I play a variety of formats (mostly Vintage, 94, 95, and Middle School these days, with Modern and Legacy lagging far behind the past year or two). I enjoy playing different formats because they all offer different interactions, some overlap of cards used, and different things to enjoy. Rotating what you play and focus on helps ensure you never really tire of any of them, if you appreciate the differences between them. I have started organizing events based on this principle, and will continue to do so in the short term while it continues to interest me. Hopefully that mentality spreads.

• Vintage is basically at all time highs the past couple of years. Compared to other formats, it is always going to be viewed as on life support, because of the ever increasing cost of the cards. This will not change, even with so much new lifeblood being injected by MTGO and the VSL the past few years. Some people will shift in, while others age out or focus on family (or sell off collections for a final time to buy a house).
• Old School (and other similar retro formats) are growing in popularity for some of the same reasons that EDH/Commander is popular. Players don't have to pay attention to any real metagame to have fun, and they can jump in an out without much knowledge lost. The type of players that tend to gravitate towards these are also older, and enjoy their limited free time playing something they want to play, rather than just grind and compete. This is the difference between mature adults deriving enjoyment from beyond the more narrow scope of what the young grinder does.

There is almost zero chance of positive expected value (EV) of playing any type of Magic long term if you are focused on dollars and cashing checks. Opportunity cost/time, travel, food, and cards assure that it will always be costly beyond monetary return. The value comes in fun and enjoyment of playing, and casual formats translate to that much more directly than competitive formats for most people.

Containment Priest and Yixlid Jailer are fine. They are the reason I was playing 4 Barbarian Rings main deck in Dredge the past couple of months (including in the TVSL), because I was not interested in losing to the random decks that were playing a couple of main deck Priests. I think they are more valuable than Cabal Pit though if you are planning to cast cards like Ingot Chewer and/or Ancient Grudge, as they are essentially "on color" for your other anti-hate measures, which I found to be extremely relevant.

Like most anti-Dredge cards though, they are not standalone answers. They just buy you time, much like Null Rod or Stony Silence do against artifact decks, before the enemy finds an answer. Your hate cards work best when you can protect them and simply buy time to do something else powerful to quickly wrap up the game.

@blindtherapy Hey bud, saw that you just moved to Naperville and were looking for some Vintage. We often play (in the city of Chicago proper) weekly at random bars. We're all of age so don't spend too much time in game stores. What is your weekly work/play schedule like? DM me if you can (I cannot DM you for whatever reason on here, messages do not seem to be going through at the moment).

@aelien said in [Premium Article] Schools of Magic: The History of Vintage 2017 & Conclusion:

Thanks for the update. Will owners of all the chapters get the compiled e-book for a discount or for free when it is done?

Yes, anyone who has purchased every chapter will receive the full book in PDF form once it has been re-edited, recompiled, and refactored for full publishing. Those buyers were the original "kickstarters" so to speak, and will be taken care of a couple of different ways.

For those who have purchased this book in the past, what updates or issues do you wish to see addressed in future versions? What else would you like to read, or thought could use more detail (or was not addressed)? Feel free to post here or email me at jaco@eternalcentral.com, as I'm always looking for feedback. I will update this at some point, I just don't know when with the other stuff that's on the calendar that needs to be finished beforehand.

It also has to do with your manabase in Jeskai. Specifically, against Wasteland decks, what is your secondary, and what is your tertiary color? Often times you don't want to be fetching red mana if your secondary color is white, per se. There are small intricacies and tradeoffs, aside from the instant vs. sorcery speed and 1 vs. 2 mana.

@stuart said in Vintage door prizes?:

Cheers @cup and @JACO . I’ve gotten signed cards a few times (EC Old School and the Goyfvitational) and loved them, so that could be good. Was getting an EC-stamp made difficult?

No, you can basically just go online and look up custom stamps and have one made online, and have it to your door within 2-3 weeks or so.

As @cup noted above, what we have done in Chicagoland is have everybody sign a bunch of cheap tournament staples (all under $1-2 each) before the tournment, and then draft them in reverse order of finish after the tournament (so last place drafts first). I donated the entire pool of these for the 18 person event above, and another 32 person event (TSI) and it cost me about $25 total, and people seem to love those cards, and a reminder of an event they had fun with friends at. Things like Ingot Chewer, Stinkweed Imp, and Foundry Inspector are about $.25 each, while Brainstorm, Ponder, Mind's Desire, and more are all about a buck or less each. There are many ways to go with this, but we started doing that for Old School a few years ago, and it is a great affordable mechanism for community building, which is more personal than something like sleeves or packs. If you have more people donating playable black bordered cards in to an ongoing local pool that's even better.

@t1darkrit said in 11/19/17 - Indianapolis - Monthly unlimited proxy vintage @Game Time:

Great to hear, sorry I missed it. As to the names - should 2-Card Muddy be 2 Card Monte? That's the name of the Workshop based combo deck that plays Helm of Obedience/Leyline of the Void along with Painter's Servant/Grindstone.

2Card Muddy is a 2CM variant that eschews most or all of the colored mana and the rainbow mana base. The Muddy variant will often play stuff like Kuldotha Forgemaster, or now the Mirror combo card with Dark Depths. There are different ways to build it.

Week 9 was a fun watch. Technically my latest list was the one I emailed you last month:

That's a bit off of what I'd play today, but I think it's pretty important to have at least 2 basics main. Both mine and Tom's list from the challenge had 2 basics, and not having 2 definitely cost you in the M1G2 last night against Dave. Not being able to fetch another basic to play through Wasteland + Thorn left you in a pretty rough spot (unable to cast Ponder and/or Ancestral without problem). Still, I was excited to see you play Rector in VSL, especially in light of what was supposed to be the "Brewer's Challenge" be pretty uninspiring outside of yours and a couple other decks. Rector Omniscience has been one of my favorite decks the past few years, and is still the most fun Vintage deck I've played since TNT. I also enjoyed you playing Ad Nauseam Tendrils, which was a throwback to the ANT lists of 2008/2009. Very nice, and different from what the other players were doing.