Hello and Welcome! Click the links above to read about VSL, the schedule, and the standings. Click here if you want decklists. If you want to watch the video archives you can click here. Meanwhile, if you just want to hear about this week’s matches then read on.

*SPOILER WARNING*

Some people have asked for a way to follow the Vintage Super League without watching all the matches every week. These match recaps are for them.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

David v Chris

This was a make-up match from week 3 and used decklists from the first “trimester.” In game one Chris played a fair amount of mana, but couldn’t quite get to 4 for Diminishing Returns so he had to say go and hope David’s turn 2 with Dredge wasn’t too good. Chris used Force of Will of David’s first Cabal therapy, but the second one resolved and David had to guess what the last card was in Chris’s hand. He guessed Goblin Charbelcher (which did seem like the correct thing to guess in that spot). If he’d been psychic he might have won, but he wasn’t and Diminishing Returns eventually found Chris everything he needed to win on turn 2.

Chris kept a hand with no blue mana in game 2, and never did find any. It took David until turn 3 to get his Dredge engine humming, but that was plenty fast enough when Chris’s speculative draw failed to work out.

Game 3 was decided on another judgment call where David made what was probably the right decision, but where the psychic play would have worked out. He chose not to point Mental Misstep at Chris’s Voltaic Key (since the deck has so many more targets that are usually so much better), but Chris had also drawn Time Vault and with Key in play he was able to take all the turns.

Chris wins 2-1

Kai v Eric

Eric showed up with a Mishra’s Workshop deck in an effort to continue his hot streak, while Kai is running an Oath of Druids deck with Show and Tell and Omniscience built in. Kai commented later that he thought his deck was solid against ‘Shops, but Eric crushed him pretty easily in 2 straight (dropping Kai to 0-4).

Eric wins 2-0

Luis v Steve

In a rematch of last season’s final this game played much more like a rematch of the regular match between these two. In both games Steve accumulated a hand with more permission spells than Luis had cards in hand. In both games, however, Luis just refused to do anything until he had a chance to sculpt his own hand and then wait for Steve to make the first move. Game 2 was particularly crazy as at one point Steve was discarding Pyroblast from a hand with 5 counters and 3 card drawing spells. Somehow Luis was able to hard-cast Elesh Norn a few turns later, a card which Steve simply could not deal with even if he could stack his deck.

Luis wins 2-0

Bob v Rich

One day after receiving his PhD from Carnegie Mellon (congrats to the newly minted DR. Atog Lord), Rich was the only player to stick with his archetype from the first set of decks. His trusty Delver deck served him well against Bob’s controllish Monastery Mentor deck, which never really seemed to get much going in a quick 2-0 match. Both players now find themselves in the middle of the pack at 2-2.

Rich wins 2-0

Randy v Chris

The one-time Belcher brothers both went back to decks they ran in season 1 (both of which would be very good against Belcher should anyone try it this set). Chris’s Terra Nova Shops deck wasn’t all that disruptive in game 1, but he found the clever play of using Phyrexian Metamorph to copy a Lord of Atlantis so his Mutavault would be a 4/4 Islandwalker. Randy couldn’t find a Wasteland or enough creatures to race. He almost won by top-decking Time Walk into Treasure Cruise, but he failed to find any lords and came up one point of damage short.

In game 2 Chris kept six land and a Dismember, which seemed fairly sketchy, but Randy had 3 Wastelands and used them on Chris’s first 3 lands thinking that would be good but all it actually did was give Chris time to draw real cards. Randy then failed to draw any lands for the rest of the game and Chris’s mana denial strategy kept a lethal True-Name trapped in randy’s hand, along with a Hurkyl’s Recall and a bunch of lords.

Chris wins 2-0

David v Tom

Tom ran a Gifts Ungiven deck, but his draws were fairly mediocre. He conceded the first game fairly early so David wouldn’t know what he was up to when David, who was already reasonably ahead, resolved an Ancestral Recall. In game 2 David stuck an early Monastery Mentor and Tom had no answer. Those monks don’t very long to win the game once they get going …

David wins 2-0