Posts Tagged ‘LCV’

The two best performers of the tournament finally meet up at the finals. We’ve seen Guillem being able to defeat MUD (Xavier Hurtado) in the quarterfinals. Will he be able to take Israel’s Blue Workshops? Discover it by yourself! Enjoy the first video of this awesome final:

Stay tunned for some more hardcore action between Guillem and Israel!

This is the third game from the quarterfinals between Guillem Ragull and Xavier Hurtado at last LCV6 tournament in Berga. This game is shorter but intense!

Feel free to comment the games!

Tomorrow I’ll start with the games from the semifinals. Again, stay tuned!

This is the second game from the quarterfinals between Guillem Ragull and Xavier Hurtado at last LCV6 tournament in Berga. This time I uploaded the video in HD quality and added some subtitles to it to make it easier for you to follow. Hope you guys enjoy it!

LCV6 #4 Top8 – Guillem Ragull VS Xavi Hurtado G2

I should have the 3rd game ready for tomorrow. So, stay tunned!

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!

Roger Riera (aka gRR!!) se ha vuelto a currar un análisis del metagame del último torneo de la LCV celebrado en Badalona. Como siempre, gracias por toda la información

Lo ha publicado en el foro de la Màquina del temps (en catalán):

LCV X (Octubre) – Metagame breakdown

Aquí teniu el deck breakdown del torneig d’octubre de la LCV4.

* Dades generals
Participants: 70 (=)
Promig de punts per participant: 10,47
Participants unpowered: 10 (-2) (14,29%)
Promig de punts per participant unpowered: 10,80 (superior al promig de punts per participant powered)

Un dato muy curioso directamente relacionado con el comentario en negrita de Roger:

Ichorid: media de puntos por (sub)arquetipo:

• 4 Manaless Ichorid (+1): 17,5
• 1 Mana Ichorid (=): 9
• 1 Fowchorid (+1): 13

Nos da una media de 15,33 puntos por baraja.

Parece increíble al ver estos datos:

Top 5 sideboards:
103 Tormod’s Crypt (=)
81 Pithing Needle (+11)
52 Extirpate (-1)
33 Swords to Plowshares (substitueix Red Elemental Blast)
32 Leyline of the Void
32 Rack and Ruin (-1)

Habrá que ponerse las pilas a la hora de montar el sideboard, esto no puede ser

Hoy buscando información sobre el PT Berlin en la página de Wizards he encontrado este interesante artículo sobre el papel y evolución del hate en el Magic de la mano de Erik Lauer (conocido jugador de uno de los primeros y exitosos equipos de magic: Team CMU):

The Role of Hate by Eric Lauer

Colors have been hating each other since Alpha. Black Knight and White Knight have been cruising by each other, crashing into life totals since Magic started. Those creatures are always useful, and even better if your opponent happens to be playing the opposite color. Even the biggest green creatures seemed to die in terror, until Legends brought us Whirling Dervish.

But the set had far more devastating cards to show just how much these colors did not get along.

Y, hablando de hate, para los asiduos de la LCV, Roger Riera ya publicó el mes pasado su Metagame Breakdown de la lX LCV del que, entre otras cosas, destaca esto:

Top 5 sideboards:
129 Tormod’s Crypt (=)
48 Extirpate (+1)
47 Pithing Needle (-1)
36 Rack and Ruin (=)
34 Red Elemental Blast (sustituye Energy Flux)

Pero lo más impactante para mi sigue siendo este dato:

3 Manaless Ichorid (+1): 16,3 puntos de media

¿Acaso el hate contra Ichorid nunca es suficiente?

Roger Riera (aka GRR!!) ha colgado en este thread del foro de La Màquina del Temps las barajas del décimo torneo de la LCV de este año.

Aquí os paso las listas:

1st – Sergi Garcés – Repeal Gifts

Maindeck:
3 Flooded Strand
4 Island
1 Library of Alexandria
2 Polluted Delta
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Black Lotus
1 Brainstorm
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Lava Dart
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
4 Mana Drain
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Misdirection
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Rebuild
4 Repeal
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Sol Ring
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth’s Will

Sideboard:
3 Duress
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
2 Rack and Ruin
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Tormod’s Crypt
Read the rest of this entry »

Roger Riera (Aka gRR!!) se ha vuelto a currar un análisis del metagame del último torneo de la LCV celebrado en Badalona.

Lo ha publicado en el foro de la Màquina del temps (en catalán):

LCV4 – 9è torneig (Badalona, 20/9/2008) – Deck breakdown

Aquí teniu el deck breakdown del torneig de setembre de la LCV4.

* Dades generals
Participants: 70 (-20)
Promig de punts per participant: 10,37
Participants unpowered: 12 (-7) (17,14%)
Promig de punts per participant unpowered: 8,83

Muy interesante, como siempre. Algunas cosillas se pueden adivinar por los números…

[ratings]

Roger Riera (Aka gRR!!) se ha currado uno de sus superanálisis sobre el metagame del último torneo de la LCV celebrado en Mollet. Lo ha publicado en el foro de la Màquina del temps (en catalán):

LCV4 – 8è torneig (Mollet del Vallès, 30/8/2008) – Deck breakdown

Aquí teniu el deck breakdown del torneig d’agost de la LCV4.

* Dades generals
Participants: 90 (+28)
Promig de punts per participant: 10,37
Participants unpowered: 19 (+6) (21,11%)
Promig de punts per participant unpowered: 8,95

Como siempre, felicitar a Roger por esta iniciativa.

¡Gracias!

[ratings]

Roger Riera (aka gRR!) ya ha colgado en este thread del foro de la Màquina del Temps las barajas del top8 del último torneo de la LCV celebrado en Badalona.

Los reports de los jugadores del top4:

• Miguel Angel Diaz- Ganador
• David Massip – top2
• Xavier Muntada – Top4
• Joan Castaño – top4

A continuación, las barajas del top8:

Read the rest of this entry »

David Massip ha colgado en el foro de OOTS el report de su final en la LCV lX celebrado el pasado fin de semana en Badalona.

[Report]: LCV lX top2 by DeividMeisip

Hola familia,

Bueno, pues aquí va mi report del torneo de septiembre de la lcv4. Como siempre me presento al torneo con 0 testing, cogiendo literalmente la baraja que había llevado al torneo anterior (y ya van 3 o 4). La verdad es que quería probar otra baraja, me gustaba especialmente una que colgó fowler. El viernes por la noche la enfundé y hice 3 o 4 pruebas contra la pared (siempre se deja la pobre), intento combar un par de veces lo antes posible y en ambos casos me acaba faltando un mana. Vaya hombre, la baraja es poderosa pero hay que pensar, no me sirve para mañana.  Sin  duda le daré más oportunidades, pero no se puede jugar una baraja nueva de control en un lcv sin antes enfrentar-te a un ser animado. Vuelvo a poner la bomberman tal cual estaba y a dormir.

A destacar el comentario de David sobre la Library

¡Felicidades David por la final!

Bombermán demuestra una vez más que puede conseguir buenos resultados.

Como comentó Alchemyst en la LCV: “es una baraja muy completa”. Y para muestra: Alcoriza

Nuff said!

[ratings]