Manalink Vintage Competition (winners posted)

[discoransom]

Congrats to Nyktorion for breaking the format! You crushed it man. Also congrats to Aww1979 and Yggdrasil for not taking the zoo route and still kicking butt.

Is it true that Gifts Ungiven has already been coded and is buggy? I'd love to see that, or Ad Nauseam, or Counterbalance.

Thanks Jatill for running a very nice event, and being so generous with your time and work.

[scherbchen]

very nice move from jatill to expand the prize pool and congrats to the top 3 finishers. my personal favourite to play was probably the imperial zoo deck.

as the bearer of the "crown of AI fail" I put forth Coiling Oracle for the winner's considerations. love the card, what can I say?

[monopoman]

I really doubt you want counterbalance in this game for one reason.

Countering works nothing like it does in current magic.

Back in the day countering was an interrupt effect, meaning that you couldn't respond to a spell then counter it.

Why does this matter because of Diving Top+Counterbalance combo back in the day this would do nothing it would be a non-bo. Now with current rules it does some great things together.

In this game counterbalance would work like this, reveal the top card of your library when you opponent casts a spell to see if its countered via casting cost being equal. No tricks before you reveal the card.

Jatill would have to reprogram the whole way the game works to make this a possibility.

[discoransom]

I really doubt you want counterbalance in this game for one reason.

Countering works nothing like it does in current magic.

Back in the day countering was an interrupt effect, meaning that you couldn't respond to a spell then counter it.

Why does this matter because of Diving Top+Counterbalance combo back in the day this would do nothing it would be a non-bo. Now with current rules it does some great things together.

In this game counterbalance would work like this, reveal the top card of your library when you opponent casts a spell to see if its countered via casting cost being equal. No tricks before you reveal the card.

Jatill would have to reprogram the whole way the game works to make this a possibility.

I was thinking about this- and I think you're right that it wouldn't work the way this game uses the stack, and even if it somehow did, it would be very buggy. Ad Nauseam at least looks doable- it has some similarities to Yawgmoth's Bargain and Lim-Dul's vault...

[thedrigo]

Congratulations to the winners!! I sure had hoped my deck would do a little better than it did, but, like I said before, I was more excited to see the comments y'all would have on how it performed more than the amount of points it would gather during the tournament itself.

[jatill]

So for discorandom's prize, I'll write Ad Nauseum. Still waiting to hear from the other 2 winners.

[Yggdrasil]

So here's my cards :

Urza's Bauble (yes, I'm nostalgic )
Magma Phoenix (great synergies with this guy)
Coiling Oracle (like scherbchen I like that card, and there's too few gold G/U in Manalink)

Please make your choice Jatil.

[jatill]

Hmm... tough choice between Bauble and Oracle. I think I'll pick Oracle.

[Nyktorion]

Okay, I have decided on a list:

Gifts Ungiven (would be a nice tutor addition to Vintage)
Patriarch's Bidding (might give some of the tribal decks another twist)
Greater Gargadon (more fighting chance against Oath, and maybe the AI is even able to use it correctly)

although I was secretly rooting for Discos Imperial Zoo who made good work of Imperial Recruiter and Kor Skyfisher

One comment about these two cards: while they built up really nice synergies in the deck (which make the deck very nice in the hands of a human), at least Imperial Recruiter was also a bit of a hindrance in the hands of the AI: during my testing games, I have observed that it likes to use recruiters to pull up all the other recruiters in the deck before actually taking a "business creature" (like Tarmogoyf). However, for Kor Skyfisher, I only remember sensible chocices for the bounce effect.

[Yggdrasil]

Hmm... tough choice between Bauble and Oracle. I think I'll pick Oracle.

I knew it ! The bauble card art is way too ugly.

[Cognis]

Discos zoo was my favourite to be played by a player, but I think Nyktorion made the right deck decision AI-wise.

[jatill]

Ok, so the final list to be coded is Patriarch's Bidding, Coiling Oracle, and Ad Nauseum.

Nykotorion: you're really good at picking impossible to code cards

[Cognis]

Somehow I sense I'll be playing Goblin Bidding deck next time I love zombies more but you can't argue about which deck is better

[juzamjedi]

So... next contest?

[jatill]

So... next contest?

This contest was pretty popular and fun for all. But I mentioned before, I'm not keen on collecting decks and keeping score, etc. So if someone else wants to do all the work of setting up and running the contest, I'll still code the prize cards.