https://www.wired.com/2017/04/geeks-guide-magic-gathering/

Interesting write up. Thought I would pass it on.

@withmk2 Nice! It took me a bit to find you on facebook to ask for it. Thanks for sharing your list. Feel free to hang out with the rest of us when you have the time. Congrats again on the title.

Here's the decklist typed up:

// Survival Salad

// 60 Maindeck
// 7 Artifact
1 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire

// 26 Creature
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Wonder
2 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Hooting Mandrills
1 Manglehorn
1 Spell Queller

// 7 Enchantment
4 Survival of the Fittest
3 Stony Silence

// 1 Instant
1 Ancestral Recall

// 18 Land
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
2 Tropical Island
1 Forest
3 Savannah
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Windswept Heath

// 1 Sorcery
1 Time Walk

// 15 Sideboard
// 4 Artifact
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Null Rod
2 Grafdigger's Cage

// 9 Creature
1 Kataki, War's Wage
4 Containment Priest
2 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Wispmare
1 Fairgrounds Warden

// 2 Enchantment
1 Energy Flux
1 Stony Silence

After digging, I found the answer. The only place that mentions this interaction is a ruling on Vesuvan Doppelganger.

12/1/2004
If a Doppelganger is flipped, and it copies a flip card in any state, it will copy both "sides" of that card but use the flipped side. If a Doppelganger is unflipped, and it copies a flip card in any state, it will copy both "sides" of that card but use the unflipped side. In the second case, if it ever meets the flip conditions of its new ability, it will flip and used the flipped side of what it is copying.

I thought when travelling through time and space you aren't supposed to meet your corresponding doppelgangers. Isn't that like rule 1?

If you are only interested in playing the game, I don't see proxies as being a problem. Back when I first joined here (just after Scourge IIRC) 10 proxy was the norm and people were pushing for 12-15. At this point what do we do to set a fair bar? Do we just go unlimited at this point, or set it at a dollar amount?

If you don't care about not being able to play in sanctioned Vintage, and your only gripe with not being able to get these cards is that it limits the decks you can plan, playtest cards are the answer. Proxies don't have to be sharpies on basic lands, especially if it is going to be something you use a lot. I've said it before, but I'd love for Wizards to do a gold bordered set of power and duals that would be officially licensed playtest cards. They would not be legal for sanctioned play, but sort of like an updated version of Collector's edition cards. Until that happens, I have been testing out printing these myself and they look pretty good. I'm still tweaking the colors as I find my printer is a little cyan heavy. I'm blanking everything but the border of my leftover Unhinged bulk and printing directly on the card using my color laser printer. The playtest cards look sharp and will never be confused for counterfeits. This means I can also leave my expensive stuff at home and not worry about it getting stolen or damaged.

This is the best version I've found, and you only need 2 cards in hand to fire it off.

T2 Snoop
T3 Boggart Harbringer putting Kiki-Jiki on top
Make the snoop clone itself an arbitrarily large number, then make it finally copy the Harbringer again, putting Mogg Fanatic or Sling-Gang Lieutenant on top of your library and sac them all.

I'm just using the free trial on Project Alpha, and happened to check out the episode of Spellslingers out today. Joseph Gordon-Levitt has a pretty decent collection. Gotta love Timming all your opponents creatures. The game reminded me of what it was like when I first started back in the 90s. I'd recomend giving it a watch if you have a membership.

As someone that started playing by buying unlimited starters and packs, the current permanent centric play feels more like the real origins of the game. The first time I saw a deck that didn't feel like really playing magic was when Prosbloom hit. That was not Magic to our playgroup.

I stopped playing at the beginning of the Urza block because it didn't feel like the same game. I got back into it right before Mirrodin block hit because I was working in a comic shop part time in Jasper Alberta. It was all young kids who just discovered it, and myself and a couple of older guys were teaching them. It reminded me why I got back into the game. They were all trying to cast ridiculously inefficient creatures that looked cool. It reminded me of turning Lord of the Pit, Shivan Dragon and Force of Nature sideways ftw.

I love Vintage, but it has never really felt like true Magic to me. The spell and combo centric nature of it was just a product of being able to cherry pick the top 1% of the cards available over decades of sets.

You could also target your tendrils, sac queller and cast the tendrils again for double storm.

Article from TCGPlayer

Some major changes are happening on the site.

It's been a while since I logged in, and this is the exact conversation I was hoping to find to get some answers. The last time I looked at Vintage staples a year or so ago, they looked like they were all dropping. Did something happen that I missed?

I haven't played paper Vintage in years and sold off all my power but my Lotus and Walk due to sentimental reasons. It's all been sitting in boxes as I moved on to other formats and then games. I still lurked here as I enjoyed keeping tabs on the format, but the last couple of years were kinda rough financially after getting laid off from my VFX studio, so I checked out of the game entirely. Yesterday I happened to randomly check out some prices and I couldn't believe what some of the staples were going for.

I started playing tail end of Unlimited buying packs at Microplay (Video game chain mainly based in Ontario Canada), played up until Combo winter, and joined TMD when I got back into it as Mirrodin dropped. I've seen usernames come and go over the years, and there are still quite a few from back then. I've been blessed because I've got playsets of random relatively expensive cards like transmute artifacts, replenish etc that were considered janky until someone broke it. Unfortunately I've also broken up sets over the years as I've needed cash, so I have 3 bazaars and 3 Alliances FoW because the 4th FoW is in my complete set. I'm not sure what to do any longer. On one hand, I've amassed a large collection with quite a lot of staples and I'm in a lot better position than many other players, but on the other hand it would still cost a lot to get back in.

in the mid 90's, we used to laugh at the miniwargamers because their hobby was so expensive compared to ours, but I could buy out most of a GW store with what I would need to buy in again. On a strict cost benefit analysis, looking at what high end board games cost and the amount of time you get out of them vs how much time I can get Vintage to the table, it doesn't look very good, and that's super depressing.

@80percentbuffoon

While Zoom may be an option, I can't see any large Con or Tournament that depends on WotC's good graces using Cockatrice unless they use it without any images, and I can't see any players wanting to use it without images, so you can't really use it as a viable above the counter option. It's pretty much the back room poker option for Magic at this point. The number of publicly viewable and joinable vintage games aren't that many; most are either playing privately with a select group of friends, or they are on private servers to control who gets in.

This is the best version I've found, and you only need 2 cards in hand to fire it off.

T2 Snoop
T3 Boggart Harbringer putting Kiki-Jiki on top
Make the snoop clone itself an arbitrarily large number, then make it finally copy the Harbringer again, putting Mogg Fanatic or Sling-Gang Lieutenant on top of your library and sac them all.

The craziest thing about this card is that there are 4 variants of the art, all slightly different. Its like being in Antiquities again.

Because there are 4 variants of the regular and 4 variants of the special frame, it has to be more common than other mythics. I wonder what that will do to its value.

I haven't seen it being used in ages, and without the mana acceleration in the newer formats, is it really relevant? It's kinda funny that this is now considered weak enough to see play in standard.

For those who still run it, I guess the question is do you run OG for nostalgia factor, or foil?

Netrunner had a controlled click and credit system instead of mana, and the FFG version, which was extremely well received, had identity cards that you built your deck around.

@billcopes Unrestricting Trinisphere. Enjoy your cheap 3 mana permanents. We then make a gentleman's agreement to play neither Lurrus or Trinisphere as more than a 1 of maindeck.

@jaco said in Vintaholics Anonymous:

The thing unique about Vintage is that it is specifically dedicated to be the eternal resting home for the hideous design mistakes of Magic past and present, even if we seek some semblance of balance every now and then. It is supposed to be wild and ever-changing.

Yup. One of the most interesting things Vintage does for me is seeing cards that were originally rarely played when released becoming bombs now that they interact with a card considered unplayable in a new set. A perfect example for me was what happened to flash when newer creatures came out. I've had a playset of them since Mirage as I bought a bunch of it when it came out. They just sat in my binder.

As someone that started playing by buying unlimited starters and packs, the current permanent centric play feels more like the real origins of the game. The first time I saw a deck that didn't feel like really playing magic was when Prosbloom hit. That was not Magic to our playgroup.

I stopped playing at the beginning of the Urza block because it didn't feel like the same game. I got back into it right before Mirrodin block hit because I was working in a comic shop part time in Jasper Alberta. It was all young kids who just discovered it, and myself and a couple of older guys were teaching them. It reminded me why I got back into the game. They were all trying to cast ridiculously inefficient creatures that looked cool. It reminded me of turning Lord of the Pit, Shivan Dragon and Force of Nature sideways ftw.

I love Vintage, but it has never really felt like true Magic to me. The spell and combo centric nature of it was just a product of being able to cherry pick the top 1% of the cards available over decades of sets.

Man... "sacrifice a food" is going to really irk me this block. I had a feeling this was going to end up being the templating, but seeing it on the card is another thing.