Podcasts about vintage super league

This episode was originally released January 25th, 2019.For episode 36, Geoff Moes (@ThallidTosser on Twitter), Nat Moes (@GrandpaBelcher), and Josh Chapple (@joshchapple) are joined by Erin Campbell (@OriginalOestrus) to talk about a bunch of fun Vintage topics including the importance of the community, the Vintage Super League, Dredge, and Two-Card Monte. She also helps us depart a little from our usual “discerning” food-and-drink discussion to a more “picky” angle. Here’s the timestamped table of contents for your listening ease and enjoyment:00:27 – Erin and the Vintage Community33:20 – Preparing to Crush the VSL40:28 – Nat Hate Drafts OnionsFull runtime – 1:03:53 Why Vintage is So Great Most of our discussion about Vintage community, you’ll kind of have to listen to. Erin recounts her entry into the format—playing fast, graveyard-based decks in Legacy and Modern and being able to get in affordably through MTGO. She also talks about how excited the Vintage community was to share its passion, and how encouraging and generous it could be. And it is that passion and excitement that drives Vintage players; Erin talks about that too. In my experience, the format is built around big, flashy plays. Controlling those plays, unleashing them or reining them in, is a skill not always practiced in other formats. The cards are all significant, even in situations where they seem otherwise, so games can go from certain win to certain loss in the blink of an eye. Think of cards that are ostensibly fine in smaller formats, like Brainstorm or Lotus Petal, which end up restricted in Vintage because they lead to much more powerful things. Making those powerful plays (or struggling against them) comes with a lot of emotion—high highs. Vintage makes you feel things. Looking back at my own entry into Vintage—15 years ago, I guess, jeez—I experienced a feeling of welcome similar to Erin’s, even if the situation was totally different. My path to Vintage started with a kitchen-table format that allowed four-of any card you owned. I played multiple Sol Ring, Wheel of Fortune, and Black Vise and could regularly kill on my opponent’s third upkeep. But friends started playing sanctioned Vintage at a small store in Ohio called The Dungeon and were recruiting anyone interested, excited to continue growing the scene. There was a little Power, but people were doing broken things in their own way. And it was great, like the Wild West: Mono-Black Hatred, Mono-Green Stompy, Goblins, Helm of Awakening Eggs, Angel Oath that was slowly acquiring Power at the time, and some weird brews, including whatever I was playing. For a while it was a Welder Madness list with Memory Jar and Wild Mongrel, which was somehow not terrible. Everyone was having fun, and there were so many friendly deals made to help each other get Dual Lands and Force of Wills and other Vintage staples, so we could all improve together. It also didn’t hurt that, when our group graduated to larger events, Vintage was very much in favor of allowing playtest cards to lower the entry barrier. Whether driven by passion or desperation, paper Vintage is generally a welcoming format at the local level. Vintage Super League Season nine of the Vintage Super League (VSL) is also just beginning, and Erin is competing in her third year of the contest. This season is back to individual competition (season eight featured three-player teams) and players are encouraged to play what they want, with the stipulation that they should keep things interesting and try to play new decks when they’re on. We’ve already seen evidence of this as the second week’s offerings included Andy Probasco playing Death’s Shadow and three decks (Stephen Menendian, Brian Coval, and Randy Buehler) all playing Lavinia, Azorius Renegade, from the newly legal Ravnica Allegiance set. It would be a disappointment to a lot of fans if Erin were to skip playing Dredge entirely, but we talk about some of her other options, including Two-Card Monte, Stax with actual Smokestack, and Enchantress. It’s always exciting to see innovative new decks (or new takes on old decks) in the VSL, even if the competition format lends itself to “metagaming against your friends,” so the decks can be less reflective of “real life” Vintage. It’s also exciting to see players step outside their own comfort zone and try a strategy or archetype that they may not be familiar with as a pilot. Food and Drink for Picky Eaters This episode’s food-and-drink section covers a lot of ground. A lot. We talk about peanut butter, pizza, warm beverages, cold condiments, cottage cheese, rye chips, french fries, hamburgers, hot dogs, corndogs, onions, and more. There’s too much to summarize here, but I thought it was interesting that, out of four people on the show, three of us don’t drink coffee. Make of that what you will. Erin did mention a couple of Milwaukee restaurants, which I’ll record in case you’re in the area. The Dogg Haus has additional locations in Wisconsin and Minnesota and offers build-your-own hot dogs with multiple meat, topping, and bun options. At least visit the website and check out their logo. There’s also Vanguard Bar, which has a similar offering of housemade sausages (including duck and boar), as well as “tube-less” meals like burgers and poutine. In the end, while we all have our proclivities and aversions, we all agreed we like food. Questions for Discussion What got you into Vintage? The decks? The Power? The people? How do you feel about Dredge, and what deck would you play if you had to pick something other than what you’re playing right now? Are there foods you despise? Is pineapple on pizza OK? How do you feel about small hot dogs? What about a product called the “Corndogger”? Thanks for Supporting Our Show! Regardless of how you got here, we’re glad you’re interested in Vintage. If you’d like to support Serious Vintage financially, maybe you and your friends and loved ones would enjoy a T-shirt. For the next three weeks (until February 15, in time for Valentine’s Day!) we’ll be selling shirts to raise money to improve podcasting and Team Serious streaming technology. “Force of Love” shirts are back, and now you can show you’re competitive when it comes to the post-tournament meal with a “Vintage Supper League” shirt! As usual, we’ll look forward to any questions or comments here or The Mana Drain or on Twitter. You can also email us at seriousvintagepodcast@gmail.com.

This episode was originally released June 24th, 2019.For episode 42, Geoff Moes (@ThallidTosser on Twitter), Nat Moes (@GrandpaBelcher), and Josh Chapple (@joshchapple) welcome back Andy Probasco (@tmdBrassMan) to talk about Mystic Forge, a free preview card from Core Set 2020, provided by Wizards of the Coast! Here’s the timestamped table of contents for your listening ease and enjoyment:00:28 – Surprise! It’s Mystic ForgeTotal runtime: 33:05 “I Can Build ANY Machine.” There are a lot of exciting cards in Core Set 2020 (better known as M20), but there are two I left design notes for that specifically mentioned Vintage. Scheming Symmetry I was intrigued in because a combo deck could potentially exist built around the now six available one-black-mana topdeck tutors. And my note on our preview card was that “If this hits Vintage, it will do something new and fun.” We brought Andy “The Brass Man” Probasco back to the show to help us figure out what those new and fun things might be. He’s the owner of The Mana Drain and has been a participant on the Vintage Super League, and as winner of the most recent Team Serious Invitational with Death’s Shadow Survival, is one of the Vintage format’s more creative players and deck builders. Mystic Forge has a lot of potential as a card-advantage engine in Mishra’s Workshop decks of all kinds. The question, as always, is what do you cut from an existing list to make room for a card that doesn’t do anything to your opponent on its own? You could trade one turn in the early game to play Mystic Forge and potentially accelerate all of your future plays, but that gives your opponent an undisrupted turn either free of disruption (like Sphere of Resistance or Phyrexian Revoker) or free of threat (like Arcbound Ravager or Walking Ballista). It’s a risk. In today’s metagame, Mystic Forge also competes directly at mana cost and some utility with Karn, the Great Creator, who not only disrupts the opponent but also serves as card advantage. But Mystic Forge has so many exciting benefits. Many Workshop decks and Eldrazi decks are built with fairly low mana costs relative to the amount of mana they can produce between Workshop itself, Ancient Tomb, Eldrazi lands, as well as Moxes, Sol Ring, and Mana Crypt. If you get Mystic Forge into play, your next turn might include casting three or four cards from the top of your library, and you can exile a card you can’t or don’t want to cast. With enough mana, you can cast cards even through Karn or Collector Ouphe, potentially allowing you to overwhelm your opponent. This is helpful whether you’re playing more lock pieces or attacking with creatures or trying to combo off. After we talked, Andy proposed this list, which is based on current Karn Workshops builds and is happy to play whatever role its opening hand and the game situation gives it (of course, none of the lists presented here are tested, and your metagame may vary, so good luck!). Karn's Forge Business (34)4 Mystic Forge3 Manifold Key4 Karn, the Great Creator4 Sensei’s Divining Top3 Helm of Awakening4 Serum Powder1 Chalice of the Void3 Arcbound Ravager4 Foundry Inspector4 Walking BallistaMana Sources (26)4 Mishra’s Workshop1 Black Lotus1 Mana Crypt4 Ancient Tomb4 Grim Monolith1 Mana Vault1 Mox Emerald1 Mox Jet1 Mox Pearl1 Mox Ruby1 Mox Sapphire2 City of Traitors1 Tolarian Academy1 Mox Opal1 Lotus Petal1 Sol Ring | Sideboard (15)1 Manifold Key1 Time Vault13 Other Cards If you can use Sensei’s Divining Top or a similar effect to further manipulate the top card of your library, you can easily get around lands blocking the top of your deck. Top also goes infinite with Foundry Inspector to draw your library. Together with the variety of mana producing artifacts, including Grim Monolith and Voltaic Key, there might be a Mystic Forge combo deck that aims to play most of its library on turn one to some great effect. Potentially this deck wins with Aetheflux Reservoir or, my favorite, Goblin Charbelcher. This could be the basis for a Krark Clan Ironworks-type deck in Vintage and potentially other formats. Aetherflux Forge Business (36)4 Mystic Forge3 Aetherflux Reservoir3 Krark Clan Ironworks3 Manifold Key4 Karn, the Great Creator4 Helm of Awakening4 Sensei’s Divining Top1 Engineered Explosives1 Spine of Ish Sah1 Myr Retriever4 Scrap Trawler4 Foundry InspectorMana Sources (25)1 Mox Emerald1 Mox Jet1 Mox Pearl1 Mox Ruby1 Mox Sapphire4 Mox Opal4 Grim Monolith1 Black Lotus1 Sol Ring1 Mana Crypt1 Lotus Petal1 Mana Vault1 Lion’s Eye Diamond1 Lotus Petal4 Mishra’s Workshop1 Tolarian Academy | Sideboard (15)1 Manifold Key1 Time Vault1 Aetherflux Reservoir1 Goblin Charbelcher11 Other Cards But maybe you just try to run Mystic Forge in a Tiny Robots list and try to cast a bunch of tiny creatures that will attack anything in sight. You can cast Walking Ballista and Hangarback Walker for 0 to move them off the top of your library, and it might be better to have Chief of the Foundry main deck to get some value out of that play. Tiny Forgebots Business (39)4 Mystic Forge4 Sensei’s Divining Top3 Skullclamp2 Cranial Plating1 Chalice of the Void1 Thorn of Amethyst4 Memnite4 Foundry Inspector4 Arcbound Ravager4 Walking Ballista4 Hangarback Walker4 Phyrexian RevokerMana Sources (21)1 Mana Vault1 Sol Ring1 City of Traitors2 Mox Opal4 Ancient Tomb4 Mishra’s Workshop1 Tolarian Academy1 Mox Emerald1 Mox Jet1 Mox Pearl1 Mox Ruby1 Mox Sapphire1 Lotus Petal1 Mana Crypt | Sideboard (15)4 Chief of the Foundry11 Other cards One last thing to notice is that these decks will all benefit greatly from M20’s other gift to Vintage, the London mulligan. Touring London will help players find a quality turn one: a hand with Mishra’s Workshop, or an early Mystic Forge or Karn, or both. Seeing seven cards at a time and picking your favorites will make a big difference in these kinds of decks, which are so reliant on opening hands and won’t be able to as easily fix their situation as a blue deck with multiple Preordains and other cheap cantrips. When it comes to this new era of colorless decks, mulligan often and mulligan with intention. And the Hi-Res For our free preview this time, I also had the time and forethought to ask Wizards about the high-resolution art from Titus Lunter. And they provided! So here’s the hi-res version of Mystic Forge from M20 for your eyeballs to enjoy (and click to download wallpaper). Questions for Discussion Will Mystic Forge be a hit in Vintage? What about in another format? It’s definitely legal in a bunch of them, and Legacy has a bunch of Sol lands to help play it. Did any of you play X-Men Legends games, where the character Forge is played by Lou Diamond Phillips? And you’d interact with him and he’d say lines like “I can build ANY machine” like he’s real smug about it? That was great. He was right too. He built a lot of really useful stuff in that series of games. Conclusion Thanks for listening! And thanks to The Brass Man for joining us on this special episode. If you found this show because of our free Wizards preview card for M20, welcome. We hope you enjoyed it and found it useful. Usually we talk a lot more about food. We’ll look forward to any questions or comments here or The Mana Drain or on Twitter. You can also email us at seriousvintagepodcast@gmail.com.

This episode was originally released May 15th, 2020.For episode 46, Geoff Moes (@ThallidTosser on Twitter), Nat Moes (@GrandpaBelcher), and Josh Chapple (@joshchapple) talk with Rajah James (@rykerwilliams). Rajah is a Team Serious member and friend who organized the online Team Serious League and played in the recent Team Serious Invitational: Virtual Realm, so we’re talking to him about getting your Magic fix while dealing with physical distancing. Here’s the timestamped table of contents for your listening ease and enjoyment:01:17 – Team Serious Leagues24:10 – Enter the Virtual Realm37:47 – The Cat’s in the Vintage55:28 – Food & Drink: MTG Pub Quiz1:16:49 – OutroTotal runtime – 1:17:51 Missing: The Gathering These are weird times we’re living in. The coronavirus, as well as thoughtful public health officials and good sense, has relegated most of humanity to stay physically apart from one another to prevent the spread of a particularly virulent disease. I was thinking about it and realized I haven’t been in a building other than my own house in seven weeks. Distancing is the norm now, and that’s a problem for a tabletop card game where players square off in intimate distance, talking, and often interacting with one another’s cards. Wizards of the Coast provided the first solutions to playing Magic under quarantine with, of course, Magic Online (MTGO) and Arena. But these services might leave something to be desired for some players. Arena’s available collection won’t allow players to play Vintage (or Legacy, Old School, Modern, and so on), and while MTGO offers most of the cards, there’s still a barrier to human interaction. You can’t fully engage with your opponent: introduce yourselves when you sit down, congratulate them on a good play, or see their reaction when you have the answer or drop your big threat. It can feel sterile, like you’re one person against a machine. To overcome that, Rajah organized the Team Serious Leagues (TSL) within our group. As he describes, it’s similar to the Vintage Super League: round-robin games are played in batches over multiple weeks, and players are allowed to change decks or strategies between batches. Eventually records are compared and winners are declared. The TSL allows games to be played over any reasonable medium: webcam, MTGO, Cockatrice, even in person since it was organized before social distancing protocols were in effect. It was meant as a way to get Team Serious members to play games against one another despite there being sometimes long distances between players. Since quarantine, it’s been a relief not only for the players, who get to continue playing games and talking to people, but for other Team Serious members, who often get to watch the streamed matches and even interact with the players over the team’s chat and Discord. You can follow along too if you like. The results and decklists from the first Vintage batch are on Rajah’s website, and here are the decklists from the second batch. When the three batches are complete, someone will win these keen lands altered by Daniel Anschutz, or this “Wild Thing” Force of Will altered by Bobby Lupo. Welcome to the Machine Inspired by the TSL and compelled by the coronavirus quarantine, Andy “The Brass Man” Probasco and I started talking about hosting a virtual Team Serious Invitational (TSI). We wanted an opportunity to get people together where they could hang out online, play some Vintage, and perhaps consume some frosty cool alcoholic beverages. Just like a real TSI! The tournament itself, held Saturday May 9 in a Discord server, went surprisingly well! We had 24 players and did six rounds of Swiss plus a top-eight elimination. Vintage luminaries like Kevin Cron and Greg Hughes (Zias) showed up, and six countries were represented in almost as many time zones. There was a minor disaster at the beginning as the Discord server failed to allow video connections, but everyone moved quickly and acutely to get matches played in other formats: Zoom, Cockatrice, Whereby, and Discord DMs. It was a remarkable show of ingenuity and determination! Brass Man did some lovely, fun, insightful commentary throughout the event, adjusting on the fly to be able to show the variety of media players were using to play. Here’s what Zoom versus Cockatrice looks like, for example, as well as Brassy, keepin’ it classy. For a sense of the current Vintage environment, the Top 8 ended up with seven companions in the decklists, including two of them in one deck, played by Jimmy McCarthy. Zias won without a companion, playing Shops Vines. The full results are available on The Mana Drain, with some additional commentary and hot links. For example, for full TSI effect, Steve McGrew opted to drink a shot of Malört, as is tradition upon making Top 8. Congratulations and regrets to Steve, and congratulations to the rest of the Top 8. How Companionable Is Companion? Of course, the event was played under predictably lame-duck conditions. On May 11, Wizards of the Coast announced that in a week’s time there would be a change to the Banned & Restricted List that would include Vintage. As I mentioned, six of the Top 8 decks at the TSI:VR, and indeed many of the top-performing decks in recent Vintage Challenges online have included creatures with the companion ability, recently printed in Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths. Lurrus of the Dream-Den is the main culprit, being a long-game advantage engine that happens to combo with Black Lotus very well, so it works even in a faster combo shell. The problem is that the nature of companion means that restricting Lurrus will do nothing to prevent its being a problem. A player needs only one copy, which is safely stored in their deck’s sideboard until needed. What to do? What will Wizards do to Vintage on May 18? Will the format get what will essentially be its first banning for power-level considerations? (There are other banned cards: ante cards, conspiracies, dexterity cards, and Shahrazad, all of which are banned categorically.) Will there be an effective power-level errata to make companion not work as written, or perhaps not work at all? Will all the companions be hit or just Lurrus? Could something instead be unrestricted to combat the cat menace? Will there be any consideration to Lurrus’s being used in multiple different archetypes or bringing unexpected cards into the format, like Seal of Fire and Dead Weight? If banning or errata eliminates Lurrus, will another companion follow the same path of degeneracy? We talk about the implications of these questions and why any plan might be preferable over another. It’s a complex issue surrounding complex cards. And the whole situation is exacerbated by the current global pandemic as the cards have only been released in paper in some Asian markets and online. Many players haven’t even touched a paper Lurrus! They showed up at TSI:VR and in the TSL only because these are playtest events that allow proxies. It’s such a weird conflux of situations! Anyway, we do a lot of discussing but come to no conclusions. Food & Drink: MTG Pub Quiz Part of the goal Brass Man and I put together for the TSI:VR was to have it feel like a real TSI. Part of that was making it two days, so people could start the festivities early on Friday. Encouraging people to just hang out in the chatrooms we always hang out in didn’t seem like enough, so I had the idea to put together a pub-quiz-style trivia game that would encourage both hanging out and drinking. There would be some fun questions and activities to encourage interaction, and with Discord we could do some proper trash talking. So I put together a few rounds of themed questions, designed to pass a few hours pleasantly. People drifted in and out, but we ended up with four teams of three to four players, which was perfect. I asked questions over video and was even able to put a few visual questions on screen, like the Movie Magic posters with blanked out titles that were also Magic card names (see below), or Nam Quiz Tran that was Nam’s 2018 Vintage Champs finals list with blanked out cards. And teams were able to retreat to separate Discord rooms to collaborate on answers. It worked great! We did six rounds, which I preview on the show. There was Magic trivia new and old, the movie posters and Nam’s deck, a retrospective of 1993 in honor of Magic’s birth, a lightning round where each team got to pick its own yes-or-no category, and “Drinking With Team Serious,” which we run through in its entirety on the show. I really didn’t think anyone would be able to identify one of Jaco’s custom-built cocktails by name, but here we are: the Charcnado. That’s your important food and drink lesson for this episode. Congratulations to Fernando Aguiano, Jon Hammack, and Kaleb Woodward on their dominant victory! Upcoming Events I think the only questions for discussion are going to surface around the Banned & Restricted List change on Monday. What’s going to happen there, and what will be the long-term impact? But we are planning future online Magic event since the coronavirus quarantine seems unlikely to be meaningfully lifted any time in the near future. And even if it is, we can still get together online to play Magic! June 5 there will be another MTG Pub Quiz, and June 6 will be a Middle School MTG tournament, both again held online using the Team Serious: Virtual Realm Discord server. We learned a lot about both processes last time, so I expect this to go even better. There’s no entry, and we’ll have some nice donated prizes for winners. This June event is open to all, so if you’re interested, let us know, and we’ll be planning more events in different formats in the future. Conclusion Thanks so much for listening! And thanks to Rajah for helping us talk about some positive Magic experiences in these weird dark times. We hope you enjoyed it and found it uplifting, and that you’re being safe and remaining healthy. We’ll look forward to any questions or comments here or The Mana Drain or on Twitter. You can also email us at seriousvintagepodcast@gmail.com. And don’t forget to let us know if you want to play some Middle School and be part of other online Team Serious events!

This episode was originally released June 24th, 2019.For episode 42, Geoff Moes (@ThallidTosser on Twitter), Nat Moes (@GrandpaBelcher), and Josh Chapple (@joshchapple) welcome back Andy Probasco (@tmdBrassMan) to talk about Mystic Forge, a free preview card from Core Set 2020, provided by Wizards of the Coast! Here’s the timestamped table of contents for your listening ease and enjoyment:00:28 – Surprise! It’s Mystic ForgeTotal runtime: 33:05 “I Can Build ANY Machine.” There are a lot of exciting cards in Core Set 2020 (better known as M20), but there are two I left design notes for that specifically mentioned Vintage. Scheming Symmetry I was intrigued in because a combo deck could potentially exist built around the now six available one-black-mana topdeck tutors. And my note on our preview card was that “If this hits Vintage, it will do something new and fun.” We brought Andy “The Brass Man” Probasco back to the show to help us figure out what those new and fun things might be. He’s the owner of The Mana Drain and has been a participant on the Vintage Super League, and as winner of the most recent Team Serious Invitational with Death’s Shadow Survival, is one of the Vintage format’s more creative players and deck builders. Mystic Forge has a lot of potential as a card-advantage engine in Mishra’s Workshop decks of all kinds. The question, as always, is what do you cut from an existing list to make room for a card that doesn’t do anything to your opponent on its own? You could trade one turn in the early game to play Mystic Forge and potentially accelerate all of your future plays, but that gives your opponent an undisrupted turn either free of disruption (like Sphere of Resistance or Phyrexian Revoker) or free of threat (like Arcbound Ravager or Walking Ballista). It’s a risk. In today’s metagame, Mystic Forge also competes directly at mana cost and some utility with Karn, the Great Creator, who not only disrupts the opponent but also serves as card advantage. But Mystic Forge has so many exciting benefits. Many Workshop decks and Eldrazi decks are built with fairly low mana costs relative to the amount of mana they can produce between Workshop itself, Ancient Tomb, Eldrazi lands, as well as Moxes, Sol Ring, and Mana Crypt. If you get Mystic Forge into play, your next turn might include casting three or four cards from the top of your library, and you can exile a card you can’t or don’t want to cast. With enough mana, you can cast cards even through Karn or Collector Ouphe, potentially allowing you to overwhelm your opponent. This is helpful whether you’re playing more lock pieces or attacking with creatures or trying to combo off. After we talked, Andy proposed this list, which is based on current Karn Workshops builds and is happy to play whatever role its opening hand and the game situation gives it (of course, none of the lists presented here are tested, and your metagame may vary, so good luck!). Karn's Forge Business (34)4 Mystic Forge3 Manifold Key4 Karn, the Great Creator4 Sensei’s Divining Top3 Helm of Awakening4 Serum Powder1 Chalice of the Void3 Arcbound Ravager4 Foundry Inspector4 Walking BallistaMana Sources (26)4 Mishra’s Workshop1 Black Lotus1 Mana Crypt4 Ancient Tomb4 Grim Monolith1 Mana Vault1 Mox Emerald1 Mox Jet1 Mox Pearl1 Mox Ruby1 Mox Sapphire2 City of Traitors1 Tolarian Academy1 Mox Opal1 Lotus Petal1 Sol Ring | Sideboard (15)1 Manifold Key1 Time Vault13 Other Cards If you can use Sensei’s Divining Top or a similar effect to further manipulate the top card of your library, you can easily get around lands blocking the top of your deck. Top also goes infinite with Foundry Inspector to draw your library. Together with the variety of mana producing artifacts, including Grim Monolith and Voltaic Key, there might be a Mystic Forge combo deck that aims to play most of its library on turn one to some great effect. Potentially this deck wins with Aetheflux Reservoir or, my favorite, Goblin Charbelcher. This could be the basis for a Krark Clan Ironworks-type deck in Vintage and potentially other formats. Aetherflux Forge Business (36)4 Mystic Forge3 Aetherflux Reservoir3 Krark Clan Ironworks3 Manifold Key4 Karn, the Great Creator4 Helm of Awakening4 Sensei’s Divining Top1 Engineered Explosives1 Spine of Ish Sah1 Myr Retriever4 Scrap Trawler4 Foundry InspectorMana Sources (25)1 Mox Emerald1 Mox Jet1 Mox Pearl1 Mox Ruby1 Mox Sapphire4 Mox Opal4 Grim Monolith1 Black Lotus1 Sol Ring1 Mana Crypt1 Lotus Petal1 Mana Vault1 Lion’s Eye Diamond1 Lotus Petal4 Mishra’s Workshop1 Tolarian Academy | Sideboard (15)1 Manifold Key1 Time Vault1 Aetherflux Reservoir1 Goblin Charbelcher11 Other Cards But maybe you just try to run Mystic Forge in a Tiny Robots list and try to cast a bunch of tiny creatures that will attack anything in sight. You can cast Walking Ballista and Hangarback Walker for 0 to move them off the top of your library, and it might be better to have Chief of the Foundry main deck to get some value out of that play. Tiny Forgebots Business (39)4 Mystic Forge4 Sensei’s Divining Top3 Skullclamp2 Cranial Plating1 Chalice of the Void1 Thorn of Amethyst4 Memnite4 Foundry Inspector4 Arcbound Ravager4 Walking Ballista4 Hangarback Walker4 Phyrexian RevokerMana Sources (21)1 Mana Vault1 Sol Ring1 City of Traitors2 Mox Opal4 Ancient Tomb4 Mishra’s Workshop1 Tolarian Academy1 Mox Emerald1 Mox Jet1 Mox Pearl1 Mox Ruby1 Mox Sapphire1 Lotus Petal1 Mana Crypt | Sideboard (15)4 Chief of the Foundry11 Other cards One last thing to notice is that these decks will all benefit greatly from M20’s other gift to Vintage, the London mulligan. Touring London will help players find a quality turn one: a hand with Mishra’s Workshop, or an early Mystic Forge or Karn, or both. Seeing seven cards at a time and picking your favorites will make a big difference in these kinds of decks, which are so reliant on opening hands and won’t be able to as easily fix their situation as a blue deck with multiple Preordains and other cheap cantrips. When it comes to this new era of colorless decks, mulligan often and mulligan with intention. And the Hi-Res For our free preview this time, I also had the time and forethought to ask Wizards about the high-resolution art from Titus Lunter. And they provided! So here’s the hi-res version of Mystic Forge from M20 for your eyeballs to enjoy (and click to download wallpaper). Questions for Discussion Will Mystic Forge be a hit in Vintage? What about in another format? It’s definitely legal in a bunch of them, and Legacy has a bunch of Sol lands to help play it. Did any of you play X-Men Legends games, where the character Forge is played by Lou Diamond Phillips? And you’d interact with him and he’d say lines like “I can build ANY machine” like he’s real smug about it? That was great. He was right too. He built a lot of really useful stuff in that series of games. Conclusion Thanks for listening! And thanks to The Brass Man for joining us on this special episode. If you found this show because of our free Wizards preview card for M20, welcome. We hope you enjoyed it and found it useful. Usually we talk a lot more about food. We’ll look forward to any questions or comments here or The Mana Drain or on Twitter. You can also email us at seriousvintagepodcast@gmail.com.

This episode was originally released January 25th, 2019.For episode 36, Geoff Moes (@ThallidTosser on Twitter), Nat Moes (@GrandpaBelcher), and Josh Chapple (@joshchapple) are joined by Erin Campbell (@OriginalOestrus) to talk about a bunch of fun Vintage topics including the importance of the community, the Vintage Super League, Dredge, and Two-Card Monte. She also helps us depart a little from our usual “discerning” food-and-drink discussion to a more “picky” angle. Here’s the timestamped table of contents for your listening ease and enjoyment:00:27 – Erin and the Vintage Community33:20 – Preparing to Crush the VSL40:28 – Nat Hate Drafts OnionsFull runtime – 1:03:53 Why Vintage is So Great Most of our discussion about Vintage community, you’ll kind of have to listen to. Erin recounts her entry into the format—playing fast, graveyard-based decks in Legacy and Modern and being able to get in affordably through MTGO. She also talks about how excited the Vintage community was to share its passion, and how encouraging and generous it could be. And it is that passion and excitement that drives Vintage players; Erin talks about that too. In my experience, the format is built around big, flashy plays. Controlling those plays, unleashing them or reining them in, is a skill not always practiced in other formats. The cards are all significant, even in situations where they seem otherwise, so games can go from certain win to certain loss in the blink of an eye. Think of cards that are ostensibly fine in smaller formats, like Brainstorm or Lotus Petal, which end up restricted in Vintage because they lead to much more powerful things. Making those powerful plays (or struggling against them) comes with a lot of emotion—high highs. Vintage makes you feel things. Looking back at my own entry into Vintage—15 years ago, I guess, jeez—I experienced a feeling of welcome similar to Erin’s, even if the situation was totally different. My path to Vintage started with a kitchen-table format that allowed four-of any card you owned. I played multiple Sol Ring, Wheel of Fortune, and Black Vise and could regularly kill on my opponent’s third upkeep. But friends started playing sanctioned Vintage at a small store in Ohio called The Dungeon and were recruiting anyone interested, excited to continue growing the scene. There was a little Power, but people were doing broken things in their own way. And it was great, like the Wild West: Mono-Black Hatred, Mono-Green Stompy, Goblins, Helm of Awakening Eggs, Angel Oath that was slowly acquiring Power at the time, and some weird brews, including whatever I was playing. For a while it was a Welder Madness list with Memory Jar and Wild Mongrel, which was somehow not terrible. Everyone was having fun, and there were so many friendly deals made to help each other get Dual Lands and Force of Wills and other Vintage staples, so we could all improve together. It also didn’t hurt that, when our group graduated to larger events, Vintage was very much in favor of allowing playtest cards to lower the entry barrier. Whether driven by passion or desperation, paper Vintage is generally a welcoming format at the local level. Vintage Super League Season nine of the Vintage Super League (VSL) is also just beginning, and Erin is competing in her third year of the contest. This season is back to individual competition (season eight featured three-player teams) and players are encouraged to play what they want, with the stipulation that they should keep things interesting and try to play new decks when they’re on. We’ve already seen evidence of this as the second week’s offerings included Andy Probasco playing Death’s Shadow and three decks (Stephen Menendian, Brian Coval, and Randy Buehler) all playing Lavinia, Azorius Renegade, from the newly legal Ravnica Allegiance set. It would be a disappointment to a lot of fans if Erin were to skip playing Dredge entirely, but we talk about some of her other options, including Two-Card Monte, Stax with actual Smokestack, and Enchantress. It’s always exciting to see innovative new decks (or new takes on old decks) in the VSL, even if the competition format lends itself to “metagaming against your friends,” so the decks can be less reflective of “real life” Vintage. It’s also exciting to see players step outside their own comfort zone and try a strategy or archetype that they may not be familiar with as a pilot. Food and Drink for Picky Eaters This episode’s food-and-drink section covers a lot of ground. A lot. We talk about peanut butter, pizza, warm beverages, cold condiments, cottage cheese, rye chips, french fries, hamburgers, hot dogs, corndogs, onions, and more. There’s too much to summarize here, but I thought it was interesting that, out of four people on the show, three of us don’t drink coffee. Make of that what you will. Erin did mention a couple of Milwaukee restaurants, which I’ll record in case you’re in the area. The Dogg Haus has additional locations in Wisconsin and Minnesota and offers build-your-own hot dogs with multiple meat, topping, and bun options. At least visit the website and check out their logo. There’s also Vanguard Bar, which has a similar offering of housemade sausages (including duck and boar), as well as “tube-less” meals like burgers and poutine. In the end, while we all have our proclivities and aversions, we all agreed we like food. Questions for Discussion What got you into Vintage? The decks? The Power? The people? How do you feel about Dredge, and what deck would you play if you had to pick something other than what you’re playing right now? Are there foods you despise? Is pineapple on pizza OK? How do you feel about small hot dogs? What about a product called the “Corndogger”? Thanks for Supporting Our Show! Regardless of how you got here, we’re glad you’re interested in Vintage. If you’d like to support Serious Vintage financially, maybe you and your friends and loved ones would enjoy a T-shirt. For the next three weeks (until February 15, in time for Valentine’s Day!) we’ll be selling shirts to raise money to improve podcasting and Team Serious streaming technology. “Force of Love” shirts are back, and now you can show you’re competitive when it comes to the post-tournament meal with a “Vintage Supper League” shirt! As usual, we’ll look forward to any questions or comments here or The Mana Drain or on Twitter. You can also email us at seriousvintagepodcast@gmail.com.

Cyrus Corman-Gill is an above-average Magic player. He is an Eternal Weekend Finalist, Star City Games Open champion, Vintage Super League quarterfinalist, online grinder (of the card game variety), and Twitch streamer. Cyrus also enjoys sending out cool tweets and acting as the wrestling heel of the Magic world. Humans of Magic is sponsored by CardBoard Live. CardBoard Live revolutionizes card & board game streaming by providing you with dynamic real-time information for games like Magic: The Gathering.

For episode 36, Geoff Moes (@ThallidTosser on Twitter), Nat Moes (@GrandpaBelcher), and Josh Chapple (@joshchapple) are joined by Erin Campbell (@OriginalOestrus) to talk about a bunch of fun Vintage topics including the importance of the community, the Vintage Super League, Dredge, and Two-Card Monte. She also helps us depart a little from our usual “discerning” […]

In this episode, I’m speaking with Randy Buehler, Hall of Famer and former Vice President of Digital Gaming at Wizards of the Coast for Magic: The Gathering. Randy has made a significant impact on Magic, not only as a pro player, but also developing the game at R&D. Randy worked on Invasions and Odyssey, to name a few. Randy also has a long history on the commentary team. Though Randy recently retired from commentary, he still has an influential role in the community with Vintage Super League, Community Super League, and his streams on Twitch. Say hi to Randy on Twitter @RBuehler I’ve got a photo of my interview with Randy in his Magic filled basement. What an amazing collection. Watch Vintage Super League at Twitch.tv/randybuehler Randy has a Patreon page set up for Vintage Super league and now Team Draft Super League. I’ll have links in the show notes at KitchenTableMagic.org I sat down with Randy last fall, I hope you enjoy my interview with the one and only, Randy Buehler. This episode of Kitchen Table Magic is brought to you by Paragon City Games. Randy Buehler talked about playing his first Magic tournament in a bee keepers warehouse. There were cases of honey and beside them, Magic singles. The Magic community has come a long way since then and in today’s world, you’ll find places like Paragon City Games. Instead of jars of honey, you’ll find Die Hard Metal Dice, hand crafted wooden deck boxes, Legacy, Modern and Standard staples, sealed product, and table top games. And instead of being in a warehouse, Paragon City Games has a spacious and clean showroom with lots of elbow room for Magic events. Also, be sure to check out their weekly stream at Twitch.tv/ParagonCityGames Remember to spread the love with a Like on Facebook and a follow on Twitter for Paragon City Games They also have great online reviews and that shows their commitment to excellent customer service for their player community. Thanks everyone for listening to this week’s show. Randy Buehler finished up my 4 part series with the legendary Magic coverage team. Season 2 has been all about the origins of the community. And speaking of origins, I’d like to thank and acknowledge my first Twitter follower, Katelyn! Katelyn is my newest Patreon supporter and I want to thank you Katelyn. Your contribution means a lot to me. Okay listeners, consider supporting Kitchen Table Magic on Patreon. For just a few bucks a month you’ll get access to extra audio content, behind the scenes show notes, and special gifts from my interviews. Head on over to Patreon.com/KitchenTableMagic and become a supporter. I want to thank all my Patreon Supporters: Brian, James, Markus, Alex, Trevor, and Katelyn for your support. You are all so awesome!

This week on the Cardhoarder Podcast Dave returns and actually shares some positive opinions on the Magic Online Championship.  Josh Utter-Leyton won the tournament but the talk of the weekend was the change in coverage.  Does the Vintage Super League style of coverage work on this scale?  Modern Masters 2017 full spoiler was released.  Conor, Nathaniel, and Dave argue whether Wizards included too many money cards into one set.  Other topics include SCG Louisville now Team Constructed, the additions to the Pauper format via MM17, Magic Online Wishlist, and trying to figure out the origin of obscure words.   The Cardhoarder Podcast is proudly sponsored by Cardhoarder.com Email us at cardhoarderpodcast@gmail.com SCG Louisville now Team Constructed - 3:38 Magic Online Championship - 5:35 Modern Masters 2017 full spoiler released - 33:00 New cards for the Pauper format - 57:34 Magic Online Wishlist - 1:05:03 Music provided by Terrible Spaceship. Your Hosts: Conor O'Donnell, Nathaniel Buckley-Wright, and David Murphy. Conor's Twitter: @conorpodonnell | Twitch: conor_od Nathaniel's Twitter: @Cardhoarder | Twitch: Cardhoarder David's Twitter: @DavidSea89 | Twitch: davesea

Kevin Cron and Steve Menendian review Aether Revolt for Vintage, check on their Kaladesh report card, and talk Vintage Super League updates. 0:00:52: Announcements: NYSE 5, TSO Sandusky, Vintage Champs Europe, History of Vintage Chapter 4 0:09:00: Kaladesh Report Card 0:27:15: Aether Revolt: Mechanics 0:30:00: Hope of Ghirapur 0:33:00: Walking Ballista 0:57:18: Crackdown Construct 1:01:33: […]

Eric and Mitch talk with Randy Buehler about the VSL and Vintage as a format.

Kevin Cron and Steve Menendian discuss Life, the Universe and Dragons of Tarkir. Contact us at @ManyInsanePlays on Twitter or e-mail us at SoManyInsanePlaysPodcast@gmail.com. 0:00:00: Announcements 0:04:43: Vintage Super League 0:13:20: Fate Reforged Report Card 0:17:53: Dragons of Tarkir: Mechanics and Themes 0:23:32: Myth Realized 0:35:48: Stratus Dancer 0:38:48: Rending Volley 0:41:34: Dromoka's Command 0:46:05:...

​Kevin Cron and Steve Menendian discuss life, the Universe, and Dragons of Tarkir for Vintage. 0:00:00: Announcements 0:04:43: Vintage Super League 0:13:20: Fate Reforged Report Card 0:17:53: Dragons of Tarkir: Mechanics and Themes 0:23:32: Myth Realized 0:35:48: Stratus Dancer 0:38:48: Rending Volley 0:41:34: Dromoka’s Command 0:46:05: Narset Transcendent 0:56:58: Sarkhan, Unbroken 1:00:23: Living Lore 1:08:41: […]

Kevin Cron and Steve Menendian review Khans of Tarkir for Vintage. Plus, their Journey into Nyx report card, and the latest Vintage Super League results. 0:06:20: Vintage Super League Update 0:15:14: Journey into Nyx report card 0:23:45: Mechanics 0:30:30: Dig Through Time/Treasure Cruise 1:17:30: Jeskai Elder/Monastery Swiftspear 1:30:30: Stubborn Denial 1:33:30: Jeskai Ascendancy 1:39:40: Ugin’s […]

In episode 29 of #EverydayEternal Matt Pavlic (sdematt), Sam Craven (@thecravenone), and Julian Knab (@itsJulian23) wrap up the last of the new cards from Khans of Tarkir. There's not a lot left, so the discussion quickly moves from the plane of the Khans to the realm of online Magic. Sam introduces us to the Vintage Super League, which he hopes will bring more attention and interest to Vintage. Julian shares stories from the recent Legacy MOCS – the only non-GP Legacy tournament that can be used to qualify for a Pro Tour. 00:00 Stubborn Denial 03:32 Khans of Tarkir cards that just barely miss the cut: Treasure Cruise, Merderous Cut, Utter End, Empty the Pits 11:29 Vintage Super League 20:42 Legacy MOCS Qualifier 39:53 General banter and outro – Vintage Super League – Vintage Super League YouTube Playlists – Legacy MOCS Championship Decklists and Results

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. Here’s the […]