3 Gifts and 2 Togs in the tournament... all making t8. Does this say anything as to the ridiculousness of Mana Drain?

I see a carbon copy of my w'bury deck in there too, he must have missed the memo that psychatog is terrible...

I think I've mentioned before why the reason I chose Intuition/AK over anything else, be it Thirst, Gifts, whatever else: and that is that it skews the deck. Instead of playing better cards, you're forced into playing Seat of the Synod over... Library of Alexandria? No thanks. And Engineered Explosives over Rebuild/Chain of Vapor means you just roll to Null Rod even more, and now you're losing to stax more often than not. Merchant Scroll > Rebuild is a VERY key play for winning the matchup, and I'd like to hear how you fare against stax in your game1's and/or game 2's since your sideboard is all wish targets, no hate. Not to mention, your sideboard seems to be infested with bad cards, but I won't dwell on that.

I really think that Thirst for Knowledge lacks the late-game winning potential... your argument that it speeds up the deck seems counterintuitive (at least to me) because this is a late-game deck and you already have Duress and Mana Drain anyways to cover your early game. Your early game should essentially pit your 7 against his, then in the midgame you outdraw him with a resolved Intuition and/or go sin with Library. Another Rebuild fact: it gets Library back online in midgame stalls like no other! Anyhow, just my 2 cents.

Yeah, Balance is maindecked now. It's a sure fire out to aggro, whereas the maindecked STP was only meh.

I can't honestly believe how some of you suggest cutting the 3rd color, may it be red or white or whatever you prefer. The manabase can easily support it, on 5 fetches and 4 basics, and you need to have aggro-outs. U/B won't give that to you. Sol Ring is also in after quite a bit of consideration... Solely because I love casting turn 1 intuitions. Lotus Petal doesn't make the cut for me, but hey if you like it then go for it.

@vroman: So long as I have land to use in the stax matchup I'm gonna be winning, via Rebuild/Chain/Tinker. If I get heavily mana denied in the first 2 turns and happen to have no countermagic whatsoever, then I'm definitely losing. That justifies Sacred Ground right away. In fact, in testing my worst enemy has been Tangle Wire, and if the guy gets Welder going with Wire, it's absolutely over... but I'm not sure if your Uba Stax plays that or not? And yeah, Tormod's Crypt is ridiculous... everything relies on their GY so heavily now.

I can't see this deck surviving without Cunning Wish. Ask any and all of my opponents from Waterbury and they'll say that Cunning Wish was shitting on their respective parades all day (Naturalize of Puff's damn Time Vault was good times). And especially since those of you who want to cut Wish are also the ones who want to cut white, that's seppuku right there. You'll lose to some random piece of hate that you can't deal with. This also lets you play 2 Fact or Fictions, which is pretty ridiculous I think.

And I think Rebuild is 5,000,000 times better than Hurkyl's in the main. With Tendrils in the deck, it's just stupid because it adds like 4+ spells to your storm at the same time as removes your opps Sphere/Null Rod/Whatever else. You shouldn't need to be casting Rebuild at all if you have big guy in play, as you've already won.

@Rapalaman, yeah... this deck is friggin Superman, and Cap is kryptonite. Nobody should play Cap... ever. (FYI Bob: I topdecked the Psychatog the turn after you cast the Cap, Demonic'ed for Ancestral! I bet you thought it was the other way around )

Thanks to all so far who've made intelligent contributions.
Jon

Gabe, did your build of salvagers also play Tinker/colossus in the maindeck? Did it play the tendrils, or at least cunning wish > Brain freeze? The reason I wouldn't feel confortable with playing a Salvagers finish is that before I go off I have to deal with stupid crap like Null Rod, Pithing Needle, Ground Seal, Tormod's Crypt, Chalice 0, etc. And come to think of it, I'd almost rather just play Psychatog... he only gets hated by Needle really, and still that's mroe than enough hate for me to want to steer clear from him. Congrats on your finish with the deck though.

I've had a number of PM's concerning Balance. All i can say is that my position on this card is very unstable, at times I've loved it and at times I've thought it unplayable. How good it is totally depends on board position and oftentimes it's a dead draw. To be fair, I will test it in the spot of the maindeck StP, and we'll see how it performs. I foresee a bunch of mixed results...

As to the complaint about a slim number of kill conditions and their susceptability to being disrupted, the entire focus of this deck revolves around resolving a single spell. With Duress, you should be able to know what you need to do to set up your kill, and don't be afraid to wait a turn or two before you go in. Always be sure that your Will/Tinker is going uncontested.Tormod's Crypt is quite a bitch to deal with... but I found myself baiting the Crypt action all the time by casting intuition. Sure you lose your AK's but it lets your Will still be stupid. Bonus points if you can manage to cast your AK in resp to Crypting.

Sorry Rapalaman, but I honestly think that with the exception of Rack and Ruin, all those red wishables are pretty weak. You already have disenchant, StP > Grab the Reins, and Duress in the maindeck essentially subs in for Red Blasts. I mentioned above I've tried both Engineered Plague and Orim's Chant in the SB, as you mentioned their brethren Abeyance and NoSB, and I haven't dismissed either of them yet. Engineered Explosives however, is some tech I haven't looked in to yet and thanks for bringing that up. Good against aggro too

I looked at the French list and I honestly think it's terrible. Strip Mine and wastelands have no business being anywhere near this deck especially since he is playing 4 colors, 3 Intuitions is too many, Boseiju maindeck like WTF and he'll be rolling to stax all day like it's his job. Chalice? Please... He's not playing Sacred Ground to protect his extremely shaky manabase and How is Diabolic Edict in the SB necessary when he has StP? I could go on but I'll refrain myself. And Psychatog is worse than Colossus, which he has omitted from the whole 75 cards. STOP ME PLEASE!

And on to the Gifts/Intuition deck... that is another deck altogether. If you want to compare how good either one is, feel free, but know that as I was building this deck I essentially built it with no prior lists, I built it on intuition alone (no pun intended) and with helpful suggestions from teammates.

@ Metman,
Yawgmoth's Will feeds off the grave much better than Psychatog. And no, getting your black sources aren't as hard as you'd think. Try it out and see for yourself.

@ exit music,
I need as many colored sources as possible, and i honestly think for this deck Mana Crypt is much better, allows turn 1 intuitions and wishes. I may switch it out for a sol ring yet, more testing will tell.

Thanks for pointing out Lorenzo's list, as I've said before I haven't been sincerely active in the community over the past couple of months, so there were some finer lists like this one I had overlooked prior to Waterbury. Theoretically speaking sure, red makes sense... but when you really think about it, the red just tries to help out the matchups you're already good at: Mana Drain and stax. REB can't hit an Akroma, a Dryad, a Worldgorger Dragon, a Confidant, or anything of those sorts. The white for the spot removal is really important IMO because otherwise aggro becomes such a frightening matchup (not like it isn't already), where you essentially turbo-Tinker and try to race. And as per REB helping out in the control mirror, I think Duress plays a much larger role here, because it lets you plan a few turns ahead, knowing what's coming at you. Instead of denying a spell, deny your opponent's strategy altogether and make the pre-emptive strike.

And as I think I've said at least 4 times so far in the past week, I second Kowal in that Sacred Ground is a bigger beating than Rack and Ruin... R&R doesn't even solve the problem that is Goblin Welder. Sure, combined with a Gorilla Shaman it does, but that's 2 for 1. Sacred Ground shuts off Crucible, Smokestack, balance and strips, essentially denying Stax's primary crippling motive : your resources. Not to mention, you may want to be bringing in Sacred Ground against stupid new decks like Meandeck Fish Stax, Confidant Fish, and whatnot.

Nobody ever played Recoup before Gifts Ungiven was printed: and in my opinion the only reason it began being played is that it neutralized Gifts' one main weakness: sending 2 really broken cards to your graveyard. It made you all of a sudden not-so-afraid to go Giftsing for Yawgs Will and Tinker, you knew you could get them back! Realistically... if a card like recoup didn't exist, would the established Gifts archetype be able to dominate the way it does? I'll send this one out to the pros - Brassman, Kowal, Dicemanx, or anyone else with extensive Gifts testing. My view I guess is that Recoup on it's own is, as Kowal stated, actually pretty weak. It needs a good card together with it to be a 2-card supercombo. Sure, I suppose I could re-try that Tinker that failed to resolve, or take that extra Time Walk for the gg, but those mostly situational plays would be few and far between, and I'd rather smooth out my match%'s by keeping in white, and keeping to 3 colors only.

I appreciate the suggestions, and does my reasoning for standing behind white make sense to any of you? I may just be being narrow, but to be perfectly honest at first I was asking myself why I wasn't playing red. But in the end this same argument I bring forth now is what I had to convince myself, and I at least hope I'm right...

I hope that's sarcasm, Machinus.

EDIT: Ok, maybe I'm being too blunt, but still. This is not Gifts. I clearly said that I don't like the effect Gift Ungiven has on skewing the deck and forcing certain card choices. Without recoup, when you Gifts you lose other key cards, unless of course you're holding Will, in which case you should just win anyways. This deck performs much more fluidly without Gifts Ungiven, in fact it was tested even before Waterbury and dismissed. I'd need to dip in to 4 colors in order to do so, which is big frowns. Let's just state for the record, this deck isn't Gifts, doesn't play Gifts, and doesn't need Gifts for all the reasons I've stated both here and in my tournament report. There is no real reason to hurry for the kill with this deck... it performs at its own speed and it performs consistenly and efficiently. You can sit back on a huge hand and play the control deck its supposed to be, and when the opportunity presents itself, you simply seal the deal. It really doesn't need Gifts to make that one broken play, it can control the game all the way through, with added disruption, and less dead cards in the main than Gifts has.

Ok so my list at Waterbury was decent, but it had weaknesses. Most notably, Psychatog as a maindeck kill condition. I relied around total hand control and card advantage to sign for every win I had at the tournament. That being said, cutting 2 Togs leaves room for a much better kill condition in Tinker/guy (which got boarded in almost every match anyway) and I also opted to cut 2 Pernicious Deeds, strictly because Pithing needle is everywhere nowadays and even then, Deed just doesn't cut it, maindeck anyways. Anhow, I decided to keep the shell of the deck the same for 2 main reasons:

1. Intuition/AK doesn't have the same deck-skewing effects that Gifts Ungiven and Thirst for Knowledge do. I stated already that both those draw spells are really good, it's just that they need the deck built around them... whereas I think the draw engine should work itself into the rest of the shell. Also, AKs are currently not being heavily played so it makes them more potent.

2. The huge amount of support cards gave me such a huge advantage. Duress on turn 1 was always amazing, landscrewing my 1-land/brainstorm opponent, or nabbing Tinker/Will before he can set it up, etc. Merchant Scroll and Cunning Wish are ridiculous, they let you run singletons al over the place and still make let you get to them with relative ease. Not to mention, Merchant Scroll > Ancestral Recall is never a bad thing. Maindeck and sideboard Silver Bullets will always win games.

On to the list,

// Mana Sources
    4 Island
    2 Flooded Strand
    3 Polluted Delta (EDIT: 2** Polluted Delta, 1 Replaced with Sol Ring)
    1 Tolarian Academy
    1 Library of Alexandria
    2 Tundra
    3 Underground Sea   
    1 Mana Crypt
    1 Black Lotus
    1 Mox Emerald
    1 Mox Jet
    1 Mox Pearl
    1 Mox Ruby
    1 Mox Sapphire

// Creatures
    1 Darksteel Colossus

// Spells
    3 Duress   
    1 Tendrils of Agony
    1 Demonic Tutor
    1 Yawgmoth's Will
    1 Tinker
    1 Time Walk
   
    1 Rebuild
    1 Swords to Plowshares (EDIT: Replaced with Balance)
    2 Cunning Wish
    4 Mana Drain
    4 Force of Will
    1 Chain of Vapor
    1 Mystical Tutor

    2 Intuition
    4 Accumulated Knowledge
    4 Brainstorm
    2 Merchant Scroll
    1 Ancestral Recall
    1 Deep Analysis



// Sideboard
SB: 3 Swords to Plowshares
SB: 1 Fact or Fiction
SB: 2 Energy Flux
SB: 1 Darkblast
SB: 1 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 Sacred Ground
SB: 1 Disenchant
SB: 1 Vampiric Tutor

Ok, so what happened?

Green went for white, now giving the deck a better solution to aggro via MD and SB swords to plowshares. Sacred Ground is amazing, and is another one of the main reasons why I'm playing white. Added Tormod's Crypt (which shoulda been there in the first place), and Naturalize got Spectral Shift'ed. In these past few days of testing I had ben finding myself Wishing for Swords a lot, so I tried one maindeck (replacing a Yawgmoth's Bargain ?!?) and I love it. I just wish it was blue ...

Sacred Ground made the Stax/Workshop matchup (already decent) even better and combined with Flux it's game-over.
The main-deck Mind Twist and 1 Deed were also dropped for a mana sources, as I found myself tight on land and relying on brainstorm a lot.

We still win against Gifts, as Duress does wonders for that matchup. Now I have Plow as an added arsenal if they try to go tinker > colossus, and it's always fun bouncing their Time Vault in response to Flame Fusillade, so no realt problems there.

Dragon, previously nigh-unwinnable, now has to put up with 4x Swords. Xantid Swarm is your worst enemy here.

Aggro is still tough. It's much better, but still tough. If you find your meta is coated with aggro, maybe take out the white and play Deeds in your sideboard.

Combo will be combo... just find your Force of Wills and you should be fine. Duress is cool too, especially against Drain tendrils. Tormod's Crypt comes in against Will combo (and for that matter, any Will based deck)

I've tested some other stuff in the sideboard but it all depends on your metagame. Engineered Plague, Orim's Chant, and Massacre were the 3 that I think just barely missed the cut.

--------------

Anyhow, I just want to make it clear that this is still a work-in-progress so any suggestions are welcome. However, I think this is a relatively well tuned list (and for sure better than my Waterbury deck) and please, don't say "Add Gifts Ungiven because...", I've made my views on that already.

Jon

@ the 4 extra slots question: I'm currently trying Tinker/guy and am playing white over green for maindeck swords to plowshares, which so far have been testing quite well. when i have a well refined build of what i'm currently testing i'll post it in its own thread.

As to GAT performance: The metagame has warped so much since the olden days of GAT... newly printed cards, new archetypes, and new banned/restricted lists totally warp our view on how GAT should theoretically perform... Same goes for psychatog. I think we need to see more GAT in the format before we really press any final judgments on it viability. Be a pioneer like Josh, tread the workshop-laden thin ice of Vintage and succeed as he did. One measly example can't have us all making or breaking our minds over GAT, as Dr. Sylvan says : NEED MORE INPUT!

Now don't call me no GAT expert, but despite their casting costs, Dryad and Oath could not be more different. Even the main focal strengths of each deck is different - combo/control vs. aggro/control... hell, GAT plays main phase instants like whoa. Also, GAT runs less dead cards but Oath is more likely to go god-hand-oops-i-win. There is risk involved in both, so it all depends on personal preference i suppose.

EDIT: I also agree with Kowal that good Stax players should not have too much of a problem fending off Oath.

Seconded @ Kowal, my deck would have been far better off -2 Psychatog, -2 Deed, +4 better cards ... I boarded them out all day for tinker/colossus/stuff simply because they're not as bad. I'll start a new thread soon enough with what I think the deck could potentially evolve into, and while it isn't Tog per se, it's very reminiscent thereof. I pretty much present my view on Psychatog in my tournament report. AK/Intuition is and was amazing, and I drew my inspiration for this deck largely from a couple random games on MWS playing against GI's AK-tendrils. The reason I wasn't playing Gifts Ungiven is very similar to the reason Kowal defined as TfK's drawback - the deck skewing elements. I don't like building my deck around its draw engine, I want the draw engine to work around my deck... if that makes any sense to you guys.

For those interested, my matchups were:

rd1- Oath - Drew to time

rd2- TPS- He brainstorms 2 broken cards from his jar hand to the top of his deck then discards Darksteel Colossus. Pro move there, win 2-1

rd3- 5cStax- My life total went 20-0 in 1 point increments as gorilla shaman beat me for 20 turns. I went 16 straight turns in game 2 not drawing a single mana source. loss 0-2

rd4- Stax/Farm- UbaStax setup with land based kill strategy, win 2-1

rd5- 5cStax- Rebuild+Mana Drains pwn him win 2-1

rd6- Control Slaver- Mulligans and Duresses blow him over. I'm lucky like that i spose. win 2-0

rd7- FFY (Brian demars) with Gifts-ish- I make a misplay game 3 and almost costs me the game as he peels a gifts off the top. win 2-1

rd8- Jigglypuff (Nate Pease) with FlameVault Gifts- Game 3 was ridiculous because I had at one point 3 extra turns being owed to me on the stack, but the cursed hardcast Time Vault kept stealing them from me. I'll be damned if I could explain why, but the judge assured me it worked. Anyhow, on turn 4 of extra turns, I cast tinker and time walk, and then on turn 5 ridiculously topdeck Yawgs will for the tendrils game. win 2-1

Oh, and @ Moxlotus,
In the finals I cast a EOT mystical for Force of Will and just sorta put it in my hand, then drew a card. It was a dumb move I know, but hell at 3am I was running on empty. I'm glad nobody perceived it as blatant.

And getting good matchups By the sounds of it he never had to run in to Workshops, lucky guy. His deck was well meta'd to beat up on control though... *sigh*

Just 2 months ago I sold my forces and duals to kickstart my modo account (god knows I have infinite now) figuring I'd never see the light of type 1 ever again. I played the devil's advocate with my friends, saying that vintage was "stale" and "uninventive" and to be conpletely honest I think my views are relatively accurate. But then something like Waterbury comes along and because of the rich history tied down to it, it's just one of those things that make you feel like crawling away from a 2x premier event and actually be social for the first time in a milennium. So hell, why not... I started testing the metagame and quickly became bored. I tested Gifts at first, thinking it would clearly be a great choice because it's stupid but I soon realized that I couldn't play this deck with only 1 week of testing if I tried. Same goes for Stax, and to be honest I've never realy tried my hand at slaver in any major shindig so I decided to stick with my roots and play TPS! w00t! I've won power with it before so clearly I can have a repeat performance... so the testing began, from old school Ritual versions, to Confidant/Drain, to Confidant/Ritual and a plethora (!) of random tweekages but nothing could stand up to the unholy trio of Gifts.Stax.CS. So here is where I chose to divert from the "stale and uninventive" trend in vintage and branch out. I built Hulk Smash, circa 2002. Yeah, this is clearly the best choice for Waterbury, if for nothing else then for the nostalgia. But TPS is so good! Dammit... I'll just have to find a middle ground

Hence The Perfect Tog was born
                   -thanks to the judge at w'bury for deck name

4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Brainstorm
4 Accumulated Knowledge
2 Intuition
2 Cunning Wish
2 Merchant Scroll
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Rebuild
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Deep Analysis
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
3 Duress
1 Mind Twist
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Yawgmoth's Will
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Psychatog
4 Island
4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
6 LoMoxen
1 Mana Crypt
1 Library Of Alexandria
1 Tolarian Academy

Sideboard
1 Fact or Fiction
2 Darkblast
1 Berserk
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Naturalize
1 Diabolic Edict
2 Energy Flux
3 Chill
1 Tinker
1 Darksteel Colossus

Now for those of you who want an ESPN-esque play by play, you must know my memory blows so you'll not be getting that here. At random points I'll point out a game or two I thought was interesting and how specific card choices made it happen. On paper, it looks like a randomly assorted pile of good cards with no real game plan per se. But anyhow, let's look at why I did/didn't inclde some cards...

Deep Analysis - I bring this up first because having the single copy in my maindeck won me at least 2 matches over the course of the day. To anyone who was watching my top16 game 3 (that was a great match by the way, Bob. Thanks) there was a point where I had like 1 card in hand, a mystical tutor,  and my opponent had a 5 card grip waiting to reactivate his library after a counterwar that I lost. My mystical could hav egone for any of tinker, Yawg's will, or anything along those lines, but with 0 card now left in hand and only 5 mana sources, neither seemed like a great choice. I went for Deep and now looking back I realize that I couldn't have gotten a better target. My first DA resolved, giving me a Duress to shut up his library for the time being. The flashback was absolutely insane, giving me a Mana Drain and Yawg Will and the game. I never thought I could have pulled this one out and after an hour and a half long AK war I finally pulled it out with card advantage, and I think it was Tendrils for the final blow. /end aside - I would not cut this Deep Analysis, nor would I play another MD. It's a great control mirror breaker and doesn't have the deck skewing elements Gifts Ungiven does. I may put one extra in the SB.

Pernicious Deed - I'll be honest. These got boarded out almost every match. I expected there to be a bunch of random fishy decks in the first few rounds but I never managed to find one. This card wasn't even useful until the top16 where it was used twice (shoulda been 3 times, Jacob knows). Once to blow up a couple of Needles, and once was, uh, pretty damn lucky I must say. They almost always were replaced by Tinker and Colossus. Flashback to game 3 of the finals (or to Waterbury II) where Tog and GAT duke it out once again. The first game was a blowout for him, I never drew a black source, or for that matter, a 2nd blue... as my hand of 3x Drain, 2x Duress, and 2x Tog got rolled by a damn huge Dryad. Game 2 I started a counter war on the end of his turn, made him tap out, and resolved Tinker on my turn ftw. Game 3 is the one any spectator will most likely remember, partly due to my savage drawing skills. He was raping me with double dryads and I was at 4. We were keeping each others hand sizes relatively low with counters and Duresses and it was then that I realized I'm definitely losing this game. I had 7 mana available, holding only a drain. It's my turn and I think honestly, that I have only one out, and that's Pernicious Deed. Even a Yawgs wouldn't have saved me because I didn't have enough mana to go for a Tendrils win. So Jigglypuff gives me the halo of luck and I rip the Deed. Sackery. So I nuke his dryads on his attack step and he goes you better still have a drain as he lays a Psychatog. He was every bit as shocked as the throng of specatators when I threw down the Drain. This is what we play Magic for, times of ridiculous excitement like this. At this point we are both out of cards and a small problem exists in the fact that I'm now at 3 from my fetchland, and I'll be floating 3 in my first main. Now I need another topdeck: something with a colorless cc or at very least a brainstorm. To my great excitement I rip a Cunning Wish to go get my Fact or Fiction, which I cast main phase to avoid burning the last colorless, leaving only 1 mana up. The FoF comes up as (Mana Drain,Mox Jet,Deed) (Force of Will,Brainstorm) I took the small pile for the sole fear of him ripping something stupid off the top and me not being able to counter it. I figure that if he doesn't I can go looking for Yawgs will or Tinker or something ridiculous to win the game with Brainstorm. Turn out he draws and casts Gifts Ungiven. I'm left with a scenario where I can try to Braintorm then hope to get the blue card to force, or Force with the Brainstorm... allowing the Gifts to resolve was never an option. I play it safe I suppose by just forcing with the Brainstorm. We're both empty handed now and play draw-go for a quite a few turns. Turns out that during these turns Josh was drawing 3 Force of Wills and plenty of janky blue card sto pitch to it. My hand eventually got to being Yawg Will, Colossus, Tinker, Force of Will, and Mind Twist with a brainstorm sitting on top I have Mysticaled for. I set it up such that I can hope to dodge 2 counters should he have them... he has 5cards in hand and I cast Mind twist for 4. He hardcasts a Force and I allow it and pass turn. I am going to ideally next turn Brainstorm into a blue card, put back my colossus, bait with tinker, then resolve Yawgmoth's will. As it turns out I never get another turn, he rips a Demonic Tutor into Yawgmoth's will, I attempt force removing tinker, but he has another. That ends the game as he goes dryad > tutor > walk. This game was incredibly intense and I'm totally glad we played this one out. Thanks, Josh. I have no regrets anyways, GAT has always had the up on Tog, even back in the day when I was actually good at this game. wow, I just wrote a small essay, so back on to the point.

Rebuild and Chain of Vapor - I've played TPS to much success in the past and from my experiences I've learned that there's hardly anything Stax hates more than a well timed Rebuild and/or Chain on the right target. These cards proved themselves true once again as I played 2 stax matchups and a stax-ish animal farm variant. Don't leave home without these, kids.

Mind Twist - A last minute addition, it actually won me 2 games. Teammate Doug (top16 with Dragon) insisted on my maindecking it on the basis that it alone would win me at least 3 games. Sorry Doug, you didn't meet your quota. Playing this maindeck is based on personal preference but in a control heavy field like ours was it was a real threat whenever I could feasibly set it up.

Duress - I can't say enough about this card, I've always liked it and will continue to for a long time. I think that in TPS Duress was every bit as key as it's other B-cc brother Dark Ritual. I decided to play along with it today and I didn't regret it.

Draw Engine - AK, Intuition, Merchant Scroll, Cunning Wish - I did a bit of testing on MWS prior to Waterbury and one night I was playing against the one and only Grand Inquisitor. He was playing Drain Tendrils with Intuition AK and he was saying how much he adored the engine nowadays because it seemed like it was dying down a lot. I had to agree, and tried out that draw engine in this deck and it worked well. I never turned back... Wish is key, if even a necessary evil, to any Tog deck and 2 spots was the most I could allocate for it. I've always found Wish to be too clunky but it proved me wrong as I went wishing for game ending Naturalize on Time Vault (<3 Jiggly) and Hurkyl's and the ginat FoF in the finals. I like the 2, I think it needs no more, no less. Merchant Scroll is just plain good in the AK build and was happy playing just 2.

Kill Conditions - Tog and Tendrils - While everyone sees this as a straight Tog deck almost, I honestly had many more Tendrils kills today for the sole fact that it was almost entirely irrelevant. Most times, my games would run down to the last 10 minutes or less, with 3 of my swiss matches ending in turns (well, one really didn't end i suppose). The deck seriously just outdraws and handrapes your opponent until he either scoops, or casually waits and nods as you resolve some random broken spell to end the game. Most of the times it was just simpler to kill via Tendrils. Oh, and as mentioned before, Colossus got boarded in alot and actually won more games than Tog.

Ok the rest of the Maindeck is Plain Jane but my sideboard was clearly subpar.

Sure, I had a couple of reasonable cards in there but nothing that really shined. Darkblast was ok, Energy Flux is not terrible, Berserk was cast twice all day, and Edict and Chill were never boarded in/wished for ever. That stuff aside, the rest was decent... but the main point of contention i suppose was the Tinker/Colossus. I boarded him in all the time, if for no other reason than he can't be pithing needled (that card was everywhere). Most of the time he wins just the same as anything else in my deck but the fact that it's so much easier to win with him made my head hurt less all day. By the time I'm casting win conditions with this deck I've already won the game anyway it's just a formality that my opponent must be at 0 life. Granted there are the odd times where a ripped Tinker won me a game or two, they were generally few and far between. I'm not sure whether or not Colossus would be better maindecked. Suggestions appreciated.

But on the whole it just seems like this deck is overpowered. Much in the way that Gifts can, this can randomly draw a game-ending Mana Drain or AK-4 (and Merchant Scroll for either) and just power its way through heavy odds. It does however require a ton of thinking. Every decision made could make or break the game and especially when you're down a game or something along those lines, you can't afford to make the wrong call.

Getting back to my point about the "uninventive and boring" state of vintage, I was glad to see diversity and innovation in the top 16. From r/g hate (teammate Aaron... worst deck ever.), to mono black iggy wasteland tendrils (I WANT to see this list!), to old school Dragon, Tog, GAT, Goblins, and new-school Flame Vault Combo and Confidant Tendrils. I was so happy to not have the top16 inundated with Gifts.Stax.CS. Surely I'm not bummed to leave Connecticut with a Recall, though to be honest the prize didn't matter so much as the pride, I wanted to win so badly for that sole sake. Meh, GAT happens.

Obligatories

PROPS
-Ray Robillard, first and foremost, for running a flawless and much enjoyable tournament. Everyone in that room is and was hats-off to you Ray, we just beg you keep running exceptional events like the one you did yesterday.
-Judging staff for taking the time to walk (no pun intended) me through how ridiculous Time Vault is. I fucking hate that card.
-Jigglypuff (Nate) for being so savagely l33t and knowing how Time Vault actually works. It raped my face.
-Bob in top16 for honestly one of the best game 3's I've ever played. It was tight all the way through the match and the third game was no exception. Go Go Deep Analysis!
-Mike in top8 for randomly scooping to me in game 3 after a mulligan. We were all tired and Mike had a 4 hour drive home... much appreciated.
-The spectator behind me in the finals who noticed I drew an extra card after the Mystical. Thank you so much for pointing it out right away before play ensued.
-Josh in the finals for not being an ass about the Mystical/Brainstorm thing. People all over were calling for game loss, but you were friendly about that and that's admirable, especially in game 3 of a tight finals match.
-My friends from Poughkeepsie NY, and after a long time of being an unassembled band of power winning fiends, we are henceforth known as the Quad Entente. We placed 3/4 members in the top16, go us!
-Any and all of my other opponents, thanks for putting up with my savage topdecks and dumb deck.
-Lack of cops on NY/CT Interstates.

SLOPS
-Time Vault. Blow me.
-My deck for causing extreme mental strain and for being hideously slow to play.
-You randoms who were calling for game loss in the finals. Seriously, just shut up because it's not your decision to make anyways so why be an ass about it. It was 3 am, I was tired.
-That pizza. I was offered a piece for free and I didn't take it, it looked so hideous.

Thanks all
Jon

Thanks Ray for another amazing tournament. The legacy of awesome Waterburys lives on.

Jon

Re: Mind twist...

Gifts combo, potentially one of the strongest decks in the format, plays misdirection... oftentimes 2-3 maindeck. Good luck winning after they misdirect your twist for 3-4 back at ya.

To be fair, as to the Dimir Guildmage guy... you don't need to worry about decking, because if they try to deck you out you'll eventually find an instant-speed kill spell: his abilities can only be used sorcery speed. But Mr. Mind Twist/ draw your deck is too ridiculous still.

 I really like Sisters of the Stone Death though, they're actually giving us more strong creatures without being too broken. Now I just need to find about 20 foil rares from this new set cuz my stack is all foiled

In a big trade I just did I asked a guy to throw in a pack-crimped foil rare along with the deal, is this worth anything? The rare is Words of Wind so it's not really a good one, but still. I've searched all over and can't seem to find any site that has info about this. I know there's a bunch of you in this community who have ridiculously pimped collefctions... so you might know?

Thx

Jon

Lil' Smennen here...

Put yourself in my shoes here, David. Your teammate, who has been to a grand total of 4 type 1 tournaments in his life, at which he top8'ed 3 times (Waterbury day 1&2 and also this one) and who is essentialy new to our magic community. He was tired, had a headache, and was telling us all that he felt like crap. I knew this and would have certainly supported him drawing with just about anything... but RG beats? C'mon now, Oath is almost a sure-fire bet against that and to boot, it's a combo version thats much faster than traditional Oath. Now being the most experienced type 1 player among our team there, I wasn't comfortable with letting Dan give away over $150 in that split. Had he lost (which I could not foresee) I would have certainly felt bad but I'm pretty sure he trusted my judgment and I too was confident obviously that I was right. By no means did I mean to come off aggressive, and never did I once insult you or even your deck, but your lip towards me was not really appreciated, in front of everyone no less. I'm not his "coach" as you called me oh about 50 times, I'm his friend. And friends don't let friends do... whatever. Now, would you have done the same in my position?

That aside, your report was exemplary and the fact you did so much with a budget deck is awesome. Both me and my other teammate (johnstown713) were just outside of top 8, and next time I hope we can play in the top 8, as I saw you're a very methodical player who makes little to no mistakes. I just hope the name Lil' Smennen doesn't stick...

Jon

I've had success playing Damping Matrix and Cranial Extractions in the SB, both of which I bring in against CS. They're both slow but cripple them once resolved. I also randomly had 1 Withered Wretch in there last tourney I went to and he was golden for me all day, I'll have to keep testing him (maybe you were at the tourney, in ottawa - I got 2nd).

Repeating what others are saying here already, you have to play fast because over a long game he has the upper hand almost always. Duress I've found to be key in the match as it lets you resolve the 2nd-turn bomb (draw7, bargain, etc) like you're trying to. The problem is if the CS player plays Duress also, because then it slows you down significantly and then they have once again achieved a longer game, and a greater chance of winning, IMO.

I also don't play Wish main, so maybe you have more alternatives than I do. And I like your tech of Massacre, those Mages are hella annoying and the Montreal'ers really push that card like none other.

I see all your points regarding Drain vs Counterspell. I'll say that first, proxies aren't an issue... second, the deck is REALLY tight and cutting stuff is next to impossible.. and third, that I think counters have to be upped to 8 primarily just to stay on par with CS.

Re: 5 moxes... no, the manabase is too fragile to afford the 5 moxen without cutting basics, or running city of brass, and without exalted that's not happening. Test this and you'll see for yourself.

Now on to the Slaver issue; The real reason why I believe Slaver is dominant in the metagame is primarily because it's so hard to hate. Welder destruction is hard because of the good counterwall behind it, etc. But there's only so much countering that deck can do for your silver bullets like F/I, monkey, and intuition. Shay slaver in this situation is easier to combat because of the weaker draw engine and lack of an AK war, whereas Goth is a sloppy game (g1) dominated by massive counter-wars. In regards to Warble, your point about letting scepter resolve and just countering the copy is really weak, because over the long run I will have tremendous card advantage and the game is won. Also, welders are fairly easy to shut down. Turn 1 monkey nullifies welder! I'm sure people will always say, "well your deck isn't good because it can't do this and that consistently if slaver goes off on you once" but it's quite possible to fight back from an early slaver given the proper setup. And to those continuing to say that chant on a stick is not great vs. slaver : I KNOW! Hence the reason why I suggest getting F / I there. In my extensive testing vs slaver, the build that play Blood Moon main are the biggest threats, should it resolve without you having W to float, or basics in play already.

Either way, the matchup is not quite as aggravating as one would think.

Thanks to all for the input,
Jon

I've been off TMD for a while now, and due to a move I now live in a small (but growing) T1 community. Over the past few months, however, I've been developing a resource denial based control deck that has had a lot of success in testing and at tournaments.

Without further ado,

3c Scepter

The Lock
3 Isochron Scepter
3 Orim's Chant

Nay-Sayers
4 Force of Will
2 Mana Drain
1 Counterspell

Resource Control
3 Gorilla Shaman
2 Crucible of Worlds

Draw and Utility
4 Accumulated Knowledge
1 Intuition
1 Fact or Fiction
2 Disenchant
3 Fire / Ice
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Brainstorm

Finisher
1 Exalted Angel

Manabase
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
4 Flooded Strand
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
1 Library of Alexandria
3 Island
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Library of Alexandria

Sideboard
1 Exalted Angel - Shines vs. aggro
3 Meddling Mage - Hurts Oath, Combo, etc.
3 Rack and Ruin - Necessary WS aggro and stax inclusion
1 Balance - Dominates the control mirror
3 Swords to Plowshares - Oath, randomness
2 Lava Dart - Control Slaver
2 Red Elemental Blast - Control mirror and TPS




The maindeck is solid, and cutting cards is next to impossible. Cunning Wish, more intuitions, more angels, more crucibles, ophidians, and many other options were all tried, but after months of tournament play and testing we think we've found a solid maindeck. The sideboard has pretty much evolved with the metagame switch to control slaver but could still use revision (I'd really like to see 4 REB's there). Essentially I'm posting this list for suggestions, but also to hear what the rest of the community has to think about this... scepter decks have been tried in the past but get hurt bigtime by Null Rod, but this one doesnt due to the presence of maindeck disenchant and Fire / Ice for the fishies. Is scepter not viable? Can it be tier 1?

The general idea here is to control the early game with a barrage of counters, mana denial and permanent destruction. When ready, throw a threat down on a scepter and go into hyper mode wrecking their men, drawing infinite cards, or just outright making their spells uncastable. In certain situations, an early scepter-chant can simply end the game, but leaves you vulnerable to it being destroyed, a huge tempo loss. From my limited testing of scepter/chant in extended, it's the same way: generally you should have already won by the time you play scepter.

As for card choices,

Only 3 moxes? It actually isnt all important to play out your whole hand on turn 1, and to add moxes I'd be cutting basics, something not advisable in most circumstances. I'll leave it at 3.

2 Drains, 1 Counterspell? Logically, if your opponent sees drain and cspell they might overestimate the amount of counters you're playing and assume you're playing a MonoU-esque control. I can't find room for more drains, however hard I try. Also, counterspell is usually always better on scepter.

1 Angel? It started with 3, and at one point there were 2 Angels, 3 meddling mages and 3 Shamans all MD but creatures suck unless they cost R, so we'll keep the shamans and the 1 angel, only cuz she's hot.

Mystical Tutor? This deck hates card disadvantage, so why bother with its inclusion...? Because while holding a scepter it can give you that silver bullet you need against X.dec whether it be more cards, more kill, or more control. We've tried cutting it, but miss it always.

No Cunning Wishes? The SB seems ripe for a wish heavy MD but yet it is so clunky and mana intensive, especially with only 2 Drains. Plus, 90% of the solutions you'll need can be found MD and the other 10% can often be worked around. We tried, but this failed.

1 Intuition? It's golden! I love it myself but some teammates disagree, opting for either a 2nd angel MD or Balance in there, but I swear that Intuition has won me so many games it's not funny. So why not more then? No, it has cunning wish syndrome, you want to be replaying wastelands, not using up all your mana to establish control when you already should be in another fashion. But this card is too good not to be in here and works super nice if crucible is in play.

2 Crucibles? I want 3. I really do. There's nothing I can cut! Help?



Matchup Analysis

Oath - depends on the draw, usually if they get the god draw of mox, orchard, oath (with counter) it will naturally be tough to deal with. Originally there were Gilded Drakes in the SB but then most of the meta shifted away from Oath, more towards CS so the SB was changed but regardless this deck has a strong matchup. If Oath will give you enough time to throw chant down on a stick of even disenchant, you've pretty much won. He has a lot of counters, but as soon as this is started, it's huge card advantage for you. If you can't win game 1 for some reason, SB wins the match.

Stax / WS aggro - Crucible is your worst enemy here. Even trinisphere can be dealt with, so long as crucibles can be kept from resolving, this matchup is a huge advantage for you. Gorilla Shaman is huge in this matchup, as are the disenchants. A scepter-chant is always game over** and the spot removal for welders is huge. Juggernauts are bad, but killable via chump + Fire or disenchant, etc. Just kill his manas and go for the win.

Aggro/Fish - Fire / Ice is the win and especially vs. Fish, crucible is gg. This is a favorable matchup in most situations, but FCG poses a bit of a problem as its solid manabase and fast fast creatures overwhelm pretty quicky. Scepter/chant is golden here (as is in most cases, but..) and exalted angel is the cream on the keg.

Combo (TPS, Deathlong, SX, all inclusive) - It is sometimes necessary, as is in most situations, to mull into a force, or an elsewise powerful hand. Against decks packing Duress, it is super hard to recover from barring a draw and counter heavy hand. TPS here is actually a marginal matchup, going slightly in the favor of this because a single cast orim's chant can win once he hits 7-8 spells. Keep him away from your hand and everything should go fine.

Slaver - If you can't resolve your scepter, you're in a bad spot. On the other hand, should you resolve a scepter on Fire / Ice you've essentially won. Without welders, CS can't go anywhere. Slaving you once cant be too disastrous if you prepare properly for it (use up disenchants, etc.) and Platinum Angel is easily taken care of. The Gorillas are huge in this matchup too, and overall this deck has a strong game vs. CS. Post board you get Darts, and potentially mages which help out the cause even more.

Other control (4c, tog, GaT, etc) - Mana denail is huge! If they're basic heavy, monkey will eat their moxen and card draw on the stick is GG. Not a hard matchup, and every time you get card advantage you get one step closer to the win in the match. REBs in SB come in and Balance is a bomb.

I think that's pretty much it, I'd appreciate feedback on what you think
of the deck, what you think could change and what results you get, if any, from testing with or against this.

For those intetested, this deck has posted reults of 2 Top 8's, 1 Top 4, and a 3-2-drop finish at medium-large events (40+ people, 5 proxy, power events) in recent memory and state of deck.

Peace
Jon

**(unless you're Ben Kowal and/or you're a psychic metagame predictor, who maindecks Rack and Ruins @ GP Boston and torches my crucible... with strip in grave... and my scepter... GG)

An hour? Really? 12:20 pm to 12:40 pm is really an hour? WHOA!

Anyhow, I think our representation of 6-2, 6-2, 6-2, 5-2-1, 5-3, are strong enough to suggest that we're good players, just terribly unlucky. Rich,  for example, had to mull to 5 two games in a row vs. stax because of horrible mana screw. Also, my turn 1 Tinker > Jar, turn 2 cast 3 dark rits, then blow Jar into 5 lands and 2 FoW's was pretty cool (couldn't go for colossus 'cuz he played swords). And not to mention your guys' tiebreaks...

Overall though, a job well done Razvan!

Hey, to address a few comments:

-Gush was fantastic for me all day. It saved me many wasted lands, and found my brokens faster. I don't think I'd cut it. Same goes for LED, it won me 2 games during the day, and in playtesting it was doing well. I wouldn't cut it either.

-Windfall was in the list, sorry I forgot to include it.

-$10 entry fees rock. It makes the tourney soo much more open to newer players ( i.e. those playing zombies, soldiers, elves, etc.)

And might I ask as to why you put BEBs / hydroblast in your side? Are you afraid of welders or something else? I'll try it out but I don't think BEB should really be necessary.

Yes, I cast will, then responded with sac'ing LED, putting Twister in grave. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

To try and keep this discussion going, what are good sideboard options for TPS?

-Cranial Extraction ?
-Hurkyl's Recall ?
-Platinum Angel ?
-Rushing River / Echoing Truth / Chain of Vapor / Other Bounce ?
-Energy Flux ?
-Stifle ?
-Spawning Pit / Claws of Gix ?
-Other Ideas ?

Let's assume you're building a SB for a general broad metagame, such as Waterbury for example. As I stated before half my SB was useless and I found that my worst matchups were obviously control, so I'm thinking maybe Defense Grid? The MD Rebuild obviously helped against Stax, which is an annoying matchup, especially if he uses MD Chalice, but still I felt I had the upper hand.

So I've been somewhat out of the real type 1 scene for a while, as I've been going to school in Ottawa, Canada... where the Type 1 community is essentially just starting to grow. So on the night of my return, I'm pleased to be told there's a tourney like 2 hours away, so I'm like meh whatever. This means I only get like 4 hours of sleep but hey who needs it?

Come morning, I meet up with teammates Ryan and Tariq in Danbury and set off on our trek to Springfield. We end up being some of the first ones there (I'd have much rather slept in...) but still, it leaves time for me to figure out what the hell I'm gonna do with my deck. I had no useful sideboard for the deck I thought i might play, TPS, so I crafted one with what useful cards I could find, most notably Cranial Extraction, I'll get to this later.

On to the report;

Round 1: Jaris with TriniStax

Unfortunately, this is the match I remember the least as I was freezing cold in the back corner, and not really thinking about what I was doing properly Still, I remember in game 1 Rebuilding all his lock components and having all the moxes I had to sac to Stax willed back in. Sooooo sweet. Jaris was frustrated in game 3, his deck gave him nothing but lots of Crucibles and wastes. Basic lands > that.

I boarded in my Fluxes, Hurkyl's and Platz.

Round 2: Chris? with Elves

I noticed at the beginning of the tourney, I saw too many tribal decks for my likes... elves, goblins, zombies, soldiers... Oooh boy. But yet, in round 1, I was only sitting 2 tables down from where Ray Robillard (iamfishman) got smashed with belcher by this guy, so I'm figuring some crazy elvish artifact hate... I'm curious.

Game 1 I empty most of my hand on turn 1 (playing 2nd) and cast Jar, holding back on the activation for a turn. Sadly, I wasn't expecting the almight Viridian Shaman to come and rain on my parade. A few Priest of Titania's and Sylvan Recuiters laters, I was finished.

I don't board anything in.

Game 2, I play first and just do the TPS thing with first turn Necro.

Game 3, He goes land, mox, chalice 1 which really hurts me with my hand of 2x dark ritual, brainstorm and vamp tutor + land/mox. This game gets dragged out quite a bit as I realize he isn't throwing everything down at me such as he's leaving mana untapped, always. His only creatures were 2x Priest of Titania so i figured, he's holding on to crazy tech, or his entire hand is 1cc elves. Turns out I was right, and once I draw into D.Tutor and fetch my Tinker > Colossus, I expect a response now, or never. He draws, wellwisher, and I pound for 3 turns for the win. He reveals his hand of all 1cc stuff.

Must say though, that is the PIMPest elf deck I have and will ever see. Beta power, DCI foil elves. Savage.

That puts me to 2-0, and as I check up on my teammates, Tariq is 1-1 and Ryan is 1-0-1.

Round 3, Tristan with SuperGro

In round 2, I saw that he was playing some sort of UG? control deck, so I expected Dryads and probably Togs.

Game 1 I double duressed on turns 1-2 and had force backup for my tinker > colossus, though it was not needed. This is after he had laid a dryad, but it only got up to be a 3/3 or something before it was forced to chump.

I board in Cranial Extractions, Platinum Angel, and Rushing River.

Game 2, I go turn 1 land, duress, turn 2 Cranial Extraction > Quirion Dryad. I meet no counters, and flick through his library where I see Mystic Enforcers, Meddling Mages and Dryads and I'm like WTF... SuperGro?? Haven't seen  it in ages, but I fear the Meddling Mages, since he's got one in hand. The game goes draw-go for a few turns, him lacking a white to cast mage, when I decide to bust it all out for a Desire for 6, which meets Stifle! Dismayed, I begin shuffling my library in disbelief of the FoW in hand, without the blue to pitch. I finish shuffling, offer him to cut, he just nods and I reveal Ancestral Recall. Uh oh. Top top that off, recall gives me mana crypt and Will, so I desired for a helluva lot more. And won.

I leave the table hearing; I shoulda cut... I shoulda cut...

At 3-0, with 5 rounds and 32 people, I'm sure 3-0-2 makes so I figure I'm safe to draw in. Plus, after this round I end up with the highest tiebreakers as well, so I'm fairly certain I'm in.

Round 4, Pat Brennan with 5c oath

We played a few games for fun, pre-board, where I was mauled by Colossi bearing Dragon breath, and wings. There was also a Serra Avatar main, I might add. We ID.

Round 5, John Buda playing Dragon

I get paired down, and end up playing John, who unfortunately needs a win to make top8. We discuss over tiebreakers, and how one of the 3-1-1's won't make it. I'm concerned however, since Tariq is at 3-1 and needs a win vs. Hale (purple hat) with wMUD, and also Ryan needs a win vs. EBA. Tariq is in a do-or-die situation, but I'm conerned If I just give John a win, if Ryan can still make the top 8 due to low tiebreakers. He assures me he can, so I give up the win. In retrspect, I feel that it's wrong to do that, and will never do it again, as it nearly kept Ryan out of the top 8. Even though his opponent scooped to him (his opp only had 6 pts), he was 9th after the 5th round, yet however luckily, one of the finalists had to go home! Ryan mises his way in!

The top 8 looked like

Jon (me- TPS) vs. Pat (5c Oath)
Tristan (Supergro) vs. Travis (Metalworker/TPS?)

Tariq (Oath w/ wishes) vs. Ryan (Scepter control) <Both teammates
John (Dragon) vs. Chris (wMUD)

Top 8: Pat again

He wins the die roll... note I have not yet won a die roll today. Going 2nd really really sucks.

He does the usual Oath thing, turn 1 Orachrd, mox, oath, and I get to sit back and wait to have him get both Colossi out, then hope to Rebuild em back. Well, he has force and I don't, so I lose.

I board in my Extractions, Rushing River, Platinum Angel, and Hurkyl's Recall.

I go first, and kick it off with duress taking his mana leak.  He plays Gemstone, go. I go land, Dark rit, Extraction > Oath. He cringes, digs with Brainstorm, finds nothing, and lets me rip out his oaths. I notice he's boarded out his serra avatar, and all he's got is colossi. We both play draw-go for a while, until he D.Tutor's, which next turn reveals Arcane Lab. This is bad for me, since I'm a noob and I boarded out my chain of vapor for the recall. We joke about how the only way for us to win is via our colossi, as I notice he plays null rod. Another bad one. I'm left with like 2 land, and a hand full of Y.Will brokenness. He slowly but surely plays lands, whilst I find a few more myself and find my Demonic Tutor, which I'm extremely tentative to play, since I'm sure he's got some kind of counter, and I can't use force. I asuume he was thinking " counter the spell, not the tutor" so he lets me find my tinker, and I just hold it back. I allow him to ramp up to 11 for casting colossus, meanwhile he gives me 3 tokens, and he's taking burns from CoB's. I force it, and he tries to force back, but I point to hus lab, and he's like " er... yeah". Since he's tapped out, I take the risk of tinkering, praying for no FoW, which resolves, getting me my Platinum Angel, and between it, and the few tokens I got, I swung all the way.

Game 3 was somewhat similar, he starts out with land, go. I go lotus> mana vault > Extraction which meets Force, but I force back! I once again nab his Oaths and realize that he got scared of extraction, and took out one of his 2 colossi for the avatar. This of course buys me a lot of time, during which I set up for a huge Will. I go LED, Y.will, saccing, throwing a twister into grave. Replay LED, lotus, and go for twister. I have UUUBBB floating and like 5 of spells. And my twister hand gies me nothing. I think I had like 1 playable spell, and then tendrils, so I did cranial into his colossus, then tendrils him for 16, putting him at 2 after he burned twice off CoB, and me at 30-something. I spend countless turns drawing garbage, taking bolts from crypt,  I eventually just drew into Bargain which I forced through, and ended it.

**This brings me to the argument part of the report. Cranial Extraction single handedly won me both those games, as well as some in the swiss. Some italian lists are playing it, and many of the Europeans here vouch for it, but it seems like the larger part of the American community dislikes it, thinking the cc too high, and that it's unresolvable. In a deck like TPS, I'll have to disagree. With duress and FoW you can push it through, and all the fast mana makes it come down early, so you'll likely only have to play around one if not no counters. It WINS games, and it reveals your opponent's hand, as well as his library to you, so you know exactly what you have to play around, and what to hold back on. The card may be unplayable in traditional control lists, but for something like TPS, a controllish combo deck, I think it fits the plan quite perfectly.**

Tariq beats Ryan, John beats Chris, and Tristan beats Travis, and luckily I'm not paired with my teammate, so Tristan gets to try for revenge.

Game 1 was just gross. I had a retardedly broken hand and was stopped short by a well timed counter. However, a topdecked Will set things straight

Game 2, I boarded the same as in the prelims. I set 7 aside, and watch as he mulls all the way to 4. At this point I'm rather confident as I pick up my hand, bearing turn 1 extraction. It gets forced, then during his turn he recalls! Not a bad 4 cards! The game gets drawn out, until I force through Bargain, draw 15 cards, cast tendrils for 20 > Stifle. I sigh, dig 1 card deeper, and find FoW with Windfall to pitch. Finals! Bring it!

Or not? Tariq beats Dragon and things are good for our team, and we take the walk and the $100, Tariq takes the walk, I take the money, and some of his, of course, and we head out for NY in the terrible icy road conditions. By the way, if you're ever here again, go to the Ground Round nearby and just order a plate of their cinnamon triangle desserts. Their dopeness factor approaches that of Watebury's.

Props:
-The Beanie Exchange, a clean, well-run store that put on a great tournament. The staff was great and the tourney ran smoothly. Thanks!
-My teammates, for top8'ing.
-Ryan especially, for top8'ing with SCEPTER CONTROL!!!!! S4V4G3!!
-My opponents: all were friendly and all played competitive decks.
-Ryan's mom, for the lift and meals
-Cranial Extraction, for being the winnar in countless games.

Slops:
-Tariq, for assuming after he drained Hale's metalworker, that it was his turn. He untapped and drew a card. You = stupid.
-Me, for losing a game to a Viridian Shaman. Boo.
-Mother Nature, for making us drive like 7 mph on interstate 84 on the way back.
-Half of my sideboard, for being completely useless and never got boarded in.

I'll leave with my list:

Myoglucosamide
(or some other toxic chemical that was on the back of Tariq's Powerade bottle) - (or just TPS)

4 Force of Will
4 Duress
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
2 Tendrils of Agony
2 Rebuild
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Fact of Fiction
1 Necropotence
1 Memory Jar
1 Mind's Desire
1 Gush
1 Windfall
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Timetwister
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
1 Sol Ring
1 Chrome Mox
1 Black Lotus
5 Moxen
2 Swamp
2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Underground River
1 Tolarian Academy

SB:
3 Cranial Extraction
2 Damping Matrix - useless
2 Tormod's Crypt - useless
2 Stifle - useless
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Platinum Angel
1 Rushing River
3 Energy Flux

Jon Smithers

EDIT: BrassMan's Type 4 stack is retardedly fun. It's especially fun when I Acquire Ray's Staff of Domination. That's always fun. Fun Fun Fun.

IMO the main reason this deck performed well about a year ago, was the fact that people didn't know how to play against it. I myself played this near its birth early last year and took it to several top8's in NE, but the surprise factor is gone now. To expound on this, the deck found its way into every budget player's hands and now everyone knows the decklist inside and out.

On top of that, I don't think a competent MWS player will consistently lose to this. Smokestacks are bad news, and Tangle Wires are possibly worse. If perchance he goes first, and goes Trinisphere, you have no chance. He just triple Time-Walked. I'm not saying other decks have much better plays against it, but FoW helps.

And Oath is essentially auto-lose.

I'll repeat by saying that IMO now is not the time for its revival. If ever the old-school metagame comes back (Tog, Dragon, GAT, etc.) the meta might be ready for this, but until then I'll let my goblins hibernate in the binder.

@ absolute

The oath triggers at the beginning of the upkeep, yes, but does not check until resolution. Once Oath is on the stack, if i tap orchard to give you a creature, unless you can dispose of it before the oath trigger resolves, i will fetch a creture.

@ dicemanx

I disagree, IMO spawning pit is the best vecause it comes down the quickest, assumin perhaps you have no fetch or red source in hand, and also, you're going to board out null rods vs. oath anyways so it makes no diff. Also, over the long run you're going to deal more damage this way, combined with manlands, of course. Goblin bombardment is an option, but perhaps not for an oath metagame, but for a welder-heavy meta where bombardment would just be splash hate for oath. And claws of gix is really weak. Why would you want to be gaining life when you can be dealing damage? Hey they all basically serve the same purpose, but the fact of the matter is, you're on a clock. A very long one (until he gets 3 orchards) but still, a clock no less. Therefore it's actually quite important to be lashing out damage via the spawning pit and manlands.

Congrats on your consistently high finishes Pierre. To address your main argument, the inclusion of Voidmage or no, it all depends on the metagame. I was there yesterday (I'm Jon... I gave you tips on how to beat Dragon in the T8)... and for that extremely heavy control environment the Voidmages would have certainly helped. If the meta was more like the one we had at KK where it was all workshops, Voidmages are usually dead, as you'll really never get up to (U)(U) just hanging around doing nothing. Also, If you do this I would suggest cutting a basic mountain and leaving a island in its place.

On another note, I think the Spindrift drake is not what fish is looking for. Fish likes having mana open for activating manlands, stripping lands, etc. and not have to have (U) tied up for something thats easily fire/iced. I guess it worked out for you so I won't argue, but that's just my two cents. Oh and by the way... methinks spawning pit > gilded drake for oath. Manlands can and will go the distance.

In my testing, I've found that Impulse serves a much more useful position here, and takes up less spots that intuition/AK. If we're trying to find Oaths, cards that let you see 3/4 cards deep are clutch. Brainstorm and Impulse IMO.

:shock:  @ Future Sight?

 To have this in here makes me cringe thinknig about your mana curve. 5 is 2 more than your other highest cc (and no FOW is not a 5cc spell) ,and the 3 slot is generally restricted to crucible, and crucible only because of its massive game-swinging effect. Future sight is not enough bang for its buck, in an underpowered deck such as this. Especially when most your blue sources are huge wasteland targets anyway.