Podcasts about walking ballista

Omarthis, Ghostfire Initiate is a new legendary spirit naga from Commander Legends that synergizes beautifully with colorless counter creatures like Walking Ballista, Hangarback Walker, and Stonecoil Serpent. It could also be an absolutely amazing modular commander alongside cards like Arcbound Ravager, Arcbound Overseer, and even Arcbound Worker. The other detail that our host, HamHocks42, goes into about on this episode is the return of manifest. It is an awkward keyword that was introduced in Fate Reforged to mixed success. The card Reality Shift is the only instance most players know manifest from these days. It is surprising that Wizards of the Coast have decided to bring it back here, but here it is. All the Socials: https://linktr.ee/hamhocks42 Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/hamhocks42 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/hamhocks42 MagicJank: https://www.magicjank.com Overthinking MTG is a podcast where our host, HamHocks42, takes a look at a random card from Magic: the Gathering and talks about it for a while. Often, though, he ends up yammering about whatever's on the top of his mind that the card reminds him of and a half hours passes and it turns out all he's done is share his thoughts on recent news related to Commander, Magic: the Gathering Arena, Modern, Pioneer, Standard, or humorous anecdotes from his kitchen table jank days. ----- Omarthis, Ghostfire Initiate {X}{X} Legendary Creature — Spirit Naga Omarthis, Ghostfire Initiate enters the battlefield with X +1/+1 counters on it. Whenever you put one or more +1/+1 counters on another colorless creature, you may put a +1/+1 counter on Omarthis. When Omarthis dies, manifest a number of cards from the top of your library equal to the number of counters on it. 0/0 ----- magic the gathering,game knights,the command zone,omarthis ghostfire initiate,commander masters,commander masters precon,commander masters eldrazi,eldrazi unbound,omarthis,mtg edh omarthis,mtg commander,magic: the gathering,mtg,hamhocks42,colorless commander,mtg manifest,magic manifest,overthinking mtg,mtg commander masters,mtg podcast,magic the gathering podcast,mtg pod,magic podcast,the overthinking mtg podcast --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hamhocks42/support

This episode was originally released May 27th, 2019.For episode 40, Geoff Moes (@ThallidTosser on Twitter), Nat Moes (@GrandpaBelcher), and Josh Chapple (@joshchapple) are pleased to show off Collector Ouphe, a free preview card from Modern Horizons, provided by Wizards of the Coast!01:25 – Oof17:59 – The Real Collection Was the Friends We Made Along the WayTotal runtime: 25:22 Null Rodney I’m sure most of you are here looking for the free Modern Horizons preview card, so we’ll get right to it. It’s a Null Rod on legs! At long last! This card was at the top of my list from the very beginning of exploratory design, and it went through everything almost unchanged mechanically. In my head I named it “Null Rodney.” Null Rod has long been a staple of Vintage aggro-control decks because it helps prey on artifact-based manabases as Wasteland and Strip Mine take apart dual lands. It slows down explosive starts and combo finishes, allowing the control deck enough time to block paths to victory and win with creatures. That was one of Null Rod’s big weaknesses, in fact; it didn’t apply pressure to the opponent by itself. Without threatening creatures bearing down, opponents could find answers or additional threats and break out of their prison to win. Collector Ouphe has the same crippling potential as Null Rod but brings its own threat. As formats get older and smaller, and artifacts get more powerful, Collector Ouphe has increasing utility. In Modern it shuts down Affinity (the deck, not the ability), Aether Vial, and much of the Tron decks’ ability to fix colors and tutor for lands. In Legacy it starts hitting fast mana (Mox Diamond, Chrome Mox, Lotus Petal, and Lion’s Eye Diamond), artifact decks with Grim Monolith, and powerful equipment, like Batterskull and Umezawa’s Jitte. And in Vintage, Workshop Aggro runs Walking Ballista and Arcbound Ravager, in addition to all the decks using Moxes, Black Lotus, Sol Ring, and Mana Crypt as a big chunk of their mana base. Oh, and Time Vault is still an OK card, I think. Anyway, we’re primarily a Vintage podcast, so we’ll go deeper into Vintage applications. Obviously not every deck is interested in this effect, but there are probably a few. Stony Silence is one of the most important cards in Survival decks for buying time against Workshops and Paradoxical Outcome, and Collector Ouphe is a Stony Silence that can be tutored for (or discarded to) Survival of the Fittest. Maybe there’s some risk in making creature removal even better against this creature-heavy strategy, but all kinds of removal were good against this deck that has a key land, a key enchantment, big artifact creatures, lots of other creatures, and a relevant graveyard. Ouphe Survival, borrowed from David Lance Business (38)4 Bazaar of Baghdad4 Survival of the Fittest1 Ancestral Recall1 Time Walk1 Thorn of Amethyst4 Basking Rootwalla4 Vengevine4 Hollow One3 Collector Ouphe3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben1 Hooting Mandrills1 Manglehorn1 Spell Queller1 Squee, Goblin Nabob1 Wonder4 Noble HierarchMana Sources (22)2 Elvish Spirit Guide1 Black Lotus1 Mox Emerald1 Mox Jet1 Mox Pearl1 Mox Ruby1 Mox Sapphire2 Verdant Catacombs2 Windswept Heath2 Wooded Foothills2 Misty Rainforest3 Savannah2 Tropical Island1 Forest | Sideboard (15)1 Chalice of the Void4 Containment Priest1 Energy Flux1 Fairgrounds Warden1 Force of Vigor2 Grafdigger’s Cage1 Kataki, War’s Wage1 Collector Ouphe2 Squee, Goblin Nabob1 Stony Silence BUG Control (which we’ve never talked about on this show before) is already looking to deny resources to the opponent with creatures like Leovold, Emissary of Trest, stopping card-draw, and Ramunap Excavator and Wasteland hitting important lands. Like Excavator, the Ouphe is another artifact that’s been given a body and a purpose – preventing the opponent from having nice things. And thanks to Deathrite Shaman, BUG Control can skip running a lot of the artifacts that would make the Ouphe a double-edged sword. BUG Collector Business (38)4 Force of Will2 Mental Misstep1 Thoughtseize1 Abrupt Decay1 Assassin's Trophy1 Ponder1 Brainstorm1 Ancestral Recall1 Time Walk2 Painful Truths2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor1 Treasure Cruise1 Dig Through Time1 Demonic Tutor4 Deathrite Shaman3 Snapcaster Mage3 Collector Ouphe2 Baleful Strix3 Leovold, Emissary of Trest1 Rumanap Excavator1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang1 Gurmag AnglerMana Sources (22)1 Black Lotus1 Mox Emerald1 Mox Jet1 Mox Sapphire4 Verdant Catacombs1 Misty Rainforest1 Polluted Delta3 Underground Sea2 Tropical Island1 Bayou1 Swamp1 Strip Mine4 Wasteland | Sideboard (15)4 Grafdigger's Cage2 Yixlid Jailer1 Forest2 Nature's Claim1 Force of Vigor1 Pithing Needle1 Toxic Deluge1 Flusterstorm1 Engineered Explosives1 Infernal Reckoning Another strategy, which hasn’t been around recently but could show up again, would be something like Christmas Beats. In Magic, red and green both hate Vintage staples blue and artifacts, so this deck focuses on those in an aggro-control shell. Christmas Beats foregoes playing most artifacts in favor of Elvish and Simian Spirit Guides, so it can disrupt mana with four Collector Ouphes and an additional Null Rod for moral support. There are lots of creature options beyond that: Magus of the Moon, Tin Street Hooligan, Scavenging Ooze, Tarmogoyf, Harsh Mentor, Vexing Shusher, Goblin Cratermaker. And for spells you get Pyroblast, Lightning Bolt, Ancient Grudge, the new Force of Vigor from Modern Horizons – whatever you think will make a difference in the expected metagame. Santa’s Ouphe Business (32)4 Deathrite Shaman4 Collector Ouphe4 Tin Street Hooligan4 Tarmogoyf4 Magus of the Moon1 Chalice of the Void1 Null Rod1 Blood Moon1 Force of Vigor4 Pyroblast4 Lightning BoltMana Sources (28)4 Elvish Spirit Guide4 Simian Spirit Guide1 Lotus Petal4 Verdant Catacombs1 Wooded Foothills3 Taiga3 Snow-Covered Forest2 Snow-Covered Mountain1 Snow-Covered Swamp1 Strip Mine4 Wasteland | Sideboard (15)3 Pithing Needle1 Thorn of Amethyst4 Leyline of the Void3 Ancient Grudge2 Red Elemental Blast2 Mindbreak Trap There’s a lot of opportunity for Collector Ouphe to succeed in Modern and eternal formats. Artifacts continue getting stronger and allowing opponents to carry out nefarious, broken schemes. Ouphe says no! How Many Team Serious Members Does It Take? Because podcasts are a tricky way to reveal a free Wizards preview card, we decided we’d try something different, and perhaps unique. The Serious Vintage podcast looks at the Vintage format through the lens of community, rather than competition. We have fun playing Magic, but it’s also an excuse to hang out with people we enjoy. And it’s one of the reasons we always end our shows with discussions of food and drink, because the post-tournament meal is just as important as the event itself. Sometimes more so. So thanks to everyone who helped us preview our card (in order of the word they read): Steve McGrew, Jake Hilty, Jon Hammack, JR Goldman, Guhstin Dewey, Paul Blakeley, Ryan Seeley, Nam Q. Tran, Duane Haddix, Rajah James, Anthony “Twaun” Michaels, Jimmy McCarthy, Andy “Brass Man” Probasco, Sam Krohlow, Frank Singel, Josh McCurley, Phil Thorson, Jerry Yang, Eric Caffrey, Mark Trogdon, Gilberto Rivera, Kevin Nelson, Justin Waller, Rick Gideon, David Lance, Kyle Lennox, Charles Rolko, Kevin Poenisch, Matt Hazard, Erik Butler, Joe Dyer, and Ben Perry. Lots of people had fun with it, none more than Brass Man, who provided the stinger for this episode. Thanks also to Geoff Moes, who, when I said I wanted to have him splice 40 or so contextless words of a card together into a coherent whole, didn’t blink an eye. It was just that normal twitch thing he gets when I tell him I have an idea. And thanks to Josh Chapple, who, since it was snowing in Colorado when we recorded, went up the road to podcast from the parking lot of his local bar, Snowpack Taproom, to get a working internet signal. He recommends Snowpack as having a strong selection of rotating local kegs, good food, and powerful internet. The next Team Serious Invitational he hosts in Colorado will definitely take a trip there. Finally, thanks to Jaco for hosting our show at Eternal Central. He loves formats with old Magic cards and has put together quite a home for them. We exist in large part because of his help. My job is easy; I just write words. Upcoming Events We close this episode with a couple of upcoming Vintage events, a section that we used to do and would like to do more regularly. If you have a Vintage (or Middle School or Old School) event that you want us to hype, let us know! If it’s reasonable to put on our next episode, we will. First up, an event I found on The Mana Drain. The Lone Star Lhurgoyfs group is hosting a Vintage event Saturday, June 8 in Houston, Texas. They have a nice writeup, it’s at a bar, and they’re going to raffle off some pretty awesome looking Eldrazi proxies. Check that out if you’re near Houston. In Warren, Ohio, there are two Vintage Eternal Weekend Trials, on Friday, June 14 and Sunday, June 16 at Bottom Dollar Trading. Those events should just be crawling with Team Serious members, so it should be a lot of fun. And Josh is looking forward to the TinFinVitational events in Denver, being run the same weekend as that city’s Magic Fest at the Whittier Pub. There’s a Vintage event on Friday, July 19, and a Legacy event on Sunday, July 21. Take a look if you’ll be playing in GP Denver, and say hey to Josh. Questions for Discussion So! What do you think of Collector Ouphe? Did you know how to pronounce “ouphe” before we did? Did you see Filip Burburan’s great art? The Ouphe is stealing the power from an Aether Vial! Are there other Easter eggs in the art? What other Modern Horizons cards are you excited about? Do you have a local Vintage or other event coming up that you want us to give a shoutout to? Let us know! Conclusion Thanks for listening! If you found this show because of our free Wizards preview card for Modern Horizons, welcome. We hope you enjoyed your time here. 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 October 29th, 2018.For episode 33, Geoff Moes (@ThallidTosser on Twitter), Nat Moes (@GrandpaBelcher), and Josh Chapple (@joshchapple) talk with Josh McCurley (@infant_no_1) about Eternal Weekend and the food of Pittsburgh. Here’s the timestamped table of contents for your listening ease and enjoyment:00:24 – Slinging Cards with Josh McCurley03:26 – “Josh, What’s the Vintage Metagame?”42:21 – Eating Out Pittsburgh53:03 – OutroFull runtime – 54:16 Enter the Forest Bear Josh McCurley visits from Texas, where he’s a Magic judge and Eternal formats aficionado. Online he streams Vintage on MTGO regularly and has even dabbled in Arena recently, all with a penchant for the Portal card Forest Bear. Despite focusing mainly on Mishra’s Workshop-based strategies himself, Josh keeps a close eye on other archetypes and is willing to experiment with radical lists he concocts or that his viewers send him. Plus, he has to recognize how other strategies are doing if he wants to beat them, right? So we brought him in as an expert. As further evidence of his expertise, Josh and Nat once played a casual Vintage game of Lantern Control versus Jester’s Scepter Uba Mask and—thanks to Ensnaring Bridge, Uba Mask, and some other dumb artifacts—finished as an actual, no-winner draw. Reminded of this, Josh said, “We are so good at Vintage.” Predictions on Eternal Weekend Note: Since our knowledge of Eternal Weekend was admittedly muddled, you should visit Card Titan for all the details. Vintage right now is a battle between five top decks: Ravager Workshops, Paradoxical Outcome Storm, Jeskai Control (or some flavor of blue-based control), Dredge, and Oath. None of the decks can beat all of the others, so there’s a tug-of-war at the metagame level as players try to pick which deck they feel will be best equipped to beat most of their opponents and then tune to make their poor matchups slightly better. For example, if you think there’s going to be a large number of Workshop decks, you would play PO Storm to beat them and then work to combat Jeskai’s draw engine and countermagic so you don’t lose too many points there. But then if you think there’s going to be a lot of PO Storm, you play Jeskai and try to adjust to beat Workshops in the sideboard. And then Oath or Dredge show up, being all weird, and just decimate an unprepared field. Good luck! Defending Champion: Workshop AggroAndy Markiton won last year’s North America Vintage Champs with Ravager MUD, and the strategy hasn’t changed drastically since then. The prison builds of years past have been replaced by a kind of aggressive tempo deck. Instead of slowing an opponent down with lots of Sphere of Resistance effects, Workshop players speed themselves up with Foundry Inspector and have a kind-of combo win with Arcbound Ravager and Walking Ballista. It’s similar to other formats’ Affinity lists; they may not hinder an opponent’s plan at all, except for putting them on an exceptionally fast clock. Expect to face it multiple times and be prepared to do better than one-for-one artifact and creature removal if you want to win. The Newcomer: Paradoxical OutcomeWhen Paradoxical Outcome debuted in Kaladesh, every Vintage player looked at it and said, “Oh, yeah, that card’s absurd.” It finally hit its stride as a combo engine and has a few different looks as players decide which colors they like and which win conditions they want to use—usually some mix of Tendrils of Agony, Monastery Mentor, Time Vault, and Blightsteel Colossus. These lists can range from very aggressive storm-focused strategies (almost like Pitch Long or TPS) to those that are happy to build more slowly to the win (similar to old Gifts Ungiven lists in pace). Outcome preys on Workshop decks because it has a lot of free mana and a generally faster clock, but it can struggle against counterspells if it can’t resolve its bombs. The Comeback Kid: SurvivalSurvival of the Fittest has been around for a long time and is good enough to be banned in Legacy. But it made a startling resurgence in Vintage when it took first at Asia Vintage Champs. This is thanks to the printing of Hollow One, which gives it a beefy aggro plan to go along with its toolbox of searchable answers to other strategies. It’s a novel look for a Vintage deck—lots of green, not a lot of blue or artifacts—and players may lose percentages just because they won’t know how to play against it. Of course, players who pick up the deck might suffer from unfamiliarity as well. Answering creatures is good, but Survival relies on its namesake enchantment and Bazaar of Baghdad to find and make threats, so stopping activated abilities is also strong. The Contender: Jeskai ControlWe lumped most of the blue-based control decks together even though they encompass a wide variety of colors and flavors. Most players agree that restricted blue cards, Preordains, and Force of Wills make a powerful broth and are then happy to add their favorite flavor of win condition, everything from Monastery Mentor, to Tinker, to Jace, the Mind Sculptor. These decks like to draw and filter cards and tend to win the game, really, by having better natural access to efficient answers and threats. That is: it’s difficult to focus on one particular card to stop because all the cards do the same thing. Workshop decks tend to do well against Jeskai Control because artifacts like Sphere of Resistance and Phyrexian Revoker can hinder the blue deck’s ability to effectively keep its hand full. The Fading Star: Oath of DruidsIs Oath a fading star? It hasn’t been popular or done particularly well recently, but it seems like it could be a dark horse in the current metagame. Oath can do well against creature-based strategies like Mishra’s Workshop and Survival decks, especially if it can remove or ignore their answers, typically Grafdigger’s Cage or Containment Priest. And Oath can easily play Preordain and restricted blue cards, so it can potentially keep up with Jeskai Control lists as it looks to resolve its one important spell. Griselbrand is a powerful demon companion, and there are any number of other useful, powerful creatures would make potential inclusions, but no one seems to have devised a list that wins consistently. Between commonly played hate (since Grafdigger’s Cage pulls double duty against Oath and Dredge) and a heavy reliance on one idea, Oath struggles. The Underground: DredgeWhen Dredge was totally a graveyard-based deck, it seemed to gain strength when opponents had become complacent, forgotten about it, and shaved graveyard hate from their sideboards. Now, again because of Hollow One, it has a solid backup plan that might not need to touch the graveyard at all. It’s consistent metagame terror, particularly in the hands of a knowledgeable pilot, and it will win a lot of games against prepared and unprepared opponents alike. To beat Dredge, apply a lot of varied graveyard answers (different types and costs of permanents and spells), and don’t forget about Hollow One. Void Winnower beats all of these decks. Eternal Weekend Dining in Pittsburgh We had a few food recommendations for Pittsburgh. Primanti Brothers is kind of a Steel City tradition. They make big sandwiches that frequently include the french fries in the sandwich (a concession to steel workers who needed to eat their lunch in a hurry). Hopefully your waiter sticks around. The Original Hotdog Shop, better known as “The O,” is kind of a Magic: The Gathering tradition, as it was the frequent meeting spot of Team CMU, one of the early premier Pro Tour teams, which was based in Pittsburgh. You can get giant fries, burgers, hotdogs, and beer in this casual, college atmosphere. Open late. Last year’s hits for Team Serious were Emporio and Starlite Lounge, each of which specializes in its own brand of comfort food. Emporio calls itself “A Meatball Joint” and lets you choose your meatball, sauce, and method of conveyance (pasta, bun, or fries). This was literally all I heard about after Eternal Weekend last year. Starlite Lounge appeared on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives and serves three kinds of pierogis, as well as other home-cooked Polish diner food. Nearby the convention center, Josh recommended Condado for their tacos and margaritas. They do a good job offering creative combination tacos, as well as letting you build your own. You’ll have to challenge yourself to see if you can acquire margaritas on the run between rounds. This year Team Serious members Jerry Yang and Rajah James had some recommendations of places they’ve been and places they were looking to try. In no particular order:● Robert Wholey & Co. for seafood and fish sandwiches.● Gaucho Parrilla Argentina for fresh South American food.● Ephasus Mediterranean for pizza with a Turkish twist.● Nicky’s Thai Kitchen for Thai food voted best in Pittsburgh.● Yuva Indian Kitchen for Indian food, including lots of vegetarian options.● Lulu’s Noodles for various Asian noodle dishes, including pho, pad thai, and ramen.● Bangal Kabab House for Indian tandoori dishes and kebabs. If you find anything you like, be sure to let us know for future years! Questions for Discussion What scares you most about the current Vintage metagame? What scares you most about a seafood buffet in Pittsburgh? Conclusion Thanks for listening! We hope our view of the Vintage metagame was helpful and insightful, or at least entertaining. Have fun in Pittsburgh. 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 27th, 2019.For episode 40, Geoff Moes (@ThallidTosser on Twitter), Nat Moes (@GrandpaBelcher), and Josh Chapple (@joshchapple) are pleased to show off Collector Ouphe, a free preview card from Modern Horizons, provided by Wizards of the Coast!01:25 – Oof17:59 – The Real Collection Was the Friends We Made Along the WayTotal runtime: 25:22 Null Rodney I’m sure most of you are here looking for the free Modern Horizons preview card, so we’ll get right to it. It’s a Null Rod on legs! At long last! This card was at the top of my list from the very beginning of exploratory design, and it went through everything almost unchanged mechanically. In my head I named it “Null Rodney.” Null Rod has long been a staple of Vintage aggro-control decks because it helps prey on artifact-based manabases as Wasteland and Strip Mine take apart dual lands. It slows down explosive starts and combo finishes, allowing the control deck enough time to block paths to victory and win with creatures. That was one of Null Rod’s big weaknesses, in fact; it didn’t apply pressure to the opponent by itself. Without threatening creatures bearing down, opponents could find answers or additional threats and break out of their prison to win. Collector Ouphe has the same crippling potential as Null Rod but brings its own threat. As formats get older and smaller, and artifacts get more powerful, Collector Ouphe has increasing utility. In Modern it shuts down Affinity (the deck, not the ability), Aether Vial, and much of the Tron decks’ ability to fix colors and tutor for lands. In Legacy it starts hitting fast mana (Mox Diamond, Chrome Mox, Lotus Petal, and Lion’s Eye Diamond), artifact decks with Grim Monolith, and powerful equipment, like Batterskull and Umezawa’s Jitte. And in Vintage, Workshop Aggro runs Walking Ballista and Arcbound Ravager, in addition to all the decks using Moxes, Black Lotus, Sol Ring, and Mana Crypt as a big chunk of their mana base. Oh, and Time Vault is still an OK card, I think. Anyway, we’re primarily a Vintage podcast, so we’ll go deeper into Vintage applications. Obviously not every deck is interested in this effect, but there are probably a few. Stony Silence is one of the most important cards in Survival decks for buying time against Workshops and Paradoxical Outcome, and Collector Ouphe is a Stony Silence that can be tutored for (or discarded to) Survival of the Fittest. Maybe there’s some risk in making creature removal even better against this creature-heavy strategy, but all kinds of removal were good against this deck that has a key land, a key enchantment, big artifact creatures, lots of other creatures, and a relevant graveyard. Ouphe Survival, borrowed from David Lance Business (38)4 Bazaar of Baghdad4 Survival of the Fittest1 Ancestral Recall1 Time Walk1 Thorn of Amethyst4 Basking Rootwalla4 Vengevine4 Hollow One3 Collector Ouphe3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben1 Hooting Mandrills1 Manglehorn1 Spell Queller1 Squee, Goblin Nabob1 Wonder4 Noble HierarchMana Sources (22)2 Elvish Spirit Guide1 Black Lotus1 Mox Emerald1 Mox Jet1 Mox Pearl1 Mox Ruby1 Mox Sapphire2 Verdant Catacombs2 Windswept Heath2 Wooded Foothills2 Misty Rainforest3 Savannah2 Tropical Island1 Forest | Sideboard (15)1 Chalice of the Void4 Containment Priest1 Energy Flux1 Fairgrounds Warden1 Force of Vigor2 Grafdigger’s Cage1 Kataki, War’s Wage1 Collector Ouphe2 Squee, Goblin Nabob1 Stony Silence BUG Control (which we’ve never talked about on this show before) is already looking to deny resources to the opponent with creatures like Leovold, Emissary of Trest, stopping card-draw, and Ramunap Excavator and Wasteland hitting important lands. Like Excavator, the Ouphe is another artifact that’s been given a body and a purpose – preventing the opponent from having nice things. And thanks to Deathrite Shaman, BUG Control can skip running a lot of the artifacts that would make the Ouphe a double-edged sword. BUG Collector Business (38)4 Force of Will2 Mental Misstep1 Thoughtseize1 Abrupt Decay1 Assassin's Trophy1 Ponder1 Brainstorm1 Ancestral Recall1 Time Walk2 Painful Truths2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor1 Treasure Cruise1 Dig Through Time1 Demonic Tutor4 Deathrite Shaman3 Snapcaster Mage3 Collector Ouphe2 Baleful Strix3 Leovold, Emissary of Trest1 Rumanap Excavator1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang1 Gurmag AnglerMana Sources (22)1 Black Lotus1 Mox Emerald1 Mox Jet1 Mox Sapphire4 Verdant Catacombs1 Misty Rainforest1 Polluted Delta3 Underground Sea2 Tropical Island1 Bayou1 Swamp1 Strip Mine4 Wasteland | Sideboard (15)4 Grafdigger's Cage2 Yixlid Jailer1 Forest2 Nature's Claim1 Force of Vigor1 Pithing Needle1 Toxic Deluge1 Flusterstorm1 Engineered Explosives1 Infernal Reckoning Another strategy, which hasn’t been around recently but could show up again, would be something like Christmas Beats. In Magic, red and green both hate Vintage staples blue and artifacts, so this deck focuses on those in an aggro-control shell. Christmas Beats foregoes playing most artifacts in favor of Elvish and Simian Spirit Guides, so it can disrupt mana with four Collector Ouphes and an additional Null Rod for moral support. There are lots of creature options beyond that: Magus of the Moon, Tin Street Hooligan, Scavenging Ooze, Tarmogoyf, Harsh Mentor, Vexing Shusher, Goblin Cratermaker. And for spells you get Pyroblast, Lightning Bolt, Ancient Grudge, the new Force of Vigor from Modern Horizons – whatever you think will make a difference in the expected metagame. Santa’s Ouphe Business (32)4 Deathrite Shaman4 Collector Ouphe4 Tin Street Hooligan4 Tarmogoyf4 Magus of the Moon1 Chalice of the Void1 Null Rod1 Blood Moon1 Force of Vigor4 Pyroblast4 Lightning BoltMana Sources (28)4 Elvish Spirit Guide4 Simian Spirit Guide1 Lotus Petal4 Verdant Catacombs1 Wooded Foothills3 Taiga3 Snow-Covered Forest2 Snow-Covered Mountain1 Snow-Covered Swamp1 Strip Mine4 Wasteland | Sideboard (15)3 Pithing Needle1 Thorn of Amethyst4 Leyline of the Void3 Ancient Grudge2 Red Elemental Blast2 Mindbreak Trap There’s a lot of opportunity for Collector Ouphe to succeed in Modern and eternal formats. Artifacts continue getting stronger and allowing opponents to carry out nefarious, broken schemes. Ouphe says no! How Many Team Serious Members Does It Take? Because podcasts are a tricky way to reveal a free Wizards preview card, we decided we’d try something different, and perhaps unique. The Serious Vintage podcast looks at the Vintage format through the lens of community, rather than competition. We have fun playing Magic, but it’s also an excuse to hang out with people we enjoy. And it’s one of the reasons we always end our shows with discussions of food and drink, because the post-tournament meal is just as important as the event itself. Sometimes more so. So thanks to everyone who helped us preview our card (in order of the word they read): Steve McGrew, Jake Hilty, Jon Hammack, JR Goldman, Guhstin Dewey, Paul Blakeley, Ryan Seeley, Nam Q. Tran, Duane Haddix, Rajah James, Anthony “Twaun” Michaels, Jimmy McCarthy, Andy “Brass Man” Probasco, Sam Krohlow, Frank Singel, Josh McCurley, Phil Thorson, Jerry Yang, Eric Caffrey, Mark Trogdon, Gilberto Rivera, Kevin Nelson, Justin Waller, Rick Gideon, David Lance, Kyle Lennox, Charles Rolko, Kevin Poenisch, Matt Hazard, Erik Butler, Joe Dyer, and Ben Perry. Lots of people had fun with it, none more than Brass Man, who provided the stinger for this episode. Thanks also to Geoff Moes, who, when I said I wanted to have him splice 40 or so contextless words of a card together into a coherent whole, didn’t blink an eye. It was just that normal twitch thing he gets when I tell him I have an idea. And thanks to Josh Chapple, who, since it was snowing in Colorado when we recorded, went up the road to podcast from the parking lot of his local bar, Snowpack Taproom, to get a working internet signal. He recommends Snowpack as having a strong selection of rotating local kegs, good food, and powerful internet. The next Team Serious Invitational he hosts in Colorado will definitely take a trip there. Finally, thanks to Jaco for hosting our show at Eternal Central. He loves formats with old Magic cards and has put together quite a home for them. We exist in large part because of his help. My job is easy; I just write words. Upcoming Events We close this episode with a couple of upcoming Vintage events, a section that we used to do and would like to do more regularly. If you have a Vintage (or Middle School or Old School) event that you want us to hype, let us know! If it’s reasonable to put on our next episode, we will. First up, an event I found on The Mana Drain. The Lone Star Lhurgoyfs group is hosting a Vintage event Saturday, June 8 in Houston, Texas. They have a nice writeup, it’s at a bar, and they’re going to raffle off some pretty awesome looking Eldrazi proxies. Check that out if you’re near Houston. In Warren, Ohio, there are two Vintage Eternal Weekend Trials, on Friday, June 14 and Sunday, June 16 at Bottom Dollar Trading. Those events should just be crawling with Team Serious members, so it should be a lot of fun. And Josh is looking forward to the TinFinVitational events in Denver, being run the same weekend as that city’s Magic Fest at the Whittier Pub. There’s a Vintage event on Friday, July 19, and a Legacy event on Sunday, July 21. Take a look if you’ll be playing in GP Denver, and say hey to Josh. Questions for Discussion So! What do you think of Collector Ouphe? Did you know how to pronounce “ouphe” before we did? Did you see Filip Burburan’s great art? The Ouphe is stealing the power from an Aether Vial! Are there other Easter eggs in the art? What other Modern Horizons cards are you excited about? Do you have a local Vintage or other event coming up that you want us to give a shoutout to? Let us know! Conclusion Thanks for listening! If you found this show because of our free Wizards preview card for Modern Horizons, welcome. We hope you enjoyed your time here. 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 October 29th, 2018.For episode 33, Geoff Moes (@ThallidTosser on Twitter), Nat Moes (@GrandpaBelcher), and Josh Chapple (@joshchapple) talk with Josh McCurley (@infant_no_1) about Eternal Weekend and the food of Pittsburgh. Here’s the timestamped table of contents for your listening ease and enjoyment:00:24 – Slinging Cards with Josh McCurley03:26 – “Josh, What’s the Vintage Metagame?”42:21 – Eating Out Pittsburgh53:03 – OutroFull runtime – 54:16 Enter the Forest Bear Josh McCurley visits from Texas, where he’s a Magic judge and Eternal formats aficionado. Online he streams Vintage on MTGO regularly and has even dabbled in Arena recently, all with a penchant for the Portal card Forest Bear. Despite focusing mainly on Mishra’s Workshop-based strategies himself, Josh keeps a close eye on other archetypes and is willing to experiment with radical lists he concocts or that his viewers send him. Plus, he has to recognize how other strategies are doing if he wants to beat them, right? So we brought him in as an expert. As further evidence of his expertise, Josh and Nat once played a casual Vintage game of Lantern Control versus Jester’s Scepter Uba Mask and—thanks to Ensnaring Bridge, Uba Mask, and some other dumb artifacts—finished as an actual, no-winner draw. Reminded of this, Josh said, “We are so good at Vintage.” Predictions on Eternal Weekend Note: Since our knowledge of Eternal Weekend was admittedly muddled, you should visit Card Titan for all the details. Vintage right now is a battle between five top decks: Ravager Workshops, Paradoxical Outcome Storm, Jeskai Control (or some flavor of blue-based control), Dredge, and Oath. None of the decks can beat all of the others, so there’s a tug-of-war at the metagame level as players try to pick which deck they feel will be best equipped to beat most of their opponents and then tune to make their poor matchups slightly better. For example, if you think there’s going to be a large number of Workshop decks, you would play PO Storm to beat them and then work to combat Jeskai’s draw engine and countermagic so you don’t lose too many points there. But then if you think there’s going to be a lot of PO Storm, you play Jeskai and try to adjust to beat Workshops in the sideboard. And then Oath or Dredge show up, being all weird, and just decimate an unprepared field. Good luck! Defending Champion: Workshop AggroAndy Markiton won last year’s North America Vintage Champs with Ravager MUD, and the strategy hasn’t changed drastically since then. The prison builds of years past have been replaced by a kind of aggressive tempo deck. Instead of slowing an opponent down with lots of Sphere of Resistance effects, Workshop players speed themselves up with Foundry Inspector and have a kind-of combo win with Arcbound Ravager and Walking Ballista. It’s similar to other formats’ Affinity lists; they may not hinder an opponent’s plan at all, except for putting them on an exceptionally fast clock. Expect to face it multiple times and be prepared to do better than one-for-one artifact and creature removal if you want to win. The Newcomer: Paradoxical OutcomeWhen Paradoxical Outcome debuted in Kaladesh, every Vintage player looked at it and said, “Oh, yeah, that card’s absurd.” It finally hit its stride as a combo engine and has a few different looks as players decide which colors they like and which win conditions they want to use—usually some mix of Tendrils of Agony, Monastery Mentor, Time Vault, and Blightsteel Colossus. These lists can range from very aggressive storm-focused strategies (almost like Pitch Long or TPS) to those that are happy to build more slowly to the win (similar to old Gifts Ungiven lists in pace). Outcome preys on Workshop decks because it has a lot of free mana and a generally faster clock, but it can struggle against counterspells if it can’t resolve its bombs. The Comeback Kid: SurvivalSurvival of the Fittest has been around for a long time and is good enough to be banned in Legacy. But it made a startling resurgence in Vintage when it took first at Asia Vintage Champs. This is thanks to the printing of Hollow One, which gives it a beefy aggro plan to go along with its toolbox of searchable answers to other strategies. It’s a novel look for a Vintage deck—lots of green, not a lot of blue or artifacts—and players may lose percentages just because they won’t know how to play against it. Of course, players who pick up the deck might suffer from unfamiliarity as well. Answering creatures is good, but Survival relies on its namesake enchantment and Bazaar of Baghdad to find and make threats, so stopping activated abilities is also strong. The Contender: Jeskai ControlWe lumped most of the blue-based control decks together even though they encompass a wide variety of colors and flavors. Most players agree that restricted blue cards, Preordains, and Force of Wills make a powerful broth and are then happy to add their favorite flavor of win condition, everything from Monastery Mentor, to Tinker, to Jace, the Mind Sculptor. These decks like to draw and filter cards and tend to win the game, really, by having better natural access to efficient answers and threats. That is: it’s difficult to focus on one particular card to stop because all the cards do the same thing. Workshop decks tend to do well against Jeskai Control because artifacts like Sphere of Resistance and Phyrexian Revoker can hinder the blue deck’s ability to effectively keep its hand full. The Fading Star: Oath of DruidsIs Oath a fading star? It hasn’t been popular or done particularly well recently, but it seems like it could be a dark horse in the current metagame. Oath can do well against creature-based strategies like Mishra’s Workshop and Survival decks, especially if it can remove or ignore their answers, typically Grafdigger’s Cage or Containment Priest. And Oath can easily play Preordain and restricted blue cards, so it can potentially keep up with Jeskai Control lists as it looks to resolve its one important spell. Griselbrand is a powerful demon companion, and there are any number of other useful, powerful creatures would make potential inclusions, but no one seems to have devised a list that wins consistently. Between commonly played hate (since Grafdigger’s Cage pulls double duty against Oath and Dredge) and a heavy reliance on one idea, Oath struggles. The Underground: DredgeWhen Dredge was totally a graveyard-based deck, it seemed to gain strength when opponents had become complacent, forgotten about it, and shaved graveyard hate from their sideboards. Now, again because of Hollow One, it has a solid backup plan that might not need to touch the graveyard at all. It’s consistent metagame terror, particularly in the hands of a knowledgeable pilot, and it will win a lot of games against prepared and unprepared opponents alike. To beat Dredge, apply a lot of varied graveyard answers (different types and costs of permanents and spells), and don’t forget about Hollow One. Void Winnower beats all of these decks. Eternal Weekend Dining in Pittsburgh We had a few food recommendations for Pittsburgh. Primanti Brothers is kind of a Steel City tradition. They make big sandwiches that frequently include the french fries in the sandwich (a concession to steel workers who needed to eat their lunch in a hurry). Hopefully your waiter sticks around. The Original Hotdog Shop, better known as “The O,” is kind of a Magic: The Gathering tradition, as it was the frequent meeting spot of Team CMU, one of the early premier Pro Tour teams, which was based in Pittsburgh. You can get giant fries, burgers, hotdogs, and beer in this casual, college atmosphere. Open late. Last year’s hits for Team Serious were Emporio and Starlite Lounge, each of which specializes in its own brand of comfort food. Emporio calls itself “A Meatball Joint” and lets you choose your meatball, sauce, and method of conveyance (pasta, bun, or fries). This was literally all I heard about after Eternal Weekend last year. Starlite Lounge appeared on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives and serves three kinds of pierogis, as well as other home-cooked Polish diner food. Nearby the convention center, Josh recommended Condado for their tacos and margaritas. They do a good job offering creative combination tacos, as well as letting you build your own. You’ll have to challenge yourself to see if you can acquire margaritas on the run between rounds. This year Team Serious members Jerry Yang and Rajah James had some recommendations of places they’ve been and places they were looking to try. In no particular order:● Robert Wholey & Co. for seafood and fish sandwiches.● Gaucho Parrilla Argentina for fresh South American food.● Ephasus Mediterranean for pizza with a Turkish twist.● Nicky’s Thai Kitchen for Thai food voted best in Pittsburgh.● Yuva Indian Kitchen for Indian food, including lots of vegetarian options.● Lulu’s Noodles for various Asian noodle dishes, including pho, pad thai, and ramen.● Bangal Kabab House for Indian tandoori dishes and kebabs. If you find anything you like, be sure to let us know for future years! Questions for Discussion What scares you most about the current Vintage metagame? What scares you most about a seafood buffet in Pittsburgh? Conclusion Thanks for listening! We hope our view of the Vintage metagame was helpful and insightful, or at least entertaining. Have fun in Pittsburgh. 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.

We have a UW deck worth talking about and man is it bold! During this episode we dive into why the UW control deck piloted by Brad Barclay is something to celebrate and dissect some key choices. Next we explore two other cards left out of Kaladesh Remastered, and what that means for the future of Historic.I have my first impressions with a live take at ~26:00 when discussing the future of historic, leaving out Smuggler's Copter and Walking Ballista, and what that actually means for our format.Opening Theme:Magic Scout Cottages by Kevin MacLeodhttps://filmmusic.io/song/4672-magic-scout-cottagesClosing Theme:Getting it Done by Kevin MacLeodhttps://filmmusic.io/song/3801-getting-it-done

If you're an overpowered Magic card in Pioneer, your days are numbered. The entire Pioneer Magic community was shocked by the sudden banning of Walking Ballista, Inverter of Truth, Kethis the Hidden Hand, and Underworld Breach. While players had been calling for some kind of shake up in the format, nobody expected Wizards to make such a decisive move that would not only 'nerf' one deck, but a handful of them all at once. In today's episode we dive deep into the reasons behind the bannings, how the bannings will affect each archetype in Pioneer, and also which decks have the most to gain from this shakeup. If you're a player trying to make sense of things after your favorite card was banned, or if you are a returning player that is looking to pick up a new deck in this fresh meta, the First Pioneers and special guest MTGO grinder Harry13 cover a variety of options for both of you. While I'm sure some people will claim that their deck is dead, perhaps with a change or two your deck will be back on its feet with a new way to win! Be sure to listen to all of our suggestions and insights, and leave some of your own if you want!   Our Discord: https://discord.gg/SBRF8DH Our Twitter: https://twitter.com/MtgPioneer

A surprise early episode release for a surprise banlist. Strike up the band, throw some streamers, pour the drinks cuz WE DID IT! With multiple bans across several formats there's a lot to unpack so take a listen to what the boys think.Want to keep up with the show? Join our Discord https://discord.gg/jNAj7jx or follow us on twitter @Crew3podcastWant more Pioneer content? Check out our YouTube channel or watch our weekend streams on Twitch.If you like the show, please share us with your friends and leave a review!

Faithless Brewing, Episode 38: Heliod, Sun-Crowned All things must come to an end, and for Mox Opal, that end proved to be a rather unceremonious bludgeoning with the ban hammer in Modern. Also banned are Oko, Thief of Crowns (yet again) and Mycosynth Lattice (thank you, next), the largest shakeup in Modern since... the printing of Throne of Eldraine. The crew pours one out for the fallen victims of last week's B&R, and takes another look ahead at promising new printings from Theros: Beyond Death.But while the sun sets on an entire era, another sun rises, in both Modern and Pioneer -- specifically Heliod, the Sun-Crowned, who is perhaps the most hotly anticipated printing from Theros: Beyond Death. Heliod's infinite damage combo with Walking Ballista has echoes of Saheeli Felidar, or even (some say) Splinter Twin. Can the new God possibly live up to the hype? In truth, Heliod Ballista is an enormously mana intensive combo, but there are sneaky tools available to shave on mana costs and arrive at a leaner, meaner 1-2 combo punch. In Modern, this can also mean eschewing Ballista altogether, and instead pursuing infinite life with Spike Feeder or Kitchen Finks. And if that fails? Well, nothing says we can't turn our 5/5 indestructible beater sideways. Will any of these decks rise to glory? Let's find out! Roundup: Modern B&R + Theros Previews  Modern B&R Announcement • Oko: total days legal, by format • Mox Opal: end of era  Flashback: Ghirapur Orrery  Sultai Dredge (David): 2-3 league Simic Lands (David): 2-3 league Simic Midrange (Damon): 3-2 league  Brew Session: Heliod, Sun-Crowned  Modern Sketch 1: Soul Sisters Company  Pioneer Sketch 2: Azorius Owl Midrange Sketch 3: Selesnya Enchantments Ramp Sketch 4: Orzhov Heliod Walkers Bonus Sketch: Boros Reckoner Midrange Bonus Sketch: Bant Vannifar Heliod Bonus Sketch: Bant Heliod Flash Bonus Sketch: Basic Mono-W Heliod  Contact Us  If you like our show, be sure to join our Patreon and leave us an Apple Podcasts review. Thank you for your support! Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/faithlessbrewing Twitter: @FaithlessMTGEmail: faithless.brewing@gmail.com Homepage: faithlessbrewing.podbean.com

In This Weeks Episode: This week Travis gets to tell Mike about the new cards we see in Ravnica. Links to Things Mentioned in This Episode 8 New Promos for MTGO (Ash Barrens, Chalice of the Void, Flusterstorm, Grafdigger’s Cage, Hostage Taker, Hydroblast, Pyroblast, Walking Ballista) https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-online/guilds-ravnica-magic-online-edition-2018-09-19 Banned and Restricted List Update October 1st https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/798862-poll-what-cards-do-you-want-banned-or-unbanned-in ... Read more MTGYou #198 – Back on Ravnica

With Dave heading to GP Birmingham this weekend, we take a look at the Standard metagame.  Karn and Walking Ballista are starting to appear in the majority of decks.  Will this format get old fast?   Other topics include Wizards updating their Magic Online conduct, Arena economy, and our favorite villains.  The Cardhoarder Podcast is proudly sponsored by Cardhoarder.com Email us at cardhoarderpodcast@gmail.com Magic Online Conduct Update - 4:38 Arena economy update - 17:11 Standard metagame - 23:41 Cardhoarder After Dark - 44:38 Music provided by Terrible Spaceship Conor's Twitter: @conorpodonnell | Twitch: conor_od Nathaniel's Twitter: @Cardhoarder | Twitch: Cardhoarder Dave's Twitter: @DaveSea89 | Twitch: davesea  

There are format truths in Standard, Modern, and Legacy, but people don't always come to the same conclusions. In this episode, Gerry and Bryan agree on the truths of the formats, but take wildly different approaches to adapting to those truths. How do aggro decks hold their ground against Walking Ballista and a bevy of removal? How do you get an edge in the Hymn to Tourach / Kolaghan's Command grindfest in Legacy? Humans and Hollow One are the best decks in Modern, but how do you beat them? How is everyone else going to beat them? While this is "just" an episode about deck selection for the coming weeks, it's a fascinating look at how people can tackle the same problems in different ways. Tournaments we're attending - 2:56 Standard - 7:49 How Gerry prepares for tournaments - 16:25 Modern - 20:28 Living End & Hallow One - 32:41 Bring to Light Scapeshift - 36:45 Why does Hollow One play bolt? - 52:05 Legacy - 57:05 Question of the week - 1:08:28 twitter.com/thegampodcast patreon.com/thegampodcast

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: […]