid (epic report) I was told that Dan Frazier was coming to Spain. Where? – I asked!

I found the answer to that question in a matter of minutes! A guy around there was handling these fliers:

The card reads:

Freak Games I – 10th & 11th of April

Saturday: 600+€ Standard tournament. Entrance fee: 12€

Sunday: 1000+€ Legacy tournament. Entrance fee: 15€

Guest artist: Dan Frazier (all moxen). He’ll be attending on Saturday afternoon to draw and sign your decks. And we weill have exclusive products on sale!

Both events will take place in Freakland Games (shop)

C/Sevilla 12, Zaragoza (Spain)

Phone: +34 976373571 or +34 699193636

For more information, please send us a mail to: tgplace@aol.com or info@freaklandgames.com

This is just great news! I will finally get my Mox Ruby & Mox Jet signed, and i’ll have them all double signed! Hopefully I can get him to alter them as well. Will see!

Vintage players have either grown to love or hate the card Gush, and the effect that it had on the metagame over the past half decade during the times when it was allowed to be played. When Gush (and Brainstorm, Flash, Merchant Scroll, and Ponder) landed on the Restricted List again on June 1 2008 many people were saddened by the news, as the “Gush Metagame” was one full of interaction, excitement, many interesting deckbuilding ideas, and of course the broken plays that Vintage players are accustomed to.

In January 2010 the Team ICBM Vintage extraordinaire tournament organizer and Vintage arms dealer Ben Carp decided to take matters into his own hands. He announced that in March there would be an ICBM Retro Vintage Open tournament using the old Restricted List and card pool, with the following rules to mimic the metagame from early 2008:
1. Gush, Brainstorm, Flash, Merchant Scroll, and Ponder are unrestricted. Gifts Ungiven is still restricted. Shahrazad is legal and unrestricted.
2. Time Spiral, Personal Tutor, Dream Halls, Mox Diamond, and Chrome Mox are still restricted.
3. The “M10 rules update” is NOT in effect. This means:
3a. Combat damage stacks.
3b. Tokens are “owned” by whoever controlled the effect that created them.
3c. Mana burn exists.
3d. No more simultaneous mulligans
3f. Wishes fetch RFG’d cards as well as SB cards.
4. All errata updates after July 2008 are NOT in effect. This means:
4a. Illusionary Mask works the old way.
4b. Oath does not target.
4c. Time Vault/Voltaic Key does NOT work.
5. Cards printed after Shadowmoor are not allowed. This includes Eventide, Alara Block, M10, Zendikar, and Worldwake.

Many locals were very excited about this, as the Key-Vault era has grown stale to a lot of people, and they enjoyed the Gush era. Deckbuilding strategy and technology is constantly changing and adapting, so it would be very interesting to see how the deckbuilding of today matches up with the metagame from nearly two years ago. Would the GushBond engine (Gush + Merchant Scroll + Fastbond) dominate, or would new technology and ideas trump the decks of yesteryear?

The tournament was hosted today at Milwaukee Magic Cards and Games in Milwaukee, WI (USA). Turnout was unfortunately only 11 people (to play for MOX SAPPHIRE!!), but it was a star-studded field with many of the Midwest’s best Vintage players, and a number of recognizable names. There were many different deck types represented, as most of the players seemingly had their own idea of how to trump the metagame.

After four rounds of Swiss the following gentlemen and scholars were left standing with the best record to square off in the Top 4 for the rights to own a nice piece of Power 9:
1) Ben Carp, playing DEEZ Noughts
1) Mike Solymossy, playing Tropical Storm
3) Jeremy Seroogy, playing Reveillark Flash
4) James King, playing GushBond Tyrant Oath

In the semi-finals Jeremy Seroogy took down Mike Solymossy in three closely contested games, and in the other bracket James King narrowly edged Ben Carp in an epic three game set. Seroogy then went on to best James King in the finals in three games, making Jeremy Seroogy and Reveillark Flash the winner of the first ICBM Retro Vintage Open!

We’ve provided the complete decklists from all 11 competitors below, so check out the technology. As Stephen Q. Mendendian would say, “That’s Gush, Boys!”

DEEZ Noughts, by Ben Carp aka Broodstar3000
Business (36)
4 Force of Will
4 Thoughtseize
2 Spell Snare
4 Stifle
1 Echoing Truth
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Dark Confidant
2 Dimir Cutpurse
2 Illusionary Mask
1 Engineered Explosives

Mana Sources (24)
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Lotus Petal
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
1 Watery Grave
1 Island
1 Swamp

Sideboard (15)
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Duress
1 Pithing Needle
2 Trygon Predator
1 Sealof Primordium
2 Sower of Temptation
1 Control Magic
2 Mystic Remora

Trinket Nought, by Ryan DuBois
Business (37)
4 Force of Will
1 Duress
3 Thoughtseize
4 Stifle
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Trinket Mage
1 Phyrexian Dreadnought
1 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Aether Spellbomb
1 Engineered Explosives

Mana Sources (23)
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Academy Ruins
1 Strip Mine
3 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Island

Sideboard (15)
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Duress
1 Pithing Needle
2 Trygon Predator
1 Sealof Primordium
2 Sower of Temptation
1 Control Magic
2 Mystic Remora

Confidant Remora, by Jason Jaco
Business (39)
4 Force of Will
4 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
3 Spell Snare
2 Mana Drain
1 Echoing Truth
1 Repeal
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
3 Mystic Remora
1 Time Walk
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Dark Confidant
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Tinker
1 Sundering Titan

Mana Sources (21)
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mana Crypt
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
2 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Swamp

Sideboard A (15)
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Darkblast
3 Threads of Disloyalty
3 Ingot Chewer
2 Magus of the Moon
1 Gaea’s Blessing

Jones Mind Trap (aka Dredge), by Tom Jones
Business (47)
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Unmask
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
3 Careful Study
1 Life From the Loam
3 Darkblast
4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bridge From Below
2 Dread Return
1 Angel of Despair
4 Serum Powder

Mana Sources (13)
1 Mox Sapphire
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine

Sideboard (15)
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Oath of Druids
1 Gaea’s Blessing
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Sundering Titan
4 Forbidden Orchard

Tropical Storm, by Jake Kempfer
Business (38)
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
4 Duress
1 Thoughtseize
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Gush
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Timetwister
1 Necropotence
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Merchant Scroll
1 Fastbond
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
2 Doomsday
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Research and Development

Mana Sources (22)
4 Dark Ritual
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Lotus Petal
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
3 Island

Sideboard (15)
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Extirpate
3 Xantid Swarm
1 Thoughtseize
2 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Echoing Truth
1 Threads of Disloyalty
1 Swamp

GushBond Tyrant Oath, by James King
Business (38)
4 Force of Will
3 Thoughtseize
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Gush
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Time Walk
3 Merchant Scroll
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Fastbond
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
4 Oath of Druids
2 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Krosan Reclamation
1 Brain Freeze
1 Flash of Insight

Mana Sources (22)
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Lotus Petal
4 Forbidden Orchard
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
1 Island

Sideboard (15)
1 Blazing Archon
1 Darksteel Colossus
2 Extirpate
1 Pyroblast
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Red Elemental Blast
2 Trickbind
1 Pyroclasm
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Tinker
1 Pithing Needle
2 Tormod’s Crypt

BrianDemars.dec (aka Confidant GAT), by Jimmy McCarthy
Business (39)
4 Force of Will
2 Duress
3 Thoughtseize
1 Echoing Truth
4 Gush
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
1 Time Walk
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Merchant Scroll
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Fastbond
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
4 Dark Confidant
3 Quirion Dryad
1 Tendrils of Agony

Mana Sources (21)
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Lotus Petal
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
2 Island

Sideboard (15)
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Extirpate
1 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Oxidize
3 Seal of Primordium
2 Smother
2 Uktabi Oragutan

Reveillark Flash, by Jeremy Seroogy
Business (40)
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
4 Pact of Negation
2 Duress
1 Chain of Vapor
3 Summoner’s Pact
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Flash
4 Protean Hulk
1 Reveillark
1 Body Double
1 Mogg Fanatic
1 Carrion Feeder
1 Body Snatcher

Mana Sources (20)
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
2 Island

Sideboard (15)
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Tinker
1 Platinum Angel
3 Trickbind
2 Duress
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth

Tropical Storm, by Mike Solymossy
Business (38)
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
1 Pact of Negation
4 Duress
1 Thoughtseize
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Gush
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Timetwister
1 Necropotence
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
3 Merchant Scroll
1 Fastbond
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
2 Doomsday
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Research and Development

Mana Sources (22)
4 Dark Ritual
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Lotus Petal
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
3 Island

Sideboard (15)
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Extirpate
3 Xantid Swarm
1 Thoughtseize
2 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Threads of Disloyalty
1 Swamp

Sliver Flash, by Shawn Brook Williams
Business (40)
4 Force of Will
4 Pact of Negation
1 Chain of Vapor
3 Summoner’s Pact
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Street Wraith
4 Flash
4 Protean Hulk
4 Virulent Sliver
1 Heart Sliver
1 Elvish Spirit Guide

Mana Sources (20)
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Lotus Petal
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
1 Island

Sideboard (15)
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Threads of Disloyalty
2 Echoing Truth
1 Tropical Island
1 Time Walk

TinkerGush, by Derek Wochinski
Business (38)
4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
3 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
2 Spell Snare
1 Echoing Truth
4 Gush
4 Brainstorm
3 Mystic Remora
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
3 Merchant Scroll
1 Fastbond
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Tinker
1 Darksteel Colossus

Mana Sources (22)
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Island

Sideboard (15)
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Phyrexian Dreadnought
2 Trickbind
3 Smother
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Spell Snare

When one of my regular dealers mentioned that he would have the chance of getting some cards signed by Anthony Francisco, I told him if he had 2 Tezzeret the Seeker and an Inkwell Leviathan in stock. How could I doubt about him!

These two are going straight to my Vintage deck!

I might be selling my second Tezzeret The Seeker foil japanese signed.

Chapter 3: The rise of the golems.

So it’s finally Sunday, our last day in Madrid, and we are heading again to the GP with brand new objectives. I still need to visit Mark Poole to get some stuff signed & altered, and I’m planning on conquering the Vintage side event that starts at 9 am.

So, before we move with the Vintage tournament, let’s get in the mood:

IF you are a STAXX (my ass) player please click play on the following youtube video. If you aren’t, move on to the next one!

So if you ain’t listening the previous video, then you deserve some real good shit! How about one of the coolest Justice videos?

The deck I’m playing at the tournament is a mix between the list JACO passed me the night before and the cards I brought to Madrid. There’s a thing I loved about his list: 3 main deck “fuck-your-golem” Ingot Chewer. He also had a couple of the new Jace there, but I wasn’t gonna pay the 240€ (120€/each) that the Asian_foil_cards were asking for. So in the end, this is what I played:

TP Golem my ass! by Jordi Amat

4 Force of Will
3 Mana Drain
3 Spell Pierce
2 Duress
3 Ingot Chewer
3 Repeal
1 Lighting Bolt
1 Fire/Ice
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Brainstorm
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Tinker
1 Sundering Titan
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
1 Yawmoght’s Will
1 Time Vault
1 Voltaic Key
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
3 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Swamp
1 Tolarian Academy

Sideboard:
3 Ravenous Trap
1 Extirpate
1 Darkblast
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Duress
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Greater Gargadon
1 Claws of Gix
2 Hurkyl’s Recall

I’m not 100% satisfied with the decklist tho. I’ll scan my new version of the deck and post it tomorrow or the day past. So, let’s move on with the rounds!

Round 1: Roger Subirana with UW Fish

Meh! First round and I get paired with a well known player from the LCV. I know him a bit and I know he’s playing UW fish usually.

I start controlling the first game thanks to my Lighting Bolt, that killed his Ninja of the deep hours. Later on, my Gorilla Shaman manages to eat a Null Rod and my Sower of Temptation controls another Ninja. Despite all the advantage I manage to obtain, i get totally mana flooded and I can’t get to stop his Jötun Grunt. He finds a Swords to Plowshares that exiles my Sower and returns his Ninja, and it’s GG.

Game 2 I open with Polluted and pass turn. He goes for Tundra + Sage of Epytir, and I get it REB’ed. It’s super important to stop 1st turn Sage if you don’t want him to go 2nd turn Ninja. I had Mana Drain up for turn 2 but he finds Wasteland for my Volcanic. Then I’m there with 1 Island, 2 Off Color Moxen and Sensei’s Divining Top. He plays Kataki, the war’s edge and his first Meddling Mage, naming Tinker. I find Sower of Temptation with my Top, and play it protected. With it, I control his Meddling Mage, but again, he has Swords to Plowshares. He’s beating my ass hard and I can’t find any answers on time.

0-2 | 0 points | 0 wins 2 losses

Round 2: Guillem Ragull with Drain Tendrils (?)

Meh! (again). Second round and I get paired with my ex-team mate Guillem. Guillem is right now one of the strongest players from the LCV. He’s playtesting a lot more than me and he knows the business quite well.

I have a strong control hand with Spell Pierce, Duress, Mana Drain, Ingot Chewer, 2 lands and Fact or Fiction. He opens the game with Tolarian Academy + Mox Emerald. I think for a while to see what my 1st movement should be. I decide that the best opening would be Fetchland for Underground Sea + Duress. He plays only 1 Brainstorm to avoid my play. But there he goes, he plays Brainstorm in response and hides Mana Drain + Gifts Ungiven (correct me if I’m wrong). I take Vampiric Tutor from his hand. Next turn he plays land and passes.

Obviously my Duress opening was the wrong choice. I should have played Ingot Chewer to his mox. Then on turn 2, he would have had 1 land, and his play would have been Vampiric, which would have got with Spell Pierce. Anyways, let’s keep moving.

I Try to play Ingot Chewer to his Mox and he casts Mana Drain I play Spell Pierce but he plays Force of Will. He draws his Gifts Unviven and with 5 mana he finds enough business spells to leave me out of the game.

Game 2 I mulligan to 6 and he mulligans to 5. There’s some Duress played by each of us. In the end, I manage to play an eot Fact or Fiction followed by a Tezzeret with protection.

Game 3 is kind of raw He mulligans to 5 again, plays Underground and pass turn. I begin with Land + Mox Sapphire + Sensei’s Divining Top with Spell Pierce in hand. He plays Island and pass turn. I find another Mox with Sensei’s Divining Top and on my turn I play another land + another Mox and cast Tinker, he tries to Mana Drain, but I Spell Pierce it. Sundering Titan hits the board and he scoops.

2-1 | 3 points | 2 wins 3 losses

Round 3: Bagus Bender with Bomberman

Bagus isn’t exactly what I’d call a “fast” player. He took his time on every single play of this round. To that let’s add the fact that he plays with Sensei’s Divining Top and we got the right formula to tie the round.

Game 1 I’m in control of the game, even though he’s got a Trinket Mage that is beating me down badly. I manage to kill his Trinket Mage when I’m down to 4 with my Lighting Bolt. He’s got Sensei’s Divining Top and Black Lotus in play. It shouldn’t take him long before he finds Auriok Salvagers. On my last chance to win the game, I cast Fact or Fiction that brings me Mystical and Vampiric Tutor. Both tutors works for me, as I’m killing him via Yawgmoth’s will the next turn. Well, there wasn’t any “next turn” for me as he finds the Auriok and goes off.

Game 2 is getting long and complicated. He’s played 2 Pithing Needle naming Time Vault and Voltaic Key (name Tezzeret next time… plzkkthx!). He’s beating me again with a Trinket Mage. When I’m down to 4 (again) they call “Time’s up” so I have to work some Magic! I dunno how I did it exactly but I remember being able to play Tezzeret, untap 2 artifacts and play Time Walk after a Yawgmoth’s Will. Then I attacked and GG.

1-1 | 4 points | 3 wins 4 losses

Round 4: Magin Calvo with Welder Staxx.

I can’t believe how I lost game 1. I opened with Island and pass turn. He went Workshop + Sphere of Resistance which I got with Spell Pierce. I play fetchland and pass turn with Mana Drain, Spell Pierce and Brainstorm. He plays a 2nd Workshop and starts with another Sphere of Resistance. I cast another Spell Pierce to which he attempts to pay the 2 extra with his other Workshop. I tell him that’s not possible. Anyways, he does nothing else, so I cast Brainstorm but I find no third land A third land would have been lovely as I got 1 Ingot Chewer in hand and the Mana Drain! On his third turn the fest starts to go on. Smokestack + Tangle Wire. I got the Smokestack with the Mana Drain. I can’t kill the Tangle with my Chewer coz I know there’s no land coming due to Brainstorm. So I have to get tapped and pass turn. He topdecks Strip Mine and I scoop

Game 2 I first turn kill him with Tolarian, Sol Ring, 2 Moxen, Voltaic Key and Tezzeret!

Game 3 is what I call “HELL”. He opens with Mountain + Goblin Welder. Then another Goblin Welder, and then ANOTHER Goblin Welder. I get to counter 1 Sphere of Resistance with Spell Pierce and manage to counter 2 more artifacts he plays. So, all he can do is beat me with his 3 welders… LAME! When he finally manages to resolve his artifacts, I start to get trapped due to his Tangle Wire and Smokestack. I cast Ingot Chewer targeting his Smokestack and he doesn’t put Sphere of resistance in response with Goblin Welder. Chewer resolves I pass turn and then he tries to rectify the play. I say “Dude, no”. Then on his upkeep he forgets to remove a counter from Tangle Wire and to tap anything. He draws a card and plays Mox Emerald. Then I call the judge because everything that happened in few secs there. I was hoping the judge would call that as a game loss due to him having extra information from the draw, being able to change what he tapped out of Tangle Wire. It was probably my only chance of winning there but the judge just went back few steps and he actually changed what he tapped with Tangle Wire. I call the judge again telling him that that wasn’t what he initially tapped after I told him that he missed his upkeep phase. The judge was again very permissive and he just got a warning. Anyways, I found Tinker out of nowhere and plays it for Sphinx of the Steel Wind. They call “Time’s up” and we ain’t given extra time for what happened before, so my Sphinx if missing a turn to just finish the game. LAME!

1-1 | 5 points | 4 wins 5 losses

Round 5: Michael Twoun with Aggro MUD.

On game 1 I have 2 Ingot Chewer in hand and 2 fetchlands. Open with first turn fetchland + Mox and he goes with Workshop + Mox + Golem. No problem! I go fetchland again, then crack for Volcanic and cast Chewer to his Golem. He’s so surprised of my main deck Chewer that he asks the judge if I’m really playing those maindeck. The judge actually performs a deckcheck on me and he finds out I’m right. He gives Michael a warning (only?) we keep going. No extra time given neither, even after being deckcheck! I manage to resolve my other Ingot Chewer kill a Karn, Silver Golem and my Chewer kills him.

Before starting game 2, I know I need to slow down a bit because there’s not a lot of time left. But, I can’t compete at all when he opens with first turn Golem again! I Force of Will his Golem, then I play Island, Mox Emerald and Sensei’s Divining Top. He plays a second Golem, I look with Top and there’s nothing worth in there. I play my second land with Mana Drain and Gifts Ungiven in hand. He plays nothing else in the game and swings me 4 times with the Golem for the Win. The last time he attacked we were already on the extra turns

1-1 | 6 points | 5 wins 6 losses

After round 5 I lost my interest on keep playing due to judges and my deck being unable to finish games fast.

I took some pictures of the vintage tournament. Here there’s the slideshow:

After the Vintage tournament there was still lot to do! I needed to get some cards re-signed and altered and I had to close the deal with Angelo for the Yawgmoth’s Will. We sit down with Menor and Angelo in a table and meanwhile I start a “Play Vintage with ante” event. I get only one victim whose promo Umezawa’s Jitte ended up in my binder Some pics of the games with ante:

So, I finally close the deal with Angelo. And get my brand new Yawgmoth’s Will altered by Ron Spencer and Terese Nielsen.

Now some pimp we had around with Angelo

This “Will” will have a new owner pretty soon, right Miguel?

This Gorilla was once mine, but was included in the trade for the Yawgmoth’s Will.

I also have one of those Islands, but mine is double signed

My Islands! I got the altered one from Antonio, and then I got them re-signed ^^

Best Island EVER! Property of Comeback.

Now that I mention Francesco, aka Comeback, when he showed me his Ancestral Recall altered by Mark Poole, I felt the need to rush back to see Mr. Mark Poole and get my cards altered the same way! I didn’t have much time left as we were soon heading back home. 20€ were needed to convince a friendly guy in the queue to accept my Library + Ancestral. I also gave him 50€ extra (just in case) to give to Mr. Poole to get my alterations done. This is the result!

In the end the 50€ weren’t needed as he made it with markers instead of paint (as he originally did with Francesco’s Ancestral). I have to admit, it’s the best alteration idea I’ve seen on any Ancestral or Library of Alexandria. There’s LOTS of Ancestrals altered after GP Madrid, but like this, there’s only 2: Francesco’s and mine.

So, it’s about time to finish this EPIC report of this EPIC weekend in Madrid. I’m not gonna end it with the typical PROS and CONS because I’m so freaking satisfied with everything that I’ve done. Of course I could have done better in the tournaments, but in the end, Magic is just a game folks!

Part I of the GP Madrid Epic Report can be found here.
Part II of the GP Madrid Epic Report can be found here.

The lists from the Top8 players from the GP Madrid were known for quite a while already. Buf if you missed them, you can now find them here as well.

Can’t stop laughing at Ruben’s T-shirt! He’s wearing it the other way around!

By the way, I’ll hopefully have the 3rd part of the report finished later today or tomorrow morning. So stay tuned!

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Rubén González Parrado (Countertop Progenitus)
Main Deck: 60 cards
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Flooded Strand
1 Forest
1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Plains
3 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
3 Windswept Heath
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Progenitus
3 Rhox War Monk
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Trygon Predator
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterbalance
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Natural Order
3 Ponder
3 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Swords to Plowshares

Sideboard
3 Dispel
3 Firespout
2 Krosan Grip
2 Pithing Needle
1 Ravenous Trap
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Rhox War Monk
1 Volcanic Island

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Lluis Restoy (ProBant)
Main Deck: 60 cards
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Forest
1 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Plains
1 Savannah
4 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
4 Windswept Heath
1 Kitchen Finks
2 Loaming Shaman
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Progenitus
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Rafiq of the Many
3 Rhox War Monk
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Bant Charm
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Natural Order
2 Ponder
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Sylvan Library

Sideboard
1 Empyrial Archangel
2 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Kitchen Finks
2 Krosan Grip
4 Mindbreak Trap
3 Relic of Progenitus

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Andreas Muller (Reanimator)
Main Deck: 60 cards
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
4 Underground Sea
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Blazing Archon
1 Empyrial Archangel
2 Inkwell Leviathan
2 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
1 Dark Ritual
4 Daze
1 Echoing Truth
4 Entomb
4 Exhume
4 Force of Will
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Reanimate
1 Show and Tell
2 Thoughtseize

Sideboard
1 Animate Dead
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Misdirection
2 Perish
1 Show and Tell
3 Spell Pierce
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Wipe Away
1 Woodfall Primus

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Alejandro Delgado (Zoo)
Main Deck: 60 cards
4 Arid Mesa
1 Forest
2 Horizon Canopy
1 Mountain
1 Plains
3 Plateau
1 Savannah
2 Taiga
2 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Figure of Destiny
4 Grim Lavamancer
2 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Wild Nacatl
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Fireblast
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
4 Path to Exile
2 Sylvan Library

Sideboard
3 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Gaddock Teeg
3 Krosan Grip
3 Pyroblast
2 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Volcanic Fallout

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Tomoharu Saito (ANT – Ad Nauseam/Tendrils of Agony)
Main Deck: 60 cards
2 City of Traitors
3 Flooded Strand
1 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
1 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
2 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
3 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress
3 Infernal Tutor
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Mystical Tutor
2 Ponder
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
2 Tendrils of Agony
2 Thoughtseize

Sideboard
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Dark Confidant
1 Echoing Truth
1 Extirpate
2 Hurkyl’s Recall
3 Reverent Silence
1 Sadistic Sacrament
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Thoughtseize

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Richard Bland (Zoo)
Main Deck: 60 cards
4 Arid Mesa
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Plains
3 Plateau
1 Savannah
2 Taiga
4 Windswept Heath
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Gaddock Teeg
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Kird Ape
2 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Lightning Helix
4 Path to Exile
1 Sylvan Library

Sideboard
1 Gaddock Teeg
2 Krosan Grip
3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Pyroblast
3 Tormod’s Crypt
3 Umezawa’s Jitte

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David Do Anh (ANT – Ad Nausum/Tendrils of Agony)
Main Deck: 61 cards
2 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
4 Underground Sea
1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
2 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
3 Duress
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Mystical Tutor
3 Orim’s Chant
3 Ponder
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Wipe Away

Sideboard
1 Brain Freeze
1 Chain of Vapor
3 Dark Confidant
1 Duress
1 Extirpate
2 Pact of Negation
2 Reverent Silence
1 Sadistic Sacrament
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Thoughtseize

---

Sven Dijt (Zoo)
Main Deck: 60 cards
4 Arid Mesa
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Plains
2 Plateau
2 Savannah
2 Taiga
3 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Gaddock Teeg
4 Grim Lavamancer
2 Kird Ape
3 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Loam Lion
4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Wild Nacatl
2 Chain Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Lightning Helix
3 Swords to Plowshares

Sideboard
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Krosan Grip
3 Mindbreak Trap
1 Path to Exile
1 Swords to Plowshares
3 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Wasteland

---

I was going to post this card within the third chapter of The GP Madrid epic report! (Part I + Part II) but I believe this deserves its own post.

I’m very, very, very proud to show you my ultimate acquisition (thanks to Angelo) at the Grand Prix Madrid 2010: A Yawgmoth’s Will altered by Ron Spencer & Terese Nielsen.

Terese Nielsen drew the C3PO and Ron Spencer did the remaining. C3PO is actually painted with Gold Leaf which the scanner can’t really get the shine of it.

This is my second alteration featuring both of them. The previous one was the one I got from eBay: Willfull Fiction.

Next step? Getting a playset of Force of Will altered by them!

Chapter 2: The assault

It’s finally Saturday and the biggest GP of the history of MtG is just about to begin. Once there, we see huge queues to register again. Luckily for us we don’t need to queue anymore so we move inside and wait, and wait, and wait, and w…

When 2220 people show up in a tournament, lots of things can happen:

• The room of the event isn’t big enough.
• There’s not enough chairs.
• There’s not enough promotional Jittes.
• The DCI reporter can’t handle more than 1000 players per tournament.
• There’s not enough waiters at the cafeteria.
• There’s lots of people who registered that weren’t on the lists once started.
• There’s lots of people with byes that were missing those, so they had to complain.
• Moving 2220 people isn’t the same than moving 1000.
• Etc…

Some of the problems were solved quite fast, some other were almost impossible to fix. Anyways,  let me introduce you my deck before I move on with the rounds report.

As you might have read in the blog before, I had very clear that I was going to play ANT with a transformer sideboard, ala french style.

TP ANT v5.0 by Jordi Amat

Main deck: (60)

4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Brainstorm
4 Duress
4 Orim’s Chant
3 Mystical Tutor
3 Chrome Mox
3 Cabal Ritual
3 Infernal Tutor
2 Ad Nauseam
2 Tendrils of Agony
2 Ponder
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Wipe Away

3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland

Sideboard: (15)

4 Tombstalker
4 Dark Confidant
3 Serenity
2 Angel’s Grace
1 Echoing Truth
1 Sadistic Sacrament

The maindeck choices are very standard. I’ve always believed that running 2 Tendrils of Agony main deck is necessary. It allows you to have a plan B against control decks and you can also use it to gain some time and life against aggro decks.

The sideboard is what might surprise you. The 4 Tombstalkers are there as a personal bet to beat a CounterTop based metagame. My predictions proved to be wrong, as it was lot more aggro than CB based, so in the end my Tombstalkers didn’t see much play.

Round 1 is about to begin but before, some speeches from the head judges staff featuring our new spanish level 4 judge Carlos Ho.

Carlos Ho before he actually gets the official Head Judge shirt.

I’m placed in the blue tournament and this is how it went:

Round 1: Pablo Capdevila (ESP) with Zoo/Burn

First game is kind of a short, as I manage to cast Ad Nauseam turn 2 being at 17 life. Nauseam brings stuff enough to end the game. Luckily, I lost the dice roll and I managed to see Taiga + Kird Ape followed by a Savannah, so I knew exactly how to side.

• In: +2 Angel’s Grace + 1 Echoing Truth
• Out: -1 Ad Nauseam  -2 Duress

The second game is a total different story. My hand has full of accelerators and a Tendrils of Agony. He has a strong hand with land + Wild Nacatl, followed by land + double Kird Ape. I can’t find any tutor to go off, and my following draws are Ill-Gotten Gains and Wipe Away.

I’m down to 11 lives and if I pass turn, he’ll attack for 7 and will probably cast a bolt or two. Can’t really pass turn, since either I die before being able to play my own turn, or either I die after casting Ill-Gotten Gains.

So, I start counting and all I can get is 9 storm. I count again, 9 storm again. I count again, 9 storm again. My opponent is getting nervous and I ask him a bit of patience since it’s either I win the game or I lose it after passing turn.

Finally I found out how to get 10 storm. I play my double Lion’s Eye Diamond, I play Lotus Petal + Dark Ritual. I also cast Chrome Mox but I imprint nothing. Then I cast Ill-Gotten Gains and in response break the 2 LEDS for UUUBBB. I bring back to my hand, Wipe Away + Dark Ritual + Tendrils of Agony. With UUU I cast Wipe Away on Chrome Mox, recast Chrome Mox imprinting nothing again, then Dark Ritual and Tendrils of Agony for a total of 10 storm.

2-0 | 3 points | Total: 2 wins – 0 losses – 0 ties

Round 2: Sergio Agudo (ESP) with Zoo/Burn

I lose the dice roll again, and he starts by fetching a Savannah to play Wild Nacatl. I follow with Duress and take a Chain Lighting as all the remaining were creatures and a Path to Exile.

When I’m at 6 life left, I’m forced to cast a 8 storm Tendrils (leaving him at 2) to gain some time and not die by passing the turn. I can’t find any tutor after that turn and his creatures end up killing me.

• In: +2 Angel’s Grace + 1 Echoing Truth
• Out: -1 Ad Nauseam  -2 Duress

The second game I first turn kill him with a Dark Ritual + Dark Ritual + Ad Nauseam. Nothing you’ve never seen before.

The final game he opens with fetchland and passes turn. I follow with land and pass turn to cast Orim’s Chant in his following upkeep. I’m just missing a Dark Ritual to be able to cast Ad Nauseam. He plays land and pass turn  (obv). I draw another Orim’s chant, so, i play land again and pass turn to cast the chant again. I’m just missing 1 mana now, since I have 2 lands, Dark Ritual and Ad Nauseam in my hand. One Lotus Petal, Chrome Mox, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual or another land is just what it takes to go off! He answers my chant with Lighting Helix and passes turn again. I draw Wipe Away, so I’m forced to pass turn and get owned badly as he casts Gaddock Teeg AND Ethersworn Canonist.

My next draw? A Lotus Petal. I keep playing waiting for a miracle, but he’s creeps end up beating me down to 0.

1-2 | 3 points | Total: 3 wins – 2 losses – 0 ties

Round 3: Joao Souza (BRA) with Red Deck Wins

Probably the fastest round of the whole tournament, excepting those who didn’t play due to a match loss or something similar.

Game 1 I have a hand I do love to play: Lotus Petal +Lotus Petal + Brainstorm + Dark Ritual + Mystical Tutor + Ponder + Duress.

My play was: Lotus Petal + Brainstorm. Brainstorm draws what it needs to go off: Dark Ritual, Ad Nauseam and a fetchland! Can you ask for better cards? No. I follow with the other Lotus Petal + Duress, followed by Fetchland + double Dark Ritual + Ad Nauseam winning without much difficulties.

• In: +2 Angel’s Grace + 1 Echoing Truth
• Out: -1 Ad Nauseam  -2 Duress

Game 2, he plays mountain and pass turn. I first turn kill him again with double Lotus Petal, double Lion’s Eye Diamond and Infernal Tutor. Tutor fetches for Ill-Gotten Gains, replay the 2 LEDs and Tutor for Tendrils of Agony. Exactly 10 storm.

2-0 | 6 points | Total: 5 wins – 2 losses – 0 ties

Round 4: Sergio Santos (ESP) with White Weenie

I lose the dice roll, AGAIN and he opens with Plains + Mother of Runes. I look at my hand and think this game ain’t gonna last long. Well, I was wrong

I open with fetchland for Island + Ponder. I get the Nauseam I needed to go off next turn. So I pass. He plays another Plains and casts OMGETHERSWORN CANONIST!

Nerf rogue decks playing main deck canonists!

Don’t panic, I have Mystical Tutor and Wipe Away main deck, so he can’t protect the canonist with his Mother of runes.

A turn later, I cast Wipe Away on his eot and on my turn and at 14 lives I cast Lotus Petal + Dark Ritual + Dark Ritual + WAIT! -He says! He responds to my second Dark Ritual with a OMGMAINDECKSILENCE! It’s ok, I tap my 2 other lands and in response to his Silence I cast Ad Nauseam. You know what? He answers my Nauseam with OMGMAINDECKORIM’SCHANT!

I resolve Ad Nauseam and get few cards to fill my hand up to 7. You wanna know how I die in that game? Soltary Priest equipped with Umezawa’s Jitte! Pur3 pwn4g3!

• In: +4 Tombstalker +4 Dark Confidant + 1 Angel’s Grace + 1 Echoing Truth
• Out: -2 Ad Nauseam -3 Infernal Tutor -4 Lion’s Eye Diamond -1 Ill-Gotten Gains

I can’t lose this round! I can’t! I keep repeating myself those words when I start drawing my hand: 2 fetchlands + Duress + Dark Confidant + Tombstalker + Ponder and Sensei’s Divining Top. After watching my hand I thought: He’s not gonna last long in this game! So I open with Polluted for Swamp and cast Duress to see what he’s up to. GUESS WHAT? He has 3 Path to Exile!

C’mon… I lost to a guy who plays Silence, Orim’s Chant, Canonists main deck featuring Soltary Priests. And game 2 he doesn’t side out his Path to Exile. That’s Magic!

0-2 | 6 points | Total: 5 wins – 4 losses – 0 ties

I didn’t start that well… so let’s have a break and enjoy some of the pictures from the people, the place and the event on Saturday.

The goodie bag of foil japanese for the day:

Let’s go back to the rounds!

Round 5: Daniel Campos (ESP) with Rock

I don’t have many notes from this round. All I can see from my notes is that I win game one out of a Nauseam when being at 20 lives.

• In: +2 Angel’s Grace + 1 Echoing Truth
• Out: -1 Ad Nauseam  -2 Duress

I lose game 2 against Kitchen Finks and Eternal Witness. And game 3 I first turn kill him with double LED and Infernal Tutor.

2-1 | 9 points | Total: 7 wins – 5 losses – 0 ties

Round 6: José Gavaldà (ESP) with Enchantress

Yet another first turn kill on game 1! I promise you guys, I’ve never done that many 1st turn kills in a tournament before. Luckily, I lost the dice roll AGAIN and he played first turn Wild Growth

• In: +3 Serenity + 1 Echoing Truth
• Out: -1 Cabal Ritual -1 Infernal Tutor – 1 Lion’s Eye Diamond -1 Mystical Tutor

Game 2 doesn’t begin very well as he develops his game quite nice and fast. A turn 4 serenity on my side destroys 11 enchantments (including 2 Runed Halo). I kill him that same turn.

2-0 | 12 points | Total: 9 wins – 5 losses – 0 ties

Round 7: Ben Miller (CAN) with Burn

He starts with Mountain+ Mogg Fanatic and my hand, that had plenty of mana + 1 Ponder fails to get anything worth out of Ponder. He attacks and casts double Chain Lighting. I’m down to 13. My chances of winning through Ad Nauseam are getting slim. It’s either I draw it now or I’ll have to go via double LED + Infernal Tutor. Problem? I have no LED, nor the Infernal Tutor. I draw another Ponder. There’s chances! Ponder brings a Mystical Tutor which is good enough but I’ll have to pass turn. I never got my turn back

• In: +2 Angel’s Grace
• Out: -1 Ad Nauseam -1 Cabal Ritual

Game 2 I cast a first turn Duress, taking his Pyrostatic Pillar out. His hand isn’t very impressive as he has 4 lands. I can combo him with Ad Nauseam without many troubles.

My game 3 hand has Angel’s Grace + 2 Dark Ritual + Ad Nauseam. I have only one land, so I chose to cast Ponder first. I get the white producer I needed to draw the whole deck on game 2 and win the match.

2-1 | 15 points | Total: 11 wins – 6 losses – 0 ties

Round 8: Germánico Huecas (ESP) with Dream Halls

I just need 2 more wins to pass to day 2. I’m feeling confident  with my deck and my game play. I’ve lost 2 rounds to Gaddock and Canonists. I believe I can make it!

Game 1 I cast Duress and see what he’s up to: He has Show & Tell, Progenitus, Ancient Tomb, Lotus Petal, Force of Will, Ponder and Thoughseize. I take his Force of Will and wait to see how greedy my opponent is. Exactly! He casts 1st turn Show and Tell for Progenitus. His only problem was that the 10/10 never got to attack me as I had turn 2 Ad Nauseam. If only he would have cast his thoughseize…

• In: +4 Dark Confidant + 1 Sadistic Sacrament +2 Angel’s Grace
• Out: -3 Infernal Tutor -4 Lion’s Eye Diamond

Game 2 I get pwned by his first turn Progenitus (AGAIN?) as my hand was slower than I wished.

• In: +3 Infernal Tutor +4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
• Out: -4 Dark Confidant -1 Sadistic Sacrament -2 Angel’s Grace

I return to my initial configuration as I’m starting now and need to combo out. My opponent mulligans to 5. So I open with Swamp and Duress, and he stops it with Force of Will, pitching Spell Pierce. OMG, he’s down 3 to 3 cards!

Well, he draws and guess what? Ancient Tomb + Lotus Petal + Show & Tell to place Progenitus on the board!!!!!!!!!!111111oeneneneneleven

Don’t panic, I still have a couple of turns to sculpt my hand and try to go off. I also have an Orim’s Chant that will gain me a turn. So, I draw, cast Ponder and pass turn. I can’t pay the kicker yet, so he draws and swings for 10. On my turn, I can’t do much, as I need the 2 lands to play the chant with kicker. So I pass turn, I cast the Chant and he draws & passes turn. I draw what I needed! My 2nd Lion’s Eye Diamond! So there we go to the final round! WELL WAIT! I cast 2 LED’s Infernal Tutor and in response I sac the LEDS and he FORCE OF WILLs my Infernal Tutor!!!!!!!! NERF YOUR LUCK BROTHER! Progenitus kills me, again.

1-2 | 15 points | Total: 12 wins – 8 losses – 0 ties and I drop.

All in all, my performance didn’t go quite as I expected. I would have loved to play against more tier 1 decks, but I found myself playing against few rogue decks that did some heavy damage to my final score. But that’s Magic folks!

Some of us (“the losers” xD) decided to move back to the hotel area with 2 goals in our minds:

1. We wanted to eat some dinner.
2. We wanted to watch F.C. Barcelona game.

Achieving the first one wasn’t hard. Worst was finding a place to watch the soccer game in Madrid. (In Barcelona is actually very hard to find a public place to watch Real Madrid games). We succeeded and just next to the hotel we had dinner in a bar while watching the 1st half of the game, and then we moved on to another one, where some other were waiting for us, to have some drinks.

And then the fun began!

To summ up the day:

• Entrance to GP Madrid – 18€
• A pork & cheese sandwich – 3€
• A Tanqueray + Sprite – 4.5€
• Singing the F.C. Barcelona anthem in a bar in Madrid with lots of supporters from Real Madrid  – PRICELESS!

To be continued…

You can now read the third part of the report:

The GP Madrid epic report! Part III

Following our discourse on the potential Breaking of the Reserved List, the community and Wizards of the Coast seemingly need to contemplate a solution to the spiraling cost of older cards if Wizards’ feels that these prices are too high and would prevent a legitimate barrier of entry for newer players. If Wizards’ is going to respect the spirit of the Reserved List and not undermine it dramatically using the foil/premium loophole, what can be done to increase supply and thus lower prices on key Legacy staples? I would suggest that the first thing to do is to look at what cards are priced high, and look at those that are not on the Reserved List that could safely be reprinted without breaking the Reserved List.

So what are considered some Legacy staples that are not on the Reserved List that could theoretically be printed in future sets with little or no repercussion? There are quite a few cards considered staples that have risen to relatively high prices very quickly, so ignoring cards that have already been reprinted let’s look at some cards that I believe could all be reprinted in upcoming sets and aren’t too powerful for the current Standard and Extended constructed environments.
Force of Will – aside from Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Blue is relatively weak in Standard and Extended, and including Force of Will in a normal set as either an uncommon or rare would drastically increase the supply and reduce the price from about $35 to $5-10
Wasteland – with apologies to Ghost Quarter and Tectonic Edge, there isn’t very good land destruction available to mages right now in Standard and Extended, and by reprinting this as an uncommon the price would drop from the current $18 price tag down to about $2-3 (where it used to be for years), and would also help keep the overpowered Thopter Depths deck in check in Extended
Tarmogoyf – this beast is currently in the $65-70 range and isn’t even legal in Standard currently (when it was it tipped the scales at about $30)! It’s certainly not too broken for any constructed format, and as it was unveiled in Future Sight, the reasoning behind reprinting it could be that Future Sight was merely a preview of what was to come (more Tarmogoyfs, yippee!)
Orim’s Chant – while often decent and sometimes above average, Chant was never broken in Standard and Extended, and reprinting this would drop the price from about $14 to $5
Argothian Enchantress – certainly a powerful card, nothing about Enchantress would break Standard or Extended, but the price would certainly drop considerably if this $12 staple was reprinted
Exploration – currently hovering around $15, this would be powerful in conjunction with Life From the Loam in Extended, and could potentially be awesome with some kind of Landfall cards (which would actually make for a very interesting deck, but I wonder why we haven’t seen any of these interactions in Legacy if they had serious merit). Neither of these interactions would probably wouldn’t be format defining, and reprinting this Legacy staple would drop it to around the $3-5 mark I’d predict
Chain Lightning – if Lightning Bolt, Incinerate, and Lightning Helix are fine in Standard and Extended, I think it would be safe to say that Chain Lightning would also be safe (hopefully once something else rotated out), and reprinting this as an uncommon would drop this $10 staple into the $2 neighborhood
Imperial Recruiter – along the lines of Ranger of Eos, this card would be very fair in Standard and Extended, and reprinting it as a rare would probably drop the price from its current $120 price tag to about $5-10
Imperial Seal – Vampiric Tutor was not a problem when it was legal in Standard and Extended for the longest time, and a sorcery speed one would fit very well in today’s constructed environments. Reprinting this would admittedly do nothing for Legacy as it is banned there, but it would drop the price from $200+ currently to around $15, and would be a huge boon for Vintage players
Entomb – the unbanning of this Legacy bomb and recent success have driven this staple to around $30 and counting. This would not be too strong for Standard and Extended, and reprinting this in a future set would probably drop the price back down to around the $3-5 mark it sat at for quite some time prior to it’s unbanning for Legacy
Ancient Tomb – this could provide a useful but not broken accelerant in Standard and Extended, and reprinting this as an uncommon would drop the price from $5 to $1-2 moving forward

Reprinting all of the aforementioned cards fits would drop prices of these cards considerably, and I don’t believe any of them would be too powerful for Standard or Extended. That being said, here are a handful of cards that probably are too powerful for those constructed formats, but could be reprinted in a different way to ensure they are never in Standard or Constructed.
Loyal Retainers – this would probably be too good in the same Standard or Extended format where Entomb is legal (along with Iona), so I would lean towards making this Portal 3 Kingdoms uncommon a Friday Night Magic foil, which would heartily increase the supply and dramatically reduce the price, while keeping it out of those constructed formats
Price of Progress – I get the sense that the game’s designers have been trending towards getting people to play multicolored and rainbow decks in constructed formats, and with all of the other burn spells available right now in Standard and Extended I think this would be too good, so giving it out as a Friday Night Magic card instead would create foil copies of it and satiate the market demand
Dark Depths – having 20/20 indestructables crawling around Extended seems to be ok, but this would most likely be too powerful for Standard, so reprinting this as a Friday Night Magic foil would create plenty of copies, while reducing the price of this from $23 to about $5-10 in short order
Grindstone – having the Painter’s Servant and Grindstone combo running around a format like Extended would be too powerful and consistent, so reprinting Grindstone as a Judge foil instead would increase the supply enough to probably drop Tempest copies from $18 down to about the $6-8 range

So, what about all of the other awesome cards that are in Legacy that have high price tags? Running through Stephen Mendendian’s nice article The Complete Legacy Checklist, here are the main cards with a significant price tag that the Reserved List would preclude Wizards’ from printing:
Underground Sea
Tropical Island
Tundra
Volcanic Island
Scrubland
Bayou
Savannah
Taiga
Badlands
Plateau
Tabernacle at the Pendrell Vale
City of Traitors
Gaea’s Cradle
Undiscovered Paradise
Lion’s Eye Diamond
Mox Diamond
Moat

That’s only about 17 relevant cards with a significant price tag for the format that fall on the Reserved List. There are handful of other smaller cards that are on the Reserved List (such as Humility, Cursed Scroll, Volrath’s Stronghold) that don’t see too much play and can generally be had for $5-10, but these are relatively affordable already so their isn’t much necessity in reprinting them. Many of cards above are Dual Lands that are integral to the format, but by most people’s best guesses and calculations there are around 340,000-360,000 copies of each Dual Land in existence, which I believe is more than enough to support a burgeoning Legacy population. That’s a full playset for nearly 90,000 players as it currently stands. Yes, I know that some people are holding on to more than a playset, just like some people are holding on to 150 Force of Wills. Magic was intended to be a collectible card game as we all know, and these things come with the territory.

The entrance cost has already been paid by a great number of players who wanted to jump into the Legacy format with the announcement of the two Legacy format Grand Prixs in 2010 and the continuing StarCityGames $5K Legacy series, and these are the primary reasons prices for certain cards have climbed so rapidly. Grand Prix Madrid 2010 just set the Magic tournament record with 2220 participants, and Grand Prix Columbus 2010 will probably clock in with around 1000-1400 participants. But after most players have already jumped in it appears many prices have leveled off. Cards like Tarmogoyf have already kind of hit that threshold and have begun cooling a little bit, but that doesn’t mean other cards won’t gradually rise or occasionally spike like they do for other constructed formats when some new deck tech is found. But is a $29 Savannah or $40 Tropical Island really a terrible thing, especially in the face of $45 mythic rares like Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Baneslayer Angel that are commonly played in Standard? Is it a terrible thing to have a collectible card that you know will not be reprinted, and won’t rotate out of a format every two years and lose 85% of its street value (like most Standard cards)?

Every single card does not have to be affordable, nor has it been for about the last 10-12 years once more and more people started playing Magic. By slowly reprinting a large number of staples that are not on the Reserved List, Wizards’ can dramatically reduce prices for those staples while simultaneously lowering the barrier of entry to Eternal formats for a great many players. Doing this would allow for more player interest in older formats while avoiding a perversion of the original intent of the Official Reprint Policy.

Please let us know what you think in the comments section below. Thanks for reading!