I'm not totally sure if any BoM organizers are on TMD, but this is event is too important to ignore! If any mor- official TO's want to put up a more-official thread, just let me know and I can get rid of/move this one.

The first ever European Vintage Champs is over, and Joan Anton Mateo bested a field of 94 to take home a Mox Jet original painting

Congrats to the whole top 8! (but especially my buddy Maarten, who was due for a good finish)

lots of great info can be found on the BoM site here:
Overview
Decklists

Despite a bunch of problems with the stream (mostly regarding sound levels) i very much enjoyed watching it. Thorn Decks had a very strong showing, in a lot of variations. Iam impressed with Rob Mesotten for navigating a Storm deck with 3 Defense Grids Maindeck through that kind of field to a top 8 finish. Congratulations to all the top 8 Players.

That Oath deck seems pretty neat. It's like GG Oath without Tinker/Blightsteel. I played around with lists like that, and I always felt like Griselbrand and Emrakul was where I wanted to be. Thanks for posting this!

Lodestone and Chalice nuked and half the top 8 is still Sphere Workshop.dec Big names gonna get Workshop axed finally or is it gonna be Thalia and TKS lol.

LOL 4 Misstep Shops. Restricting Misstep would be the best thing for the non-Thorn decks. They would be forced to play counterspells with text like we did before the abortion that is Phyrexian mana.

@Serracollector Honestly, if shops were to have an utterly crushing weekend next weekend my odds would be on arcbound ravager getting the axe over Workshop itself.

Not saying this is an optimal idea, but if solely worried about workshop decks, it's the one that would get hit.

TKS is the other choice, but I'm not well versed enough in jacodrazi to know if that dec could survive the loss of tks, and I think jacodrazi is a good thing for the format.

@Islandswamp
(Reposting from the thread with link to coverage) check out game one of the quarter finals, oath vs white Eldrazi. Commenters pretty much wrote it off on seeing the emrakul on the board but one of the most entertaining oath matches since the VSL in which Dave Williams managed to come back after Rich drew 14

@Prospector said:

@Islandswamp
(Reposting from the thread with link to coverage) check out game one of the quarter finals, oath vs white Eldrazi. Commenters pretty much wrote it off on seeing the emrakul on the board but one of the most entertaining oath matches since the VSL in which Dave Williams managed to come back after Rich drew 14

Can you post the direct link? Or at least a link to the thread with the coverage? Thanks!

Did anyone else see the fetch land vampiric tutor that happened in the semi finals between the eventual champion and w eldrazi. The mentor deck needed to find a swords to not lose to TKS beats, he fetched and pulled out the swords, shuffled and clearly was keeping it where he wanted it, and then drew it like the next turn. Seemed pretty blatant.

EDIT: added images

These players seemed really sloppy for the most part anyway, and the tournament was 91 players. But yeah, that vampiric tutor seemed like blatant cheating.

@garbageaggro There was also the classic Preordain, scry 2, put both in your hand by Yves in round 4. Hopefully, both incidents are investigated by the DCI.

Edit: I tweeted Helene Bergeot linking to your post. Hopefully something comes of it.

Edit 2: And sent an email to investigations@wizards.com

@ChubbyRain at least he got a game loss for that though, or at least I am pretty sure he did. (I was watching, but a little distracted taking care of the kids here.)

Not sure if there is a youtube channel, here is the twitch archive with both days. https://www.twitch.tv/bazaar_of_moxen/videos/all

Big ups to DPS making top 8! Its not dead.

Sadly had the Wheldrazi player revoked the mox even the free mysticalled Supreme Verdict wouldn't have won and that savage would have been left in the dust. Wonder how many people he vamped into the losers bracket during the 7 (?) rounds?

@H. said:

@ChubbyRain at least he got a game loss for that though, or at least I am pretty sure he did. (I was watching, but a little distracted taking care of the kids here.)

If it was the game in which he was already losing, then I'm not sure it's that much of a punishment. Part of what was damning in that circumstance is he was behind and needed an answer to Displacer and ultimately something to Show and Tell (the last card in his hand) into play and he kept Emrakul and Preordain for that. It seemed calculated, rather than just sloppy.

A major problem with unsanctioned Vintage events is that there isn't a system in place to report GRVs and look for patterns of behavior that establish malevolent intent. It was this that led to Alex Bertoncini's second suspension as he accumulated penalties in situations that always seemed to benefit him. That and the trusting/casual nature of Vintage creates an environment for cheaters to prosper unfortunately.

@ChubbyRain definitely not disputing that the penalty was minor at best. At least it was given though. I mean, you are right, the rules don't really punish a "hail Mary" cheating play like that enough.

I have watched several times the video on twitch and while it's true that swords appears more than once, he shuffles his deck apparently enough AND his opponent cuts his deck. So, unless he has powers to know where his opponent is going to cut, the "fetch tutor" seems just luck. Sorry, but I don't see evidences of cheating after seeing the video.

https://www.twitch.tv/bazaar_of_moxen/v/96659949?t=10h23m01s here is the link to the supposed vamp for STP. Its better to watch the video then look at a few grainy snapshots.

I don't believe he's actually trying to cheat here. From the start of the video he cracks the fetch and notices 2 STPs right next to one another. He then de-clumps them by moving one of the STPs to a different position in the deck, which is perfectly fine to do assuming that the deck is randomized after. He doesn't move the STP to the top, but jams it somewhere in the upper 1/3 of his deck as you can see in the first picture as well. Then he shuffles his deck. Its hard to see as the sleeves blend in with the table cloth, but it appears that the top card is being changed. He does flash a STP on top at some point, and continues to shuffle. To finish it off, he presents his deck and his opponent then cuts the deck, so shuffling the STP to the top wouldn't have worked anyway. Sure, its a little odd that he de-clumped the exact card he needed to draw and then drew it, but it appears to just be coincidence.

@xouman, @Vnayin If his opponent is consistently cutting him, he could try to manipulate the card so that it is in the middle of the deck. Which brings up a key point: Always shuffle your opponent's deck instead of just cutting. I would also point out that "declumping" while legal in the event you sufficiently shuffle the deck afterwards, is at best unnecessary and at worst leads to situations like this where doubt is cast on the outcome of the game. Really, a random deck is likely to have clumps of cards, that's just how randomization works. Anyone who plays on MTGO has experienced it.

In this case, I emailed WotC with the video and the screenshots, they are the ones who decide what if anything should be done, and it's out of my hands. This just serves as a PSA with US Champs this weekend.