One of the most self-contradictory phrases I can imagine is "Budget Vintage." Many decks are considered "budget-friendly" to players because they have few expensive cards, and are thus easily constructed when competing in any event that allows proxies. In no other format is competitive play considered anything other than DCI-sanctioned Magic.
The sad reality is, until Wizards of the coast revises its reprint policy (unlikely in the near future, although it could be made a reality if reasonable voices such as Stephen Menendian's hold any sway,) or until they allow proxies in sanctioned tournaments (unlikely to ever happen, which is probably a good thing,) many players will simply not be able to compete at a professional level.
However, aside from being the format with the best return on your investment (as anything playable in Vintage is likely to remain so indefinitely, and only increase in value,) Vintage is also a rare environment where budget decks can compete in a unique way.
A budget deck is, quite literally, a deck that doesn't cost very much money. In every other format, budget is also code for "using cards that are subpar versions of other, more expensive cards." As a result, not only are many deck types completely inaccessible, those that are playable with budget versions are inevitably weak, watered-down versions that have little chance of competing. Those that do well only do so by virtue of being rogue decks with good matchups against the dominant decks, exploding into a field that is not prepared for them. Time and exposure eventually rebuild this deck into something that is as expensive as any other deck. The truly successful budget deck is rare.
The unique way in which a Vintage deck may compete, however, is by attack the expensive manabases of the top decks. Only in vintage is there such a common thread: almost all decks run 5-10 sources of artifact mana as their primary means of acceleration, as well as an expensive suite of lands, usually consisting of Mishra's Workshop , Bazaar of Baghdad , Underground Sea , and Polluted Delta , among others. Even Null Rod -based Fish decks running 4x Wasteland include, at the very least, Black Lotus and any on-color moxen. As Mark Rosewater correctly points out, even the most budget-friendly of decks is improved by the addition of Black Lotus .
However, because of these constants in the world of Vintage, until Black Lotus gets reprinted, we will have to settle for these:
Many of you have probably seen decks using some or all of these cards. These cards have the twin advantages of not costing much money and punishing those who do. These seven unrestricted cards together do not make a deck. But they are a start.
There are other cards that could be included, depending on the expected metagame. I've seen a few dozen viable decklists running some or all of these cards. There are several things to remember when building a deck on a budget in vintage, that unfortunately (since many players building on a budget are new to the format) greatly undervalued by budget players. They are good general rules, but especially important to budget players:
1) There is no room for pet cards. I love Myr Welder . I think he's so cute. I will never stop looking for a deck for him. I most certainly will not, however, try to shove him somewhere that he doesn't belong. *pause for giggles* You can make a deck based around a lot of cards. Your favorite card probably falls into this category. You can make a deck on a budget based around... not so many. Your favorite card probably doesn't fall into this category. Let it go.
2) You must understand your metagame. Every card in your deck is important, but every card must be even more important when you are working on a budget. If you don't have a good understanding of what decks you are going to be facing, you will have no chance of building a sufficiently reactive deck, and you sure as heck will not be able to race any of them. You must understand, not just which deck types will be played, but which individual cards will be played. The importance of knowing whether Shattering Spree is going to be be better then Nature's Claim cannot be understated. A fully powered deck might recover from making a minor misjudgement like this in a tournament, but your budget deck will not.
3) You must be willing to give up on a deck. Goblins can probably be competitive on a budget. Many versions of Fish, as well. But if you play any blue, you need to run Ancestral Recall and probably Time Walk . If you run enough blue to support it, you should run four copies of Force of Will . There is no excuse not to. "I can't afford it" will not win any games. If you want to play a deck that is more expensive than you can afford, you need to be willing to either shell out the cash, invest the time and energy to make smart trades for the cards you need, or move on to another deck. TPS is simply unplayable without power. You can't sub in Chrome Mox es and pray for the best. You will be defeating yourself before you ever play a game.
In summary, if you want to play budget vintage, make sure you select only the best cards, know what you're going up against, and be willing to abandon an idea that has no chance of being competitive.
Hope this helped! As always, feel free to post or message me any comments, questions, or concerns.
Bun
ss, dammit
Come play Magic the way it was meant to be played: http://community.wizards.com/go/forum/view/75842/134942/Vintage
there is no such thing as Buget Vintage. Having been away from the game in a while, looks like they are allowing proxies nows. its because vintage has never been cheap. now they can reprint all the old cards. now everyone will be running the same decks again, just more of them. how will that help? so more papers can play vintage, but at the expenses of the other formats.
I agree that the concept of budget vintage is flawed if you're looking at it from the viewpoint of using subpar cards to build a storm deck, or tezz, or stax. However, it is possible if you build a deck specifically designed to punish that type of card. That concept is where fish got its start.
I don't really understand what you mean by "now they can reprint all the old cards" though. Do you mean because many tournaments use proxies? That doesn't make sense, because no sanctioned tournaments use proxies. Wizards will never allow proxies, nor should they. However, I do think that certain vintage staples should be reprinted. But the formats wouldn't need to be wrecked. Wizards could simply make a From the Vault: Vintage.
These cards would maintain their value even if reprinted, and honestly probably increase in value. The original dual lands could probably be safely played in standard and extended. They are above the curve for dual lands, obviously (being arguably the best of them, with the possible exception of fetches,) but they would not unbalance standard or extended. Bazaar of Baghdad and Mishra's Workshop are both also probably safe for standard play, although extended might break bazaar.
If all of these cards were released outside of the normal rotation, wizards would have the advantage of being able to dictate price, as well as limit the print run to smaller than a standard set, if they so chose. The world could use another few thousand black lotuses.
ss, dammit
Come play Magic the way it was meant to be played: http://community.wizards.com/go/forum/view/75842/134942/Vintage
FoW and Drains are so incredibly over what WotC deems fair for counters, it would warp the format.
I don't think Bazaars would destroy the format as it is harder to abuse, but Workshops definitely would destroy standard. I don't see how you can think it wouldn't. It is just too good, and too easy to abuse.
EDIT: I agree with the bulk of the points though. The good thing about vintage is that because there IS that difference between powered and unpowered, it gives the ability to create a whole extra subtype of decks- power-hate? Which sounds funny, but you can gain an advantage against those decks if you gameplan for it. This is something a lot of people don't realize right away. Power cards, are considered power cards for a reason, but they do also simultaneously provide a soft spot for an opponent to attack.
You can still make decks that kill on turn 2 for under a hundred dollars. I'm grateful that the reprint list is there. It quite frankly keeps the riff-raff out, and makes sure that something as spectacular as a dual land gets its covetous rewards.
Force of will and drain wouldn't warp standard. They'd probably warp extended, and they'd definitely speed up standard, but I don't think it would be that bad. Shop simply doesn't have the artifacts available to be broken in standard. Again, probably in extended though.
And the reserved list doesn't keep the riff raff out. It does two things: 1) it keeps almost everyone out (there are very few sanctioned vintage tournaments) and 2) the riff raff aren't really kept out. They remain very scrubby. The good players in other formats would migrate if they could compete on an even playing field. Most spikes stay out of vintage because they want to win and can't compete, so you're left with a few great players and a bunch of scrubs.
And finally, for reasons too elaborate for me to go into, reprinting cards would increase their value in almost all cases. Look at cards that have been reprinted. The older versions are worth more. This would remain so with staples such as Force and duals. The only cards that lose value when they are reprinted are unplayables such as elder dragon legends and extremely narrow cards like tabernacle. Staples ALWAYS increase in value when reprinted, because more players want them, and not only are the reprints high in value, the originals are pushed even higher. Look at the value of beta duals compared to revised duals. Even with the absurd leap in price for dual lands since legacy has taken off, the price of older versions has kept pace, remaining several times more valuable.
I personally believe that the best way to ensure the value of reprinted cards is to make them standard legal, but they would retain value even if released in a from the vault promotion. Making them standard legal increases the audience greatly though, and thus the demand.
Let's say there are 10000 black lotuses in circulation (I believe the number is several times higher, but it is nice and round, so lets use that. If reprinted in a standard legal set, the competitive audience would multiply by at least a hundred. If mythics can climb to a hundred dollars within months of release (and retain their value, or most of it,) then surely you can see how a promotion like this would not hurt the value of a true bomb, such as black lotus. You could even release them like super secret tech, only as foil mythic versions. That would probably irritate people though. But it is an option. In any case, the value would not only be very high, the older version would only increase further in value.
The only arguments against doing this are the same stupid arguments musicians and authors have against piracy. Material released free online concurrent with a normal release almost always boosts sales. In the same way, old cards increase in value. Their rarity makes them valuable to begin with, and their release into a wider format only makes them more desirable, not less. For every person who doesn't want to trade for your beta dual because there is a cheaper version out, there are ten new people who DO want your beta dual because it is suddenly available in more formats. The rarity is not decreased by reprints. Old cards retain value. Old cards that are reprinted retain even more value. This is clear from reviewing the available data.
ss, dammit
Come play Magic the way it was meant to be played: http://community.wizards.com/go/forum/view/75842/134942/Vintage
The state of Riffraffery does not equate to whether one is prowessful at Magic. Doing stuff like reprinting Chain Lightning is undesirable from my perspective, because I don't care if my cards appreciate any more. I just don't want every noob wandering around chucking premier spells and lands around. It ruins the collective experience of the game.
I have a friend. He thinks new cards should outshine old cards, because his money should be worth the same as an old player's. Evidently to that notion, however, is the idea that his time must be worth immeasurably more than someone like mine's. Why else would he get to actually have something as desirable as a dual land? You shouldn't get into Magic with an expectation that the cards you'll be using are all the $80 dollar ones. Ideally, that'd be something prohibiting their use, nay, rewarding the player canny enough to speculate on which cards will wind up good. Simply net-decking what works after the fact should have that prohibitive price barrier.
In my opinion, sanctioned Magic play should not form a symbiotic relationship to which cards get printed in the first place anyways. The game was far more fun when Wizards simply didn't give a rat's ass and printed sets like Legends and Fallen Empires.
I agree that reprinting in some form wouldn't be as bad an idea as wizards makes out.
However I completely disagree about what they'd do to the formats. FoW and Drains would completely change what standard looked like. And while there aren't broken artifacts in standard, there are enough good ones that shops would dictate the format. Not to mention extended affinity would go berserk.
Reprinting though might just increase the value of beta or original power cards. It opens the format to new players, yet there is a distinct difference between a beta black lotus and a reprinted 20th edition black lotus. People pay more money for foils and set differences, people will pay more money for original cards, just to say they have it. Right now the amount of players who actually want a Black Lotus are dwindling, and those who might want it, won't because the format is hard to get into.
First of all, while your friend's belief that new cards should be worth as much as old cards is foolish entitlement, your belief that old cards should automatically be worth more than new cards is equally foolish. It is even as unfoundedly entitled. Perhaps you are the same age as your friend, and you made the wise choice to collect magic cards while he was stupid and just tried to have sex with girls. But more likely, newer players are much younger than older players. I think players who are truly interested can break into the game. Power was long out of print when I started playing in 2001, but I've got a pretty pimpish collection with most of the power I want, a set of shops and bazaars, the duals I want, forces (still short a drain,) etc.
But it has taken almost a decade. I'm not as hardcore as some players, but moreso than most. Making Vintage more accessible is good for the environment. If I'm ever totally screwed, I think it is nice that I can hawk a few moxen for rent, but that isn't why I own them. I don't their value will ever go down, even if they are reprinted, and I've said before that I even think that their value would increase in the event they are reprinted, but Wizards does not owe me anything. I don't know why they think they do. Especially after they brutalized forgotten realms and left it on the emergency room loading dock (are we not talking about that yet?) My point is, even if my time walk became worth ten bucks the day after they reprinted it, it would be worth it to see a Vintage Grand Prix. I will be there with bells on and tits out. Maybe I can finally get a signed Legacy's Allure from Hi-Val.
Chain lightning and Fallen Empires were hardly the heyday of magic. As broken awesome as old cards were, there were no trult broken awesome sets till Urza's Saga, with the possible exception of Alpha.
Don't fight the power. Reprint the power. F**k your bank account and f**k your bad economics. You will be dragged, kicking and screaming like Ed Norton in Fight Club, and in the end, you will thank Brad Pitt for it when your duals double in value in a year because there are now a thousand people at your vintage tournament instead of 15 waiting on 16.
Or you can shoot yourself in the face.
ss, dammit
Come play Magic the way it was meant to be played: http://community.wizards.com/go/forum/view/75842/134942/Vintage
Bun, you are cracking me up! Love the Fight Club reference.
Alright, I can agree with both sides (I hate to do that).
Reprinting more power/other cards, making it more accessible, would help the player base for eternal sets. It's hard to say what it would do to card values... that would be purely dependant on the print run IMSO (in my serious opinion). If Wizards prints 100,000 more copies of a Black Lotus, values might go down because the market could be flooded. In the long run, most people will be like "New Black Lotus for 100$ or Old for 600?... hmm... I'll just get a new". You can't guarentee there will be a high enough demand for the cards.
If there was a high enough demand, and new(er) players did jump in, then obviously, everyone would be happy in the Vintage community. 100 person tournaments are definitely much better than 16 people tournaments. We'll all see better prize support, and even more people traveling to venues.
