Mmmm... now THAT'S some Magic!

[FreakyM]

Vintage sounds good. I happen to like a certain interesting type of deck, by the way. It is basically centered around 3 cards: Dark Rituals, the Thrumming Stone and Relentless Rats.

[Eth]

Oh jeeze, what have I gotten myself into?

[Eth]

(Downloads Apprentice.)  (Fiddles with Apprentice.)

Hey!  This thing can do sealed decks and stuff!  This is some definite possibilities! 

[Sage]

Eth, I can play against you with only cards I own, but that will limit me to just this one deck. That's probably fine though. That's what I get for not really playing any more I guess.

Apparently Apprentice's configuration files are simple enough that it might be possible to import any missing expansions beyond Time Spiral. I would just need to find card data somewhere to "harvest" for this purpose...

[Eth]

  Hey, it's all good in the hood, y'know?  We could just have different formats, and agree on which format to use before a duel takes place:

1.  "Virtual Reality" format: Use only cards that you really own, and no more than your really own.  No more than four of any one card, except basic lands.  Vintage banned and restricted list still applies.  (The closest we'll likely come to playing each other in real life.)

2.  "Budgetless Vintage" format: Use any cards you like.  No more than four of any one card, except basic lands.  Vintage banned and restricted list still applies.  (A chance to play with all of those $500 degenerate cards.)

3.  "Sealed deck" format:  We could play some sort of limited league, if you guys are into that sort of thing (I think it's fun, personally.  You really learn to appreciate cards that you would otherwise overlook as "less than optimal.")

[FreakyM]

Ohh, this is starting to sound good. I need to import some of my MWS decks over to Apprentice, now..

[Sedodes]

Idea for deck building:  How about a maximum mana limit?

Seems to me that we could make "leagues" with this idea (<10, 11-20, 20-30, etc).  I'd personally like to see multiple categories so as to actually have people playing more than one single uberdeck.  After all, el-cheapo creatures decks are my specialty, but aside from rocking those out I'm not very experienced at deck building.

In fact, if this idea gets refined a bit I'll download the software and get in on this.  I'm not going to play "only the cards you own" since I only own throwaway cards and don't even know where they went when I moved into the house (likely burried in a box in the basement).

[Sage]

How would you define a "maximum mana limit" precisely? By the amount of land cards? Not all lands create mana after all. Would spells like the ever-popular Dark Ritual or any of the innumerable creatures like my Sliver deck's Skyshroud Elf fall under this?

[Eth]

  I gotta say, "maximum mana limit" sounds really...  odd.  Perhaps you could explain in a little more detail, Sedodes?

[FreakyM]

Indeed. I as a mainly Black player tend to always run the full set of Dark Rituals in just about any deck (and yes, I own a set in real life, just as I own a set of Hymns to Tourach), and this "mana limit" sounds kind of peculiar. Very hard to enforce, really.

Or do you perhaps mean casting cost? But then, I have never seen a single card cost more than 14 or so mana, the most expensive in my collection being the Hypnox at 8 colorless, 3 black for a whopping converted cost of 11 mana.

[Eth]

  Alright, I made an "budgetless vintage" version of my R/G Beats deck.  It's much the same; just a bit leaner and meaner in a few places.  All of my decks are at work right now, so "virtual reality" decks will have to wait.  Anyway, if anyone wants to arrange a duel, I am at your disposal.  Send me a PM.

[Sedodes]

Sorry, I meant casting cost limit.

Not by specific card, but all cards in your deck with a casting cost must add up to total a certain range to compete in that "class."  Something like weight classes in boxing.

[Eth]

  I was initially dismissive of this idea, but it's growing on me.  Anyway, my lightweight deck is ready!

[Eth]

  All righty tighty!  Now I have a "Virtual Reality" League deck ready.  It's not my best deck, but it does have the advantage of being, well a deck.  In fact, looking it over, it has some major problems, but what the hey?

[Eth]

  Well, my stimulus check came last week, and I blew ninety bucks on single Magic cards, and built a new deck, called a "Spring Tide" deck.  This deck is unlike any I've ever played with before.  The deck is basically composed of cards that generate mana and cards that draw more cards.  Around turn three or four, the deck is ready to go off, starting with a High Tide.  Assuming all goes well, I play a series of card-drawing and/or land-untapping spells, until I've cast around 20 spells in one turn, at which point I use Cunning Wish to grab a now-lethal Brain Freeze (or Stroke of Genius, depending on the situation on the board) to immediately deck my opponent. 

  Anyway, this deck takes my Magic playing to a whole new level.  I finally understand what the Vintage guys are talking about when they reference the "single, extended turn" that is involved in many Vintage games.