Vintage Tournaments

[House Turtle]

What sets are included in this? I'm thinking of building a deck and I have a couple of ideas. Since its a tournament its going to be designed to be more agressive than my normal decks.

[Maraxus of Keld]

I believe Vintage is what used to be known as Type 1. So... pretty much everything except cards with silver borders (like Unglued), or cards that are banned like the ante cards or Chaos Orb. And then there's the stuff that's restricted, though it's been awhile since I looked at that list.

[Baron Sengir]

Ok I looked into this with a great deal of detail this past week/weekend. Here is the list of banned and restricted cards; everything else is legal.

www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Resources.aspx?x=judge/resources/sfrvintage

Now as for vintage tournaments I've been told my angel deck would get torn apart, so that just gives you an idea of how brutal they can be. Vintage decks tend to be very blue heavy to stop your opponent from doing much of anything. Going first in Vintage can actually mean the difference between a win or loss.

It seems to be completely dependent on where the tournament is and if the people playing in it are using the "typical" vintage cards. Typical includes all Power 9, the original Dual Lands and stuff like Force of Will, Mishras Workshop, Wastelands, Dark Confidant, Vampiric Tutor, Imperial Seal, Demonic Tutor, Null Rod, etc. As one vintage player told me on MTGSalvation.com, Vintage tournaments are about playing unfair and doing your darnedest to win on turn 1 or 2.

Vintage decks seem to only run one or two creatures and the rest is combos like Time Vault with Voltaic Key or Tinkering a Blightsteel Colossus, or using Snapcaster Mage to cast Time Walk or Ancestral Recall twice; though I've actually heard people argue Snapcaster Mage is too slow for vintage and therefore not worth using.

Pastimes doesn't even have a vintage tournament because most vintage decks run $2,000 or more and people around here just can't afford that. As a result they run legacy tournaments every Thursday night. Legacy has no restricted list but a huge ban list.
www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Resources.aspx?x=judge/resources/sfrlegacy

Basically legacy takes out the "unfair" cards by banning them. They also happen to be the expensive cards so it makes building a legacy deck much much easier. You can have the greatest deck idea ever, but unless you have $2,000 to $4,000 to buy the cards, good luck winning a competitive vintage tournament. Now relaxed vintage tournaments may be OK, but since its the only format where the power 9 are legal, you're bound to get someone using them I'd think.

After hearing all that I may take the power out of my Angel deck and the other banned cards and try out Pastimes Legacy tournament just to see what it's like. I don't expect to do good at all but at least it will give me an excuse to use the deck.

[Maraxus of Keld]

Yes, Legacy (formerly known as Type 1.5 I think) is basically Vintage, but with the restricted. I know very little about the Legacy format in terms of what kind of decks are/were used there, except that might be where the Landstill deck comes from (mine is obviously a much weaker version of the tournament deck), and possibly my Aluren deck as well (even weaker).

Turn 1 kills are definitely possible in Vintage. They were doable years ago, so with the card pool grown even bigger now, I'm sure it's even easier.

I know that the main reason Wasteland is used is because I believe Strip Mine is restricted. Both cards are mostly there to stop things like Tolarian Academy and other crazy powerful lands like that. The format is definitely not at all like the Magic we're used to. I'm pretty sure hardly anybody ever wins by attacking with creatures; like Ken said creatures are barely used. If they're there, they're used as a combo piece, or to fetch something else. Speed is the name of the game, and doing stuff before your opponent can stop you.

Also, I had never heard of Blightsteel Colossus before, and I threw up in my mouth a little when I read the card. Wasn't Darksteel Colossus bad enough?

[Baron Sengir]

Yeah they made Darksteel Colossus laughable huh with Blightsteel? I think I recall seeing a Standstill vintage deck finishing in the top 8 of one tournament back in 2007ish, but I think your right in that its typically a legacy deck. The site morphling.com has a bunch of vintage, and I think legacy decks, that were the top 8 finishers in tournaments across the globe, and some are just sick; both in what they do and in how much they would cost to make. Like when I found out Mishra's Workshop is a $300ish card and it isn't even restricted in vintage I died just a little bit lol.

[House Turtle]

I know I lack the tournament experience so I do not forsee advancing far but I've played a long time. I was thinking of going the route of blue control or maybe a burn deck.

[Baron Sengir]

That would be a good way to go. I would check online for some "budget" vintage decks to get ideas if you want. By budget all it means is there are no power 9 in them, but you could still get dual lands, mishra's workshops, library of alexandrias, bazaar of baghdad's, force of wills, etc. but on the plus side these decks have generally finished in the top 8 in many tournaments so its definitely doable; just takes some time and careful planning. I'd definitely be willing to help you test decks out.

[Maraxus of Keld]

If either of you guys do decide to play in a tournament, watch your cards very carefully. When I went to the Wizards Magic boards back in the day, I used to read horror stories all the time about people having their decks or their rare binders stolen from them. People were told that if they absolutely must bring a binder to trade, they should literally attach it to themselves, like with a chain or something. Personally, I wouldn't even bring any cards other than my deck, and watch that like a hawk.

[Baron Sengir]

Oct 18, 2011 8:04:01 GMT -6 Maraxus of Keld said:

If either of you guys do decide to play in a tournament, watch your cards very carefully. When I went to the Wizards Magic boards back in the day, I used to read horror stories all the time about people having their decks or their rare binders stolen from them. People were told that if they absolutely must bring a binder to trade, they should literally attach it to themselves, like with a chain or something. Personally, I wouldn't even bring any cards other than my deck, and watch that like a hawk.

Appreciate the advice. I will definitely take you up on it.

[House Turtle]

I figured as much I remember when my Jesters Cap got taken.

[Baron Sengir]

Oh, I wanted to scare you more John. If you think Blightsteel is bad check this out.



This guy is decently common to see in Legacy and in Vintage occasionally, but the good thing is that he is almost never hard-casted so you can at least counter the spells used to bring him into play.

[House Turtle]

That is disturbing.

[House Turtle]

At least its not indestructable I use spells that could handle it, but if it hit play I'd probably be dead before I could.

[Baron Sengir]

Yeah especially with that Annihilator 6. Basically, in case you don't know about that, it means that whenever this thing attacks the opponent has to sacrifice 6 permanents. It's a triggered ability too and it doesn't even have to deal damage, just be declared as an attacker.

[Baron Sengir]

One way I've seen him come in is using:

Basically you have a blue control deck with only Blightsteel Colossus's and Emrakuls as creatures. It's definitely risky because you could end up almost decking yourself, but if you get the 15/15 out you really don't need a library lol.

Alternatively you could cast

to fetch a
and cast it to bring the Emrakul into play.