Are your opponents wrong if they get upset by the fact that you don't concede, yet you still get mad that they have the win and don't just win? If you get upset with that kind of thing, just concede. Or don't get upset and hope for your opponent to have a misstep and pass through their attacks.

Either way, your opponent is just playing their game, as you are. If you think you are wasting your time, just concede.

BTW: I am almost sure that the loss of focus you have when you get upset with that kind of thing lowers your % more than the chance of your opponent have a brain fart AND you still win the game after that. And not to mention quality of life(!!). Getting salty is bad only for you. Relax, take it easy.

So, it's a tournament with DevOps training between rounds?

I remember when I first started MTGO playing pauper goblins, I lost some amount of games to clock. And it was monored aggro. So, my hint here is: learn the commands first. Be familiar with your hotkeys, because now they will save you from getting timed out and even in the future they will save you tons of time. And in your example, don't just drop leagues.

In the beginning you will probably not get positive EV out of leagues. So you are actually playing $25 to play 6 or 7 rounds (25 is the challenge on saturday, which I recommend you not to play in the beginning, as it takes a lot more of time because of rounds and you probably won't get positive EV in the beginning) or $12 to play 5 rounds (leagues). So if you drop, you will actually be paying $25 to play 3 games instead of 6.

PS.: Triggers you always have a chance to respond (unless they are split second, obv). The thing about stops, is that in certain stops you can play something proactively. When a trigger goes to stack, you will always have a chance to respond it. The usual stops to maximize your time are:
Opp: upkeep, beginning of combat (unless they are playing that goblin that creates a token at beginning of combat, then you would have to have at main), end step;
Yours: Main, attack, block, main (end step is usually depending on the situation).

My advice is: focus on learning the UI. MTGO doesn't look modern, or anything like that, but for me it's the perfect way: is simulates a MTG match, just like in paper. And though it has some bugs, they are usually minor ones.

It isn't easy to get some value out of it, but it isn't hard also. Using the EV calculator at Goatbots.com, with 52% win rate you already have positive EV out of leagues. The prizes for tournaments are pretty nice, you can play whenever you want, don't have to interact if you don't feel like it, don't have to travel, wait for rounds (unless on challenge - but then you can wait watching some nice stuff on your computer), etc. Every program has it's bugs, and I don't recall MTGO having any major bug ATM (the only one that freaks me out is mindbreak trap not showing what you already have selected, I once lost because I had a bad mouse).

I don't know if you will, but I love playing vintage on MTGO.

PS.: If you don't have decks yet, these are my recommendations to building:
Search for archetypes
Bot chain (the best by far IMO)
Bot chain - not as good but can have a better price
Site with prices for tons of bots - This one has lots of other features too
Rarely, but sometimes it's got the best price

Oh, and another thing I forgot is that when you buy/sell on paper, you have to either do tons of research, wait some time for the card to arrive, and sell only to players to don't lose a lot of value out of it. But when you are buying/selling online and search for a lot of bots, most of the cards' higher buy price (bot buying from you) is pretty close to the lowest selling price. So you usually don't lose a lot of value/time when you buy something, then realize you don't want it and sell it again.

The deck is feeling pretty good. I started playing today and got 5-0, then got excited and played another league and... another 5-0!

Played:
2x Outcome
2x Jeskai mentor
2x Show and Tell/Oath
1x Mirror
1x Shops
1x blue belcher
1x monored moon (BM+magus)

Maindeck is feeling great, I lost only twice the first game, grudge is being awesome (being able to discard and costing 1 less is kinda 2 less cards to make it work when bazaaring, comparing to null rod). Pyroblast is also great, as people usually don't expect it and you use a 1 mana spell to protect a 2 mana spell or to stop your opponent to go off.

TL;DR: the red splash is really the way to go.

No lifelink is huge and has to pay for it's effect. As a survival player I'd be very happy to see this one being fetched instead of griselbrand.

Hey everyone! I'm kinda new to vintage, played legacy since 2013 and been playing vintage on MTGO since the VMA drafts made the P9 really cheap, so I guess my text will have some wrong ideas but I'd like some help to get to a new understanding of things here.

I got a concern about oath. Have you ever felt that griselbrand is no longer a good choice of creature for oath? I'm testing a 2 inferno titan 1 griselbrand build now with some conflicting results (been very good at challenges, but poor at leagues). Also, I've tested bryanpk's list on MTGO but got very poor results, probably because there's a lot more of complexity on it (specially for someone new to the format), and I really don't enjoy getting beaten out for 12 dollars each 5 games, so I decided to drop that and go to the more mainstream build of it.

I don't know how to list the deck here in a way that it stays organized, so I'll link the list I got kinda lucky last weekend with so that you have an idea what I've been working with: DECKLIST

One thing I noticed, is that post-board things usually go much slower for our opponents (hate in, business out usually), and oath end up becoming a really good tutor for our fatties with cage in play. I've been very lucky, on my probably 10 "caged oath" activations so far, I've always got to find what I needed (and could cast), the inferno titan. But that's a 33% chance of hitting griselbrand.

Other thing is that most of the times an inferno titan does the trick, and I'd even say that the % chance of winning with a inferno titan getting hit is higher than griselbrand. Maybe I'm taking too long and needing to get rid of the board when oath gets activated. I really don't have enough experience yet to say what's the matter here. But when I get griselbrand in hand that's pretty terrible. Except for the extra-long game or when you have 5 lands/moxen + lotus you just can't cast griselbrand, and it will always be a bad card to have in hand, as well as a bad card to discard to dack fayden (1 less target, as is inferno titan too). But inferno titan is ok to have in hand, because you can get to cast it a lot of times (most of the games, I'd say).

Maybe there's a better option (other creatures, or not doing this), but I guess I'll try dropping griselbrand for the 3rd inferno titan.

Other thing I've tried in the last challenge (which kinda worked out) was to drop the oaths against more controllish matchups. If we resolve a bomb, aka inferno titan or planeswalker, it's really hard to deal with, and sometimes oath does nothing with cage. Maybe it's better to make them have 4 dead cards (probably more, like nature's claim or whatever), and get to a more controlish "bomb-based" game. Maybe get more walkers and manarocks? Something in the sideboard? Have you ever dropped completely the oath plan for something else? Did that work out?

Other thing is, what do you think about punishing oath nowadays in vintage? It seems like a cool idea to get rid of aggro decks, planeswalkers, and to have some (very slow) inevitability, alongside it's card advantage engine with dack fayden and to kill excess of opponent's tokens or yours even when fighting against a oath deck to see who gets less creatures in play.

Sorry for the long and probably hard to understand text, but it's really hard to express myself when there are so many ideas combined with lack of knowledge about the format.

Seems like people aren't still understanding what ban/restriction is about. It's not about powerful cards. It's about the decks. It's always been.

Do anyone thing 'felidar guardian' was too strong for standard? The jeskai saheeli deck was.

Is paradoxical outcome too strong for the format? No, it's not.

Are decks that run gush and that would run more copies of gush balanced in the format? Yes, they are. Would they get opressive if gush was unbanned? Probably. The same goes to brainstorm. OH BUT MISSTEP... is usually run as a 4-of in those decks. Do you think those decks wouldn't run more copies of brainstorm? One of the closest card to recall to find relevant/strong cards.

Would you like to have jeskai mentor dominating the format again, or even other fair blue decks? I wouldn't. The format is each time more balanced in terms of numbers. We don't see any deck with more than 20% anymore, and if I'm not mistaken, when I started playing vintage (last year) it was 50% shops/jeskai. Now the 2 more dominant decks don't have 30% of the total results. And I think their win rate isn't as great as it was.

You ban/unban cards if you want to see the rise/fall (not the card) of decks. Sure, other decks can show up out of nowhere. But the least they have to do, is see what there is already. Bans should happen only when there's too much opression for a format. Unban should happen if you think no deck would become too unbalanced. There may be some cards worth unbanning, I don't know exactly all cards that are restricted/banned in the format to say "no card should be unbanned", but from those cards you are talking about, I don't see any that fit those requirements.

Trying the BUG version. So far it's been way too cool to play, so many different lines this can take, and our opponents can't always play around all of them. Against fair blue decks it's been AWESOME!

One mana for this? Seriously? Wow

In terms of quality from MTGO I think for a piece of software it's somewhere close to the best we can get at simulating a magic game. There are still some problems with the program itself but mostly with how much we can simulate a magic game with a software. I enjoy a lot it's interface, it's very easy, we have all the information we need, we can even buy more good-looking versions of cards if we want to. And considering the 'alternative' is MTGArena, sounds like MTGO is the best interface we will get and for me it's not a bad thing.

You said the things you lose on digital magic, but there are lots and lots of things we win. For me being able to play whenever I want and without losing time (a.k.a. playing 12 matches divided however you want in the same amount of time as a 4 rounds champs). But you guys are very different from me in terms of the paper magic feeling. Maybe because I couldn't afford vintage and the most iconic cards in magic, and even though we had FoW and dual lands I didn't have that feeling with my legacy decks (which I sold).

I, as someone who dropped paper magic to play only digital magic am probably very biased for it. But anyways, I enjoy a lot MTGO, and for me considering every aspect, even if we took the financial side out of the equation, the magic online experience for me is way better than paper magic. I've made a very big post not so long ago defending digital magic, and I don't want to repeat that as I know this is kind of different. But I just felt like MTGO deserved this defense.

Being able to go to your pc and play it when you don't have many other things to do and you are in the mood instead of having to play when you have lots of other things to do (FNMs, weekend champs) and you are not always on the mood. I mean... I rather play MTGO when I'm in good mood and want to, than play paper tournaments only when I'm able to.

#peace

Long championships are rarely a good experience for someone who is not into the competitive nature of mtg. It's actually why I completely dropped paper magic 3 years ago and I've never regreated it. Leagues are way more fun, we play as much as we want (and can), whenever we want. And that's what makes it awesome. And also that's not how challenges work. Challenges are like paper magic, which is bad.

It's good that you held yourself back. Sometimes we go with the flow and set ourselves up for a bad experience. Specially given how loud your complaints about the current state of vintage are. I've taken a time out, got an upgrade to my PC to play some better game and I'm playing from times to times. Makes the experience a lot better when I get to play.

Vintage or mtg isn't worse. It's just that we end up growing tired eventually. If someone doesn't grow tired of doing the same things everyday, something is wrong with that person.

@stormanimagus memory journey is to not get decked without shuffling back key cards (gaea's blessing's substitute for a graveyard dependant oath) and mind funeral beats dredge decks that play only 4 bazaar as lands... in theory at least.

I've tried the second list and being able to combo on the spot have been amazing. I was struggling against dredge because even though I got to activate oath against it like 80% of the time, I had less than 50% win rate. I just played a few matches against them and it seems way better of a matchup now. The only thing is that now list gets hit by graveyard hate. But this still seems better than the other versions and breach has been awesome.

So, it's a tournament with DevOps training between rounds?

It looks a lot like hanChoBai's turbo vengevines decks. They look like but are very different than survival. This one has mana, emry, recall and timewalk (and serpent?) to cast with mana. I wonder if those cards are worth not going manaless.

Seems more reliable than lab man, as if it gets killed you still win the game, rather than losing (which would be the case with kill lab man in response to drawing with no cards).

I think you'd have to have some way to get extra value by sacrificing this or something without being clunky. Otherwise, painful truths seems better.

@mergalf it depends on what you are trying to accomplish (aka your list). Can you post it?

Btw, please refer to bazaar as bazaar, we actually had dark confidant in some lists, so it gets a bit confusing.

Played a list with 3 OuaT, it felt pretty good. Honestly, before it the deck wasn't feeling good anymore. I had cut a Fow and 2 ouphe for it and the deck felt way more explosive.

I don't know about cutting survival without extra ajustment. OuaT may find bazaar, but if you rely too much on finding bazaar with it to be in the game, you're not in a favorable spot. Sometimes survival isn't great, but it's still the must-counter threat in fair matchups as it's always been.

Btw, how did sphynx perform? I felt OuaT gave the deck a lot of explosiveness, maybe your result was good more because of that change?

I've seen a lot of Pioneer videos. I was trying to get the feeling of the format. And I think I got it. Unfortunately it's not a good feeling. Didn't see any fun and excitement in none of the videos.

I think the problem is that it's still too close to standard. And standard is boring as hell.

And also, even though it's a brand new format, it doesn't seem new. Actually it's not brand new. Modern was new. Modern 2.0 is a format that is born kinda old.