First up, the tournament announcement:

What:

$20, 10 proxy, unsanctioned Classic tournament.

Where:

The Comic Book Depot
2847 Jerusalem Ave
Wantagh, N.Y.
11793
(516) 221-9337

When:

Sunday, August 7th
11:30 am registration
12:00 noon start

Prize Support:

1st - English Legends Mana Drain (guaranteed at 10 players)
2nd - TBA - (guaranteed at 15 players)
3rd/4th - $50 Depot credit (guaranteed at 20 players)

I have created a Facebook page for the format, and a lot of questions have been answered there already:

https://www.facebook.com/classicmtg/

If you have questions about the format, please direct your questions either to me directly, or to Facebook (so that we can keep this tournament announcement as a, you know, tournament announcement...).

What is Classic M:tG?

Classic is a format dedicated to the first 10 years of Magic; all sets from Alpha through Scourge are legal (only old-bordered cards are legal) in this format.

The clearest way to explain this is to call it what it is; old Vintage. There were a lot of great decks in that era; Keeper, BBS, Tog, TNT, Suicide Black, Sligh and much, much more.

Damage stacks and mana burns in this format!

The B&R list:

Ancestral Recall
Balance
Black Lotus
Black Vise
Braingeyser
Burning Wish
Channel
Demonic Consultation
Demonic Tutor
Fact or Fiction
Fastbond
Flash
Gush
Imperial Seal
Library of Alexandria
Lion's Eye Diamond
Lotus Petal
Mana Crypt
Mana Vault
Memory Jar
Merchant Scroll
Mind Twist
Mind's Desire
Mox Emerald
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Mox Ruby
Mox Sapphire
Mystical Tutor
Necropotence
Regrowth
Shaharazad
Sol Ring
Strip Mine
Stroke of Genius
Time Walk
Timetwister
Tolarian Academy
Vampiric Tutor
Wheel of Fortune
Windfall
Yawgmoth's Bargain
Yawgmoth's Will

Time Vault goes back to its old functionality; in order to untap it, you must skip a turn and put a counter on it. In order to take an extra turn, you must tap Time Vault and remove a counter.

The Wishes (Cunning Wish, Burning Wish, Living Wish, Death Wish, Golden Wish) are all able to find cards that were either removed from the game, or are located in your sideboard.

Illusionary Mask goes back to its prior functionality; creatures played under a Mask are unable to be countered, and as they've already come into play, their entering play triggers won't happen (a quick way to communicate this it to say that Illusionary Mask and Phrexian Dreadnought work well together).

The BEST resource for decks, ideas, and threads, is old TMD:

http://www.archive.themanadrain.com/index.php?www

I hope to see you all there!

Working hard to get my hulk smash list under 10 proxy!

Is the "old-bordered" clause a rule of thumb for legality (as with Modern) or an aesthetic requirement (as with Old School)?

Edit: After figuring out how the new-fangled FB page setup works, I was able to find the answer:
"New border cards of any sort are not legal, proxies or not. This may seem absurd, but the whole point of the format is to play exclusively with old bordered cards."

Good luck with the event. I hope it's a resounding success!

Oh man this format looks so much fun. The chance to play Cunning Wish keeper or Survival/TNT again would be sooooooo much fun. Too short of notice for me, but I am very interested in this format!!!!!

For those that didn't play at this time, there are a TON of viable decks. Everything from budget mono-black to Ophidian Keeper.

Morphling.de is also a good source of decklists, from page 88-92

http://morphling.de/top8archives.php?id=87&format=1&country=&sorting=DESC&filterstring=

If there is one thing that deck building for this format has made me appreciate, its 15 proxys...the concessions that I have long forgotten about in a format where the "best decks" ran full P8 plus library, 6-8 Duals and 4 mana drains...wild. "Accessability to the format" is something oft spoken about today, but we are really spoiled by decks only running on color moxen, no drains and more non-dual land lands then ever before.

Back to your regularly scheduled program..

I can't make it to this because I'll be at Gen Con, but this format strikes up nostalgia in me in a way that Old School doesn't. I know EXACTLY what I would play in this event.

On the other hand, if anyone else is going to be at GenCon and is interested, I think I might bring a deck for this.

@Brass-Man said:

I can't make it to this because I'll be at Gen Con, but this format strikes up nostalgia in me in a way that Old School doesn't. I know EXACTLY what I would play in this event.

On the other hand, if anyone else is going to be at GenCon and is interested, I think I might bring a deck for this.

So true. While I love playing old school, and I love seeing old magic frames on the table, and LOVE seeing artifacts that are brown, I have to admit the games and deck variety of old school feels very swingy and top deck oriented. I still like the format, but when I think back to when I loved Vintage the most, it was two very distinct periods:

1.) The beginning- when every person's deck was their own, and everything was new (we can't go back there).
2.) 1999-2004 (minus the Tolarian Academy decks). Decks were so varied, so many different styles were playable (Mono (Black/Red/Green), Hand Destruction, Land Destruction, Keeper, Gro, TNT, Combo, Morphlings, Abyss's, Nether Voids, Zoo, Burn), I get excited just thinking about it.

Great format!

I hope you do well. Would also love to see a Alpha-Exodus (Necro-Zoo-Keeper format).

@Prospero said:

The BEST resource for decks, ideas, and threads, is old TMD:

http://www.archive.themanadrain.com/index.php?www

Can anyone actually access the archived site?

@5space Weirdly, at work I get a blank white page with Firefox or Chrome, but it works just fine on IE. On my phone or my home desktop, it works fine with whatever browser. Not sure what could cause that.

@5space it's some kind of browser/device specific bug. Some people can see it and some can't. I can see the archive site fine on my laptop (OSX/Chrome), but I can't see it on my desktop (Windows/Chrome). There's a thread about this in Meta, but I'm not close to figuring out what's wrong.

Yeah, I read that and just figured no one else could actually access it since I've now tried it on desktop (linux and windows 7, 10) using several browsers, laptop linux with several browsers, i-devices, and phone. Oh, well. Thanks, Brass Man

@Brass-Man probably doesn't help, it works fine on my Windows PC with Firefox (and Chrome). Also works fine on my Android phone with Chrome.