Serious Vintage

For episode 29, Geoff Moes (@ThallidTosser on Twitter), Nat Moes (@GrandpaBelcher), and Andy Probasco (@tmdBrassMan) talk with Ben Perry (@DSuperstition) about the recent Team Serious Invitational, Ben’s Two-Card Monte deck, and the #MTGUnderground.

It’s interesting that the Team Serious Invitationals get so much attention from the Vintage community beyond the Great Lakes region. They are simply a normal-sized Vintage tournament with the play skill and deck choices one would expect from a local metagame. Of course there’s good competition, but the emphasis is on fun and friendship. There’s no real trick to getting invited other than being fun and friendly. But we can’t open attendance to everyone because it’s often at someone’s house, and we don’t want to broadcast someone’s home address and let just anyone in.

We have legitimate prizes (I won a Tropical Island!), but the winner is also honorably presented with a medal. It’s a crude thing, but it denotes one player who was, for one day, the best Vintage player in this particular group of idiots. At the next Invitational it is then conferred upon the new winner, and so on.

Anyway, the most recent event had 24 players and was won by our guest for this episode, Ben Perry, playing Two-Card Monte. The other Top 4 decks were Burning Omniscience Oath, Bant Mentor, and Mono-White Eldrazi with eight Thalias. I should mention that (playtest) Eldritch Moon cards were legal for this event, ahead of the standard schedule allowed by WotC.

Here is your champion, before the fiasco.

You can also see the finals and other videos of the event in the embedded YouTube playlist below.

Don’t forget to check out the Brass Man Dance – also in the playlist!

You can read more about the deck from Joe Fiorini, who covered it in a recent article (and a special shout out to Joe for writing great Vintage content regularly!).

The basic idea is that you combine Helm of Obedience and Leyline of the Void, or Grindstone and Painter’s Servant, to eliminate your opponent’s library and win the game. The Painter-Grindstone combo is probably evident from reading the cards, but the Leyline-Helm interaction is odd, owing to the odd templating on Helm of Obedience. Essentially, Helm must put a card in the graveyard to finish resolving, and Leyline of the Void prevents that from happening since it’s a replacement effect.

Two-Card Monte has some great properties in the metagame. It looks a lot like a Shops deck, so it can be confusing to opponents who haven’t seen it before. Otherwise it plays like a combo deck that just happens to use artifacts a lot. Mishra’s Workshops help it play through other Shops decks’ lock pieces, and main deck Leyline of the Void let it crush Dredge. And it plays three counterspells and Welders to beat Force of Will.

The greatest fear it has is Null Rod. But why let fear get in the way of greatness?

“You are not your DCI number.”

Ben’s greater contribution to the Magic: The Gathering community as a whole is that of the MTG Underground. The idea, essentially, is that Magic is a game for players, and the DCI and Wizards of the Coast are completely tangential to that. You can have fun with Magic cards however you want, whether that’s at the top tables of a Grand Prix, drafting at your local game store on a Friday night, playing proxy Vintage and drinking at a friend’s house, or playing for ante and prop bets at a tiny card table under a bare bulb. Find what’s fun for you and do that.

Magic, the game, has lasting importance and meaning for many. Even if Wizards stops making cards and closes its doors, the game itself can continue in so many ways.

Definitely check out Ben’s blog MTG Underground, where he chronicles his adventures in the MTG Underground. There’s some useful strategic content there, but don’t worry about that. Read it for the story. Recommend it to your friends who don’t play Magic and who want to know why you do.

We closed with a question for discussion: How do you participate in the MTG Underground? Proxy Vintage and the various Old School type formats count. So do any cubes or odd variants that you and your friends might play. We talked about a couple of specific events: the “Classic” event that Nick Detwiler is putting together in New York, and the Vintage Artist Constructed event coming up at Gen Con.

Many of these formats take us back to the roots of our Magic history and remind us of the fun we had playing this game when we were younger and there was so much new to discover.

So how do you enjoy Magic when no one’s watching? You can hear some of our answers on the podcast.

Thanks for listening, and thanks again to Ben for joining us! We’ll look forward to any questions or comments here or The Mana Drain or on Twitter. You can also email us at [email protected].

For episode 28, Geoff Moes (@ThallidTosser on Twitter), Nat Moes (@GrandpaBelcher), Josh Chapple (@joshchapple), and Andy Probasco (@tmdBrassMan) look at the coming storm of Eldrazi in Vintage Magic: The Gathering, how should players prepare for it, and how should it be treated grammatically.

We jump right in on the podcast talking about various flavors of Eldrazi decks, examples of which are listed below.

White Eldrazi has a lot of creatures with abilities. It can control the board with Eldrazi Displacer (with or without its combo-buddy Containment Priest), and can shut down spellcasting with Thalia, Vryn Wingmare, Thorn, and Lodestone. It’s got a lot of controlling cards and good answers to the threats of the format. A similar list took first at Eternal Extravaganza IV.

Tribal Eldrazi (which also made the finals of the Eternal Extravaganza IV) has bigger creatures than everything else in Vintage. To keep unfair decks in line, it has Null Rod. It’s a classic aggro-style Vintage deck. It will beat you on the ground, to the ground, and into the ground. If it doesn’t do that, it gets out-Vintaged.

This is, seemingly, the logical progression of Shops post Lodestone Golem restriction – cut three Lodestone Golems to make room for four Thought-Knot Seers. The lock pieces are similar to previous recent Workshops decks, but Seer makes the deck more resilient against artifact removal. Even Hurkyl’s Recall, which used to be catch-all artifact beater, might still leave lethal 4/4s on the board.

Eldrazi has so far been a great, fun, and formidable addition to the format. If it continues being successful and if the Tribal Eldrazi version takes off as a budget option, Eldrazi will be a significant player for a long time.

After introducing the decks, we talk about how to beat them. Bigger creatures, more removal, and better cards seem like obvious plays, but how to go about building a new deck. There are a few good ideas here, from Painter’s Servant and Blood Moon to Path to Exile and Gurmag Angler. Some Vintage players might have to completely rethink how they look at the format.

We wrap up with everyone’s favorite topic: grammar. I’m not sure if Wizards has weighed in on the singular versus plural of Eldrazi. If you use Eldrazi as the plural and Eldrazo as the singular, it lends a fun European flare to the game, though.

Wizards has weighed in on the plural of Tarmogoyf (though I can’t find the reference right now), saying it’s Tarmogoyfs. That’s no fun, especially if Tarmogoyf regains popularity against Eldrazi. The obvious analog is wolf. Wolf, wolves; Tarmogoyf, Tarmogoyves. Try it. It’s comforting.

And one of the answers we suggest for Eldrazi, Baleful Strix, does, in fact, have a plural. You can attack with a flock of Striges.

Thanks for listening! We’re excited at the prospect of Eldrazi changing the face of Vintage Magic. How do you feel about it? Now that people can turn their Standard cards into a Vintage deck, how do you plan to react to the metagame shift? Do you want to see more creatures attacking the format, or are you an old-school wizard who likes casting spells that don’t require feeding? We’ll look forward to any questions or comments here or on Twitter. You can also email us at [email protected].

For episode 27, Geoff Moes (@ThallidTosser on Twitter), Nat Moes (@GrandpaBelcher), Josh Chapple (@joshchapple), and Sam Krohlow (@sillysam71) whine about Workshops in Vintage, and then get down to business talking about where to eat at GP Columbus and Eternal Weekend.

Because we’re still a Vintage Magic: The Gathering podcast, we open with a few thoughts about the Vintage metagame. The recent restrictions of Chalice of the Void and Lodestone Golem seem so far to have done more harm than good, as the environment has tilted heavily towards blue. In the most recent MTGO Power 9 Challenge, 27 out of 60 players played Gush, and only four played Workshops. We think that’s kind of a problem.

However, we hope that things can still adjust as Shops pilots find their place again in the world. Mishra’s Workshop is too good to be this bad.

Obviously the big upcoming event for us is Eternal Weekend, but we’ll get to that in a second.

June 10, 11, and 12 is Grand Prix Columbus. The main event is Legacy, and players get a neat Stoneforge Mystic promo, but there’s also Vintage scheduled all three days:

Eternal Weekend is moving from Philadelphia to Columbus and will be October 27–30. Be there! Vintage is on Friday (which is kind of awkward) and Legacy is on Saturday, with the finals for both at non-conflicting times on Sunday. You should come; you’ll have a great time. There’s hot Eternal MTG action and more all four days.

This should prove to be a big year for Eternal MTG in Ohio as we have a Legacy Grand Prix coming up the second weekend in June and Eternal Weekend the last weekend in October. As a resident of Columbus for the last six years (and another three years from 2005 to 2008), I’ll admit I’m excited. I think Columbus is a great town and am excited that other people will get to experience it. Let me be the first to welcome you and say, “Have fun!”

Keep in mind for both events that they start on weekdays, and Columbus is a commuter city. That means employees will be driving into and around the downtown area, making morning traffic slow and competing for parking. There should be parking at Convention Center area hotels and nearby garages, but make sure you leave enough time to negotiate traffic and finding a space if you need to get to a morning event.

Also note that the Columbus Clippers are home all weekend for the GP, so there will be fans in and around the stadium in the Arena District. That shouldn’t affect the Convention Center too much, but expect some heavier traffic and parking. Clippers games are a lot of fun if you’re done with your day early and want to just hang out, eat stadium food, and watch some baseball. Tickets are usually available at the gate and are affordable.

The Saturday of Eternal Weekend is an Ohio State football home game. All of the bars will have extra people that night since Columbus loves its Buckeyes, so you might have a long wait anywhere that serves alcohol and has TVs.

We mention a lot of restaurants in the podcast, so I made a map that I think breaks down the most important ones. The Google Map I used starts around the Convention Center and then shows what’s an easy walk. The marked areas on this map should be relatively safe for visitors, but protect yourself anyway. Don’t take cards anywhere you don’t need to and be aware of your surroundings.

Greater Columbus Convention Center (red highlight, labeled CC) – This is where the Magic happens. Note that if you do map the Convention Center, it will actually center on the smaller southern part of the building across Convention Center Drive via skywalk. Every big event I’ve been to there has been in the much larger northern section.

High Street (north-south green highlight) – High Street runs the length of Columbus straight down the middle. From the Convention Center, going north on High Street will take you immediately to the Short North, then to the Ohio State Campus, then beyond to Clintonville and Worthington. Most of the Short North is within a half-hour walk. Going south from the Convention Center will take you to the Arena District then the City Center with the Ohio Statehouse and then beyond to German Village. Walking from the Convention Center to any of the German Village locations we talked about would probably be about an hour, but it’s an easy 10 minute drive.

Arena District (east-west purple highlight) – The Arena District runs east from High Street along Nationwide Boulevard, past Nationwide Arena (home of Columbus Blue Jackets hockey and monster trucks) to Huntington Park (home of Columbus Clippers baseball). Most of the restaurants are chain restaurants and sports bar type things, but they’ll be good and are all nearby. Since the Clippers are home throughout GP Columbus, that area might be busy.

Short North (north-south blue highlight along High Street) – The Short North is a dining, shopping, and entertainment mecca that runs along High Street. It starts immediately across Goodale Avenue north of the Convention Center and runs up to around 5th Avenue. As mentioned, it’s probably a half-hour walk from Goodale to 5th.

North Market (#1) – North Market should be your go-to place for quick, light meals during the day. Similar to Philadelphia’s Reading Terminal Market, they have many different food vendors, so there’s something for everyone, from Vietnamese and Indian to Polish and German. There’s also a Jeni’s Ice Cream stand. We mention a few of our favorite booths in the podcast. (Also, directly south of the Market, across the street, there’s a parking garage; that’s the one we use.)

Rodizio Grill (#2) – If you like meat-sweats, Rodizio Grill is going to be the go-to Brazilian steakhouse for these events. It’s within walking distance. None of us had been there, but “Brazilian steakhouse” was one of our most requested venues. The other option is going to be Texas de Brazil at Easton, which will be a 20 minute car ride from the Convention Center.

Melt Bar & Grilled (#3) – Home of delicious, deluxe grilled cheese, Melt is going to be our consensus recommended dinner experience. It’s a 10 minute walk north of the Convention Center. There you will find cheesey goodness, beer, and a 25% discount if you have a Melt tattoo. Piles of cheese and carbs are hard to miss. There’s a second Melt at Easton too.

Northstar Cafe (#4) – This was our recommended breakfast place, but they also have a lunch and dinner menu. Northstar has local, organic food and is regularly quite tasty. As mentioned, they’re on the pricy side for what you get (eggs and a biscuit, for example), but the food is top notch. You can also get alcohol for breakfast. Right across the street is White Castle, which is worth the experience if you’ve never been. (A Crave Case of 30 sliders and a Donato’s pepperoni pizza, also in the Short North, was the recommended Columbus Meal, easily shared by four people.)

Brother’s Drake Meadery & Bar (#5) – The Meadery (actually at the corner of 5th and Courtland avenues) is at the farther north end of the Short North, about a half-hour walk from the Convention Center. Mead is an interesting experience if you’ve never had it, and walking up there will take you by much of what the Short North has to offer. Turn right at Condado’s Tacos, or stop in for some Condado’s Tacos.

Everything else we’re just going to sort of list because you can use Google. Definitely check your favorite restaurant review site in advance and pick some places out.

Near the Convention Center (5 minutes walk)

Short North (20 minutes walk)

Arena District (10 minutes walk)

German Village (45+ minute walk, 10 minute drive)

Elsewhere

Drinking

If you want to escape the Convention Center and downtown areas. We also mentioned Cameron Mitchell as Columbus’s big-name restaurateur. Many of his restaurants will be elsewhere by car in one of these areas.

Grandview – 15 minutes by car, lots of restaurants and bars.

Thanks for listening! We’re excited that Columbus is going to host a lot of new faces for some fun Vintage and Legacy Magic. Truly, you won’t be disappointed by the options here. We mentioned a lot but didn’t even come close to talking about all of them. We’ll look forward to any questions or comments here or on Twitter. You can also email us at [email protected]. And when you do get to Columbus, stop by and say, “Hey!”

In episode 26, Geoff Moes (@ThallidTosser on Twitter), Nat Moes (@GrandpaBelcher), and Andy “Brass Man” Probasco (@tmdbrassman) discuss the changes afoot in Vintage since the restriction of Lodestone Golem.

This was an obvious topic, and one that had to be discussed immediately, but the one thing we didn’t want to do was complain about the “why” of the restriction. Essentially, it’s too late. Way too late if we’re to believe Magic designer Ethan Fleischer:

@JMJACO @ErikLauer @mtgaaron @EternalCentral Due to the lead-time necessary for MTGO, all B&R decisions for SOI were made 3 weeks ago.

— Ethan Fleischer (@EthanFleischer) March 29, 2016

There were arguments and emotions on both sides of the restricted aisle. Other cards were brought up for restriction or unrestriction, and points were made all around – good and bad, meaningful and not. At this point though, the only thing that matters is the outcome: Lodestone Golem is restricted. Vintage will still be fun, Mishra’s Workshop will still be playable, and you should continue playing what you want. Fear not. Look to the future.

There’s a lot to consider about the prospective format. We look at changes to Workshops, including the potential resurgence of colored Shops decks and the likely continued strength of mono-brown versions. Then we look similarly at Gush-based blue decks, non-Gush blue decks, Storm, Hatebears, Dredge, and Oath. There are brief explorations of specific decks and of individual cards.

It should be a lot of good food for thought—lots of ideas to pick up and run with. It’s too much to summarize, so listen and draw your own conclusions. In a few months you can listen again and let us know how right or wrong we are.

If you want specifics: this won’t be the return of Slaver, but someone will almost certainly try Slash Panther.

We close the discussion with 45 minutes on cottage cheese and other cultured dairy products. Geoff experienced some cottage cheese dumplings with cardamom sauce at an Indian restaurant. These were delicious, partly because they contained more carbs than a can of soda. Nat referenced this XKCD comic with regard to the sugar content.

It is in fact two Creme Eggs to one can of soda. Sugar is delicious.

The topic of cottage cheese led to Nat’s favorite pancakes (which were also referenced in Episode 17).

Cottage Cheese Pancakes

Directions:

They’re good enough to repeat here. Trust us. If you want to learn more about cottage cheese, Nat also referenced an NPR piece on the stuff.

Andy, it turns out, likes kefir. We learn about kefir (“It’s like a drinkable yogurt that’s very lightly carbonated?”) and hypothesize the “kefirita.” We had no idea how much we wanted to talk about cultured dairy products.

Thanks for listening! We look forward to any questions or comments here or on Twitter. You can also email us at [email protected].

In episode 25, Geoff Moes (@ThallidTosser on Twitter), Nat Moes (@GrandpaBelcher), Josh Chapple (@joshchapple), and Andy “Brass Man” Probasco (@tmdbrassman) look at mistakes — mistakes we make, mistakes we see others make, and maybe how to correct them.

Geoff was the brainchild behind this section, recognizing in himself some of the more difficult lessons that need to be learned over the course of a Magic playing career. Our discussion is wide ranging, taking in such facets as proper deck construction, sideboarding, determining role (essentially “Who’s The Beatdown”), reading cards fully, managing time, and staying in game. There’s a lot in this discussion, more than would be worth unpacking here since it’s already presented in hour long audio form.

Vintage is a complex format and can swing wildly because the cards are so powerful. Many of our ideas are somewhat general to Magic, but we do look specifically at Vintage situations, where most of our experience lies. We see a lot of overlap with a lot of anecdotes; there’s like 50 years of Vintage experience here. We could have talked longer, but think of it as the beginning of a dialogue players should have with themselves (as cheesy as that sounds).

There’s also a surprising amount of talk about Dry Spell.

A short section of mirth, we talk about our favorite green cards. Not one of them is Oath.

This section contains one of my favorite stories, about my first cube draft ever (as I discovered looking through my old blog) in 2007:

Suddenly my deck became combo-avec-jank. I had six cards to combo with: three tutors, Channel, the Iron Giant, and Recollect in case something went wrong. In a 40 card format, I liked my odds. The rest of my cards were pretty inconsequential, though I had some removal and some guys.

We shuffled up for the first game, me across from Budweg’s rightflank, Twaun. My opening hand has Forest, Llanowar Elf, Demonic Tutor, Channel, Swamp, Swamp, Lotus Petal. Undisrupted, that is a second turn Darksteel.

I showed my hand to my teammates, and Guhstin started freaking out! If this were to work, it would be the most amazing thing ever in Cube draft.

I played a Llanowar Elf and passed, trying to be casual. Twaun sent a Lightning Bolt at its head, trying to slow my development. I thought my clock had been pushed back to third turn, but Guhstin gesticulates wildly to show that it wasn’t. Finally I realized what he was talking about. I played another land and Lotus Petal, then Channeled into Demonic Tutor for Darksteel, sending myself to eight life.

Darksteel romped all over Twaun’s life total, then got a healthy 11 in on Budweg before it was Duplicanted. We still had enough juice to finish them off, though, and a Ravenous Baloth from me punched through for the victory.

Game two was pretty much the same story, though I didn’t have to tutor for Darksteel.

Geoff, of course, talked about Thallid and referenced this article citing it as one of the faster one-drop goldfish creatures in the game.

Still looking at St. Patrick’s day, here’s some beer.

Thanks for listening! We hope to do more regular podcasting in 2015. We look forward to any questions or comments here or on Twitter. You can also email us at [email protected].

Thanks also to everyone who supported our Teespring campaign. Our listener support raised more than $100 for our efforts, which we plan to put into new recording and streaming technology for the Serious Vintage broadcast empire. We’ve gotten lots of great feedback from our listeners over the years, so please know that we wouldn’t be here without you.

For episode 24, Geoff Moes (@ThallidTosser on Twitter), Nat Moes (@GrandpaBelcher), Josh Chapple (@joshchapple), and Andy “Brass Man” Probasco ()@tmdbrassman look at some recent Vintage Magic: The Gathering results, namely the recent MTGO Power 9 Challenge, and the Team Serious Open. It’s one of our longest episodes ever, and we have lots of detail and discussions of the decks, and their relation to the Vintage metagame.

Now that Vintage is available through MTGO, there are sizeable events online. It’s a reasonable way to look at what’s going on in the format. More than looking at a 20-player online or offline event, anyway. The results from the January 20 MTGO Power 9 Challenge (with 100 players!) are here, and we look at the top 16 decks.

While TheManaDrain.com is being refurbished by the capable hands of our own Brass Man, the decklists from the Team Serious Open are unavailable (we’ll update this post when they are up). The two we talk about most are below, featuring Dragons and more Dragons!

I’ll note here (as I believe I did in the audio as well) that I lose regularly to Thundermaw Hellkite in testing. We also talk about the most recent slate of Vintage Super League decks. Information for them can be found through that website.

Seriously, though, what’s up with those sideboarded Moxes?

If you’re at a loss deciding what to play in Vintage, we give some suggestions to that end. Thanks to everyone who participated in my impromptu Twitter poll. There’s a lot that goes into choosing, but the greatest suggestion comes from Jerry Yang: “Play whatever gives you a boner.” (Feel free to paraphrase for your own genitalia.)

We wrap up by talking about some of our favorite pizza places.

Some of the places we mention:

As you can see from the list, we like pizza. Who doesn’t like pizza?

The Serious Vintage Podcast and Team Serious tournament streaming activities are done with love for the Vintage format and the community surrounding it. Until February 23 (one more day!) we’re running a Teespring fundraiser campaign to raise money to improve podcasting and streaming technology (better mics, software, cameras and setup). You can help by ordering a shirt and showing your love for what we do. Several colors and sizes are available, including hoodies!

Thanks to everyone who has already ordered and helped us out. Together we’ll cast some love, targeting the Vintage format!

Thanks for listening! We hope to do more regular podcasting in 2015. We look forward to any questions or comments here or on Twitter. You can also email us at [email protected].

For episode 23, Geoff Moes (@ThallidTosser on Twitter), Nat Moes (@GrandpaBelcher), and Josh Chapple (@joshchapple) bring back Andy “Brass Man” Probasco (@tmdbrassman) as a regular member of the crew. They discuss the things they missed in a year-long absence from podcasting, including Champs, format changes, and the Team Serious Invitational in December.

These decks were unwitting victims to the 2016 Banned & Restricted List changes.

Following Champs, when players should have been interested in picking up and playing the first-place list from the largest Vintage tournament of the year – few did. The Restricted List changed the format, and Brian Kelly’s genius was all but forgotten. We also point out that the list’s infinite combo using Auriok Salvagers and Black Lotus is nearly unplayable online (without a lot of work), another strike for the deck in a format that is more and more online-centric.

Similarly, The Answer (aka Blue Moon aka UR Control) disappeared after its four-of bomb Chalice of the Void was restricted. The deck was a metagame choice, doing well against Delver and Workshops with lots of flexible control. It leaned hard on Chalice, though, using it against cantrip-fueled blue opponents and skimping on its own one-drops to dodge the effect. Of course there are options to fill in the restricted cards, including potentially running Thirst for Knowledge, but the deck has largely disappeared.

New decks are coming in, too. We talk about the new prevalence of Storm, the continued existence of URx Delver, and the rise of Monastery Mentor decks in its various form. We also take a look at Shops, with more creatures, big and small.

And we talk a little about 5C Artificers.

Artificers, as a tribe, have a lot of crazy members, notably Goblin Welder, Master Transmuter, and Stoneforge Mystic. This deck combines all of them into one crazy bomb-throwing machine. I don’t know that any of us have particular experience with the deck, but it looks like a ton of fun.

There’s also a little about Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy, where we talk about his use in Dragon.

Dragon may or may not be a metagame killer, but it finds great use for Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy, as both a card advantage tool and a discard outlet to get rid of unwanted cards in hand, namely Worldgorger Dragon. Having played it recently, it’s a fun deck with many strange interactions, and it has a real neat sideboard.

Overall the format still seems like it’s changing – lots of fun stuff to do, or at least try.

Following the Vintage Magic: The Gathering discussion, we look at drinks. Bad drinks.

By its own admission, Malört is “Not for the faint of heart.” I, and some others at the recent Team Serious Invitational, tried it and found it bad but not as bad as advertised. I kind of wanted to mix it with a grapefruit shandy.

The Jaegerita, however, is better. As described it’s mostly sugar and alcohol, so it can’t be too bad. Pour a glass of margarita mix and tequila, and layer a shot of Jaegermeister on top of it.

It looks like swampwater but it tastes like something else. I highly recommend them after great defeat, as a Jaegerita will lift one’s spirits.

On a more serious note, Josh Chapple recommends Boulevard Brewing Company’s Tank 7 Farmhouse Ale, which is apparently good with a splash of orange juice. (He recommends it on warm days, so you can prepare for it now, while it’s still winter.)

Nat has been drinking hard cider with a shot of bourbon and a splash of orange liqueur. The bourbon makes the cider a little more potent and the liqueur takes some of the bite out of the bourbon. It’s quite a combo – easy to drink but worthwhile, if you catch my meaning…

The Serious Vintage Podcast and Team Serious tournament streaming activities are done with love for the Vintage format and the community surrounding it. For the next three weeks (until February 23) we’re running a Teespring fundraiser campaign to raise money to improve podcasting and streaming technology (better mics, software, cameras and setup). You can help by ordering a shirt and showing your love for what we do. Several colors and sizes are available, including hoodies!

Together we’ll cast Force of Love, targeting the Vintage format!

Thanks for listening! We hope to do more regular podcasting in 2015. We look forward to any questions or comments here or on Twitter. You can also email us at [email protected].

For episode 22, Geoff Moes (@ThallidTosser on Twitter), Nat Moes (@GrandpaBelcher), and Josh Chapple (@joshchapple) invited Andy “Brassman” Probasco to talk about the recent changes in the Vintage metagame: Treasure Cruise’s restriction, Gifts Ungiven’s unrestriction, and the arrival of Fate Reforged.

I don’t want to cover too much here because the discussion was so lively and fairly comprehensive. We were all surprised but not shocked by Treasure Cruise, but the big topic was Gifts Ungiven, hence our special guest. You can read Brassman’s collected SCG articles here, and a lot of that content will be worthwhile for seeing where Gifts Ungiven came from and where it might go in the future. The first Gifts Era was a high point for Vintage and its writing, so there is a wealth of historic and historical information on that site from Brassman, Stephen Menendian, and others.

Anyway, here’s Brassman’s Empty Gifts list circa 2007, shortly before Gifts Ungiven was restricted. He talks about it being his favorite variant.

Thanks for listening! We hope to do more regular podcasting in 2015. We look forward to any questions or comments here or on Twitter. You can also email us at [email protected].

In episode 21 Geoff Moes (@ThallidTosser on Twitter), Nat Moes (@GrandpaBelcher), and Josh Chapple (@joshchapple) are joined by teammate and Eternal Games store owner Paul Kim to talk about the Team Serious Holiday Invitational, get a store’s perspective on Vintage, and look ahead to 2015.

This is the list Nat used to claim victory at the Team Serious Holiday Invitational on December 6 2014.

The only thing to add about this deck is that you’re probably playing too few delve spells if anything. They are really that good, and there’s rarely ‘too much delve.’ If you’re interested in reading more about the deck, Nat wrote a longish report about his experience at the Invitational.

This is the list Jimmy McCarthy used to Top 4 the Team Serious Holiday Invitational on December 6 2014. It is based on Rich Shay’s Legacy Jeskai Ascendancy deck from a MTGO Daily event.

Jimmy threw this deck together the morning of the tournament, and had several terrible proxies (as were featured on camera). It is substantially similar to the versions of the deck played in Legacy and Modern, except that you can run fewer creature removal spells The main idea is to draw many, many cards, and use them to run over your opponent with Fatestitchers or Elemental tokens, with the help of Jeskai Ascendancy. This build probably needs some numbers tweaked, but it was good enough to Top 4 this mighty Ohio tournament.

Finally, this is the list Geoff used to Top 4 the Team Serious Open in Warren, Michigan on December 20 2014.

Geoff went for the broken card strategy for this event, and it paid off. The plan for this deck is to combo with Time Vault, but en route to that finish, you might get to play Wheel of Fortune with Notion Thief in play. The deck draws cards seven at a time, and the artifact-heavy manabase helps ensure you have plenty of mana to play them.

One thing we’d like to see implemented in 2015 is the idea of Monday Night Vintage. This would be similar to Friday Night Magic – walk into a store with a Vintage deck on Monday night, and find a tournament or opponents to play against. It helps build Vintage by getting people to actually play the format, and thus brings more people into the Vintage community. And if you already play, the extra practice will only help you improve your game.

We picked Monday just because we know of several stores that already have Monday night Vintage gatherings, but people can feel free to do what works for them. All that’s required, really, is to make sure that people in your local community know about it.

Thanks for listening! We hope to do more regular podcasting in 2015. We look forward to any questions or comments here or on Twitter. You can also email us at [email protected].

In episode 20, Geoff Moes (@ThallidTosser on Twitter), Nat Moes (@GrandpaBelcher), and Josh Chapple (@joshchapple) reunite to talk about why we haven’t podcasted since spring, some of the goings-on in MTG (including the new Standard rotation and the Vintage Super League), and, most importantly, the food, folks, and fun experienced at GenCon 2014.

Bomberman has been around for years in Vintage as an archetypal UW control list with a combo finish. The basic plan is to use counters and a Trinket Mage toolbox to answer opponent threats and then win with the Auriok Salvagers combo to use Black Lotus and Aether Spellbomb to draw your deck and flood the board. Nat played the above list at Gen Con for three rounds. Everything was good, but running through the Salvagers combo with an opponent who has never seen it before kind of makes you feel like a big jerk. (Though it’s funny how often when you make limitless mana that a non-Vintage player will say, “Okay, what are you going to do with it?” Comprehending the infinite just isn’t enough to make people scoop anymore.) If you’re interested in reading more about Bomberman, Nat wrote an extensive guide.

Geoff decided to play a real deck and, as a result, put up a more respectable finish. He didn’t make the final rounds, of course, going 3-2-drop, but he was in contention. This is what happens when Geoff plays a deck with real cards and not, like, Pyromancer Ascension. There’s nothing really outstanding about the list; it won Bazaar of Moxen a few months ago.

BUG decks were everywhere at the Friday event at GenCon; by Saturday they were almost totally gone. Considering that many of the Vintage players carry over from Friday to Saturday to Sunday, this could be because players are trying to metagame the field they saw the previous day. It may also be that Vintage players like playing different decks every day.

I think we’ve mentioned most of the Indianapolis restaurants before in previous GenCon podcasts, specifically Episode 15. Definitely keep these in mind if you go to GenCon or another Indianapolis event. It’s important to remember that Steak ‘n’ Shake and Noodles and Co. are only the closest, cheapest places to the Convention Center. You very much improve your dining opportunities if you’re willing to walk a block or two.

Here’s what we talked about this episode:

Rook

The Libertine

Cerulean

Bakersfield (Tacos, Tequila, and Bourbon)

Ram Restaurant & Brewery

Café Patachou

Croissant French toast: revolutionize the breakfast game!

Thanks for listening! We’ll be getting back into the more regular podcast thing now that the three of us are done buying houses and being busy with real life stuff. We look forward to any questions or comments here or on Twitter. You can also email us at [email protected].