I have two that stand out for me.

One was at a small proxy tourney a few years ago. I was playing vs some kind of Storm deck with my Oath of Druids. I kept a hand with FoW+Blue, Mox, land, Tinker, Yawgwill, Voltaic Key, blank.
I counter his first attempt to go off and put down the Key, but fail to draw mana while he draws nothing but mana. Eventually, both of us drawing blanks for what feels like forever, he hardcasts (!) a Darksteel Colossus, and starts beating down.
At six life, I draw what I thought would be my last card - a mox Sapphire. I think for about five minutes, before coming up with the correct sequence here: Play Mox, Cast Tinker for Lotus. Sac Lotus for BBB, cast Yawgwill. Recast Lotus, Mox from 'yard, Recast Tinker using Lotus mana for Time Vault, activate with the mana from the re-played Mox for infinite turns.
That was the first time I realised I was actually capable of finding small holes like this to eke out a win.

The other one was even better. It was sometime after that, and I was playing Two Card Monte vs Gush Storm. My opponent had succesfully gotten rid of Leyline and managed to kill a Helm. I had a Welder, an artifact, and an untapped Ancient Tomb in play, when he begins to storm off. Ritual, ritual, ritual, Demonic for Yawgwin, recast the rituals, recast demonic. At this point I say: "Hold it, I want to respond. Tap Welder, sac artifact, to get my Helm back in play, tap Tomb to activate it for 1. Ok?" He thinks for a minute, shrugs, then tries to put a card in his 'yard. At this point I say, "hold it, your deck is now removed from game.", and he goes "What?" "Read Yawgmoth's Will. It Leylines you..." He looked so dejected after that, I actually felt sorry for him.
But yeah. I won a game, and the match, because my opponent resolved a Yawgwin. How often has that happened in the history of Magic?

So, I've not played Vintage in a while. Mostly because of real-life concerns (toddlers and work take up amazing amounts of time), but I have retained interest in the format, and been reading up things that have been happening. I have a few thoughts:

I think Mentor is worse than Tinker. Some people keep saying Mentor is "only" a 2/2 creature for 3. It's not. Mentor is two Storm spells that keep storming after being cast. For three mana. With a free 2/2 body attached.
The only finisher that even resembles that kind of power is Mind's Desire, and that costs 6(!) mana without a free body, and only keeps going during the same turn, if you're lucky, and it's unrestricted. I don't see anyone arguing Desire is safe for unrestriction.
I don't know enough about Gush to have a valid opinion on the matter, but (correct me if I'm wrong), Gush was played in pretty much all blue decks prior to its restriction, correct? Post-restriction, the only Blue deck that remained viable was Mentor. That, to me, says two things:
A) Gush was unarguably the best blue draw engine - everyone used it (reducing deckbuilding choices, although not necessarily strategic diversity). Hence, IMO, it was a viable target for restriction (but not for the reason given), but since it did allow a variety of strategies to abuse it, it was not a necessary target. Brainstorm was much the same, and was allowed in the format for much longer. Again, I'm no Gush expert, and whether the ubiquitous card in question was Gush, Brainstorm, or whatever, doesn't really matter.
B) Post-restriction of Gush, only Mentor remained as a viable Blue deck, because of 1) the density of 0-1 mana restricted card drawing/filtering spells combined with 2) Mentor is busted.

From B), there are three possibilities (I think). One, Mentor is a fair target for restriction - it's broken. However, I don't think this will end Workshop's dominance. I may be wrong there. It's possible Mentor decks are too good against the decks that beat Workshop, and that with Mentor gone, those decks will once again have free(er) range to feed on it. It's also possible that with Mentor, the one thing that kept at least a deck in the fight gone, Workshops will simply reign supreme, and that part of the problem will have to be addressed some other way.

A third possibility is that a critical mass of restricted draw spells has been reached, Mentor is only a symptom and the blue tempo decks will simply switch to the next best threat and keep dominating the Blue part of the metagame without significantly shaking up the rest of it. I don't think this is the case.
IF it is, though, short of outright banning some cards (against the point of Vintage, IMO), or banning specific card combinations, maybe there should simply be a restriction on how many restricted cards a deck can play?

OK, enough rambling. If you've made it through all that, kudo's.

@brass-man Cool!
I live not too far from Eindhoven (Nijmegen, myself). Good place to go out for a few beers as well.

@griselbrother said in What are some Common Vintage Tips & Tricks Everyone Should Know?:

@thecravenone said in What are some Common Vintage Tips & Tricks Everyone Should Know?:

@griselbrother Cool, thanks for the input!

You're welcome, I'm glad you're with me. It would be a pretty bad article on tips and tricks if really basic stuff was to be included.

But a surprisingly large number of people still get these things wrong, basic or not, so they're useful tips, and a generic "know how your cards work" is IMO less useful than mentioning specific things people get wrong.

Oath of Druids doesn't trigger if both players have the same amount of creatures. People do that wrong all the time.
Also, Pithing Needle does nothing vs Oath.

@wagner Fair enough. I'm by no means an expert, but was merely brainstorming. And maybe the Moxen do make all the difference.

@macdeath said in [GRN] Experimental Frenzy:

@fsecco I understand how the deck works (even golfished it for a couple games to educate myself). However it's just extremely inefficient in comparison to several combos that are already unplayable in vintage.
Also that deck is just that: something you goldfish. Try to play that in a real game against any viable Vintage deck and see how good it does...
That deck gets foiled by so many commonly played cards it's not even funny and is literally unable to interact MD (seriously, not even Defense Grid which would be the only reason to play that deck in the first place).
It's Basically a Glass canon version of outcome to gain half a turn in terms of average speed. You get something with a similar speed to a DPS/Bargain deck but with a resiliency similar to a belcher deck.

So play it in a Belcher deck maybe? Card seems a decent way to instantly restart the combo when you've blown your hand and got stopped somehow. So in a weird way reducing the glass-cannon-ness of Belcher.

TBH, I don't know that it's such an extremely new idea. The first Oath deck I played (way back in the dark ages), utilised Null Rod and the full complement of Wastelands + strip mine to even the odds against all the dual lands, moxes and Lotuses I didn't have and then win with Oath, Tinker+Sundering Titan or one of the other haymakers in the deck before they could recover/get rid of it.
Worked like a charm then. I've thought for a while now that with PO decks on the rise and Workshop's artifact creatures actually having activated abilities that it might be a good time to dust that version off the deck again, but with no local Vintage community, family commitments and work I just haven't had the opportunity.
I could try to bring my Vintage decks when I travel for work (which is a lot), but unless I'm certain there's Vintage to be played where I'm going I'm a little hesitant to carry around tens of thousands of dollars in cards.
Only thing I'm a little fuzzy on is what Oath targets to run. You want the package to be as tight as possible, but able to kill quickly. The new Niv-Mizzet looks very spicy as an Oath target for a hybrid Oath/Storm kill, but then I've always liked the clean focus of Demonic-Tutor-Demon into Time Walk into regrowth/recoup as it didn't add any extra cards to the combo (both Time Walk and Regrowth are cards you were happy to play then).

@brass-man Cool!
I live not too far from Eindhoven (Nijmegen, myself). Good place to go out for a few beers as well.

Considering going to Spiel myself depending on whether or not I'm travelling for work.
Give me a shout about when you're planning to go to meet up for drinks. (And please, at least take a small trade binder!)
Where exactly are you gonna go in the Netherlands (and Germany, I live near enough on the border)?

@topical_island said in [M19] Tezzeret, Artifice Master:

@chubbyrain Misusing commas, is, irresponsible regard,less of intent. How dare you sir,

For some reason I read this in Captain Kirk, and it worked perfectly. So now we know. Kirk's speech pattern wasn't bad acting, he was acting dyslectic!

I have two that stand out for me.

One was at a small proxy tourney a few years ago. I was playing vs some kind of Storm deck with my Oath of Druids. I kept a hand with FoW+Blue, Mox, land, Tinker, Yawgwill, Voltaic Key, blank.
I counter his first attempt to go off and put down the Key, but fail to draw mana while he draws nothing but mana. Eventually, both of us drawing blanks for what feels like forever, he hardcasts (!) a Darksteel Colossus, and starts beating down.
At six life, I draw what I thought would be my last card - a mox Sapphire. I think for about five minutes, before coming up with the correct sequence here: Play Mox, Cast Tinker for Lotus. Sac Lotus for BBB, cast Yawgwill. Recast Lotus, Mox from 'yard, Recast Tinker using Lotus mana for Time Vault, activate with the mana from the re-played Mox for infinite turns.
That was the first time I realised I was actually capable of finding small holes like this to eke out a win.

The other one was even better. It was sometime after that, and I was playing Two Card Monte vs Gush Storm. My opponent had succesfully gotten rid of Leyline and managed to kill a Helm. I had a Welder, an artifact, and an untapped Ancient Tomb in play, when he begins to storm off. Ritual, ritual, ritual, Demonic for Yawgwin, recast the rituals, recast demonic. At this point I say: "Hold it, I want to respond. Tap Welder, sac artifact, to get my Helm back in play, tap Tomb to activate it for 1. Ok?" He thinks for a minute, shrugs, then tries to put a card in his 'yard. At this point I say, "hold it, your deck is now removed from game.", and he goes "What?" "Read Yawgmoth's Will. It Leylines you..." He looked so dejected after that, I actually felt sorry for him.
But yeah. I won a game, and the match, because my opponent resolved a Yawgwin. How often has that happened in the history of Magic?

So, I'm thinking of going to GP Amsterdam for side events. Is it a good idea to have,Dan Frasier (who will be there) sign my Moxes?