I play in monthly events here in Ottawa...but I am getting seriously disinterested in Vintage.

There is a lot of Oath/Trinisphere going on around here, and it doesn't seem worth my time to jet down to tourney location, then sit down and see my opponent go turn 1 Mishra's Workshop Trinisphere, go...and see all the Moxes in my hand and wonder if I'll draw enough fetchlands to be able to do anything.

Or to drop a creature turn 1 or so, then have Oath come out, Force of Will war to see if I can actually get 2 more turns.

I have T8d a lot in the past and that stopped at the last tourney, so I am looking at another deck at the moment (Mono Blue if you must know, no one will see it coming in our metagame). Mono Blue is a good choice for me because with 4 Force of Will and 2+ Shoals, I can ACC counter a Trinisphere or Oath early.

As for Star City Games, I love them and I love Pete and Ferrett and the gang, they let me write for them but I can't justify travelling down to Virginia or New York to play in a Vintage event right now...I do have the income but lack the patience of driving down there, then playing 8-10 rounds in a poorly ventilated area with players that are just crazy good. It would be an AWESOME learning experience and one I hope to do at some point, but not now.

I am anxiously awaiting March 1st to see if R&D clamps down on one of Goblin Welder, Trinisphere or Workshop.

Post is all over the place, but basically:

Type 1 is very non-interactive at the moment, and that's what is keeping me away.

Thanks for the tips there and here.

I will certainly look into Spawning Pit. It gives me an outlet to get rid of the spirit tokens after combat, and also lets me develop more 2/2s at a later date...and at 2 colorless, it's manageable.

I think you or someone had Echoing Truths for the tokens at one point, it's also interesting...Assuming they were willing to give you a token on their upkeep, can you sac it to the Pit in response so they cannot trigger Oath?

I'll cut the Spindrifts for 2 Voidmages next time...I'm not 100% sold on them, I just like having the extra punch in there.

Thanks again, see you at the next event.

Hello all.

I have started playing Type 1 again recently. Our local stores have held proxy tournaments (5 free, $1 for each additional) and this has resulted in an influx of new players to the Vintage scene.

Our first big tournament happened shortly after Gen Con this year, and I wanted to build something budget that would be in my style, so I went with U/R fish. I took this version of the deck to the first tournament, and placed in my first of three consecutive T8s.

T8:
Tom Rotchadl
U/R Fish
4 Volcanic Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Faerie Conclave
3 Island
2 Mountain
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Spiketail Hatchling
4 Curiosity
4 Force of Will
4 Standstill
3 Null Rod
3 Stifle
3 Daze
2 Crucible of Worlds

Sideboard
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Fire / Ice
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Sigil of Sleep
3 Rack and Ruin

It did fairly well (4-0-1 Swiss, lost in quarters) but I found that the Sigil of Sleep in the sideboard were dead a lot of the time. I decided to remove them and replace them with 2 Maze of Ith and 1 Control Magic.

This was better, but I still had a lot of trouble with Workshop Aggro (Juggernauts being bad for my little dudes) and somewhat having trouble against the newly played Oath of Druids deck...for the second Power 9 tournament, I went with this build (removing the Control Magic):

4 Curiosity
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Spiketail Hatchling
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Standstill
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
2 Stifle
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Null Rod
1 Firestorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
3 Mishra's Factory
1 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire

4 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
3 Island
2 Mountain
2 Faerie Conclave
1 Strip Mine
60 cards.

Sideboard:

4 Red Elemental Blast
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Fire/Ice
2 Rack & Ruin
2 Maze of Ith
2 Extract

15 Sideboard cards

I took this version to a 4-1-1 T8 finish (Lost in quarters to Richard from Toronto playing a Crucible control build) at the Black Lotus tournament at Kool Kards Heaven.

I put in the Firestorm because I wanted a cheap, instant-speed sweeper that would let me push through some extra damage. The theory was that if I did a Firestorm for 3, I could kill 2 Juggernauts and deal 3 to my opponent (at the time, several Aggro Workshop builds were around, and since there were a lot of other budget builds, such as Food Chain Goblins, I needed a quick sweeper) and potentially win me the game.

The Sigil of Sleeps left the sideboard, to be replaced with 2 Extract and 2 Maze of Ith. At this tournament, EVERYONE was either going to be playing Oath, Trinistax or Workshop Aggro. I knew Oath would be my worst matchup, so the 2 Extracts would let me remove one of their threats early, leaving me with only one to deal with.

The Extracts proved invaluable. Against Oath players, I often played them turn 1 and removed Akroma or Spirit of the Night, and from there I had an easier time. Some builds played only one Darksteel Colossus, so once the Extract went off, I just had to carry the Faeries and Wizards home to victory.

I liked this build a lot. Since I'm never entirely happy with my sideboard, however, I did some minor tweaking for yesterday's event at Algonquin College (4-1-1 lost in quarters to Oath of Druids) for a Beta Walk and Workshop (1st and 2nd).

Maindeck:

4 Curiosity
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Spiketail Hatchling
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Standstill
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
2 Stifle
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Null Rod
2 Spindrift Drake
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
3 Mishra's Factory
1 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire

4 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
3 Island
2 Mountain
2 Faerie Conclave
1 Strip Mine
60 cards.

Sideboard:

4 Red Elemental Blast
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Fire/Ice
2 Energy Flux
2 Gilded Drake
2 Extract
1 Stifle

15 Sideboard cards

The Spindrift Drakes came in because I wanted some sustained pressure in the mid-game, and their upkeep wasn't too harsh. They proved excellent at adding on those extra 2-4 points of damage I needed.

The Rack & Ruins left the sideboard completely, as they were crap. I replaced them with 2 Energy Flux when I became aware of the large amount of TriniStax in the environment. Simply, Workshops suck when they need to pay for your upkeep costs. I rode the Fluxes to victory in two matches yesterday, backed up by Crucible of Worlds in one case.

The Gilded Drakes were meant to be a cheap way of swinging Oath matches in my favour. They actually won me the game against Cerebral Assassin, however. I ended up taking his Sundering Titan and beating him with it, how much fun is that! I did draw them against Oath as well, but they never resolved, unfortunately...

Now...I know Fish is on the decline presently, and I will likely experiement with another inexpensive deck in the future. I would like to know whether the addition of Voidmage Prodigy main is worthwhile. It would seem that they give you those hard counters you don't have outside Force of Will. I always avoided them because my draws often didn't allow for the UU mana cost, and I was hesitant to play with a morph in the deck as well (which would cost 3UU, 3 to morph, one to unmorph and one to sacrifice if needed).

The more I think about it, the more the Voidmages seem appealing, however.

I'm confident enough about the deck and metagame to know I can T8 with it in our local area (our T1 tournaments attract 45-60 people). I do want to add that extra OOMPH! to it to push it farther up the slope.

Any suggestions on improving the build?

Thanks,
Pierre

Several points here are quite true.

We now have monthly or bi-monthly sanctioned Vintage tournaments, and the guys that win ALWAYS have Power 9. Oddly enough, the Vintage tournaments these days over here are drawing more people because the pace is more relaxed than Standard, where you have to deal with speedy Ravinity decks or Gobbo decks.

As to JP's comment, I've also heard these types of assertions as well; it's the type of feeling that because you play with the older cards and you own over three grand worth of cardboard in your deck, your opinion supercedes that on anyone else in your Magic community.

I think that a great part of the mystique that surrounds Type 1 is that you do, indeed, have access to 6000+ cards to choose from.

The reality is that the pool is probably closer to 200-300 cards at most, the Power 9, a smattering of cards from Arabians-Legens-Antiquities and several of the newer cards.

Type 1 is actually Type 2, but with much more explosive turns.

Eyes of the Watcher - 2U
Enchantment
Whenever you play an instant or sorcery spell, you may pay 1. If you do, Scry 2.


It kinda reminds of that old Rhystic something, it was Blue and if your opponent didn't pay 1 you drew a card...

What about Doomsday in this format, with Lion's Eye, Timetwister and a big fireball and a few lands?

I remember hearing about this format and thinking...

"Well, you Doomsday, leaving a Lion's Eye, Regrowth, Timetwister, and a few other cards."

I'm kinda lazy right now but I'm sure Doomsday is superbroken.

Have you tried that 1/1 dude that you can sac to make your opponent miss a land drop? He is megaharsh with Lifeline out.

5-Color is a great format.

I tried to get it going here in Ottawa, and was partially successful at doing so. I had 2 or 3 buddies that tried it, organized a 5-color FNM (so to speak) and made sure there were decent prizes. People knew Ante was part of the format, and this led some people to build decks with only commons and uncommons.

Whatever.

Aggro is really rewarded in this format, as you can find near infinite amounts of 1 or 2 drops with 2 power and get them out rather quickly. If you are able to "stabilize" and reach mid-game, the sweepers become very effective.

And yes, Contract From Below rocks da house. B for 7 cards, revealing until you hit a nonbasic land or rare or uncommon? Oh ya. I had my Jeweled Birds too, the ante loss hurts far less when you can give them a funkified Jeweled Bird (my chinese buddy wrote all sorts of chinese slang on his) for your dual or what not.

Biggest card I lost was Moat. Lost a Cursed Scroll too. Won a Morphling and two duals.

As an aside, those of you that play Magic Online and enjoy 5C may want to give Prismatic a whirl. It's basically 5C with Invasion Block forward, and Battle of Wits the only banned card.

Interestingly enough, it has developed house rules similar to the "Don't be a [jerk]" written of above, namely:

No Land D.
No Legacy Weapon.
No Sundering Titan.

You get the idea. Online, you have an excellent amount of land search in the form of Explosive Vegetation, Rampant Growth and so on, but you can still get hosed hard if someone starts throwing a Creeping Mold or Titan your way.

The "No Land D" rule had led to cards such as Unholy Grotto and Contested Cliffs being banned as well, since they can't really be dealt with.

There haven't been many ante games so far. I've played one or two, for uncommons, since the game doesn't feature a "flip till you reveal" feature.

It's really different from irl 5C, but quite enjoyable nonetheless.

I can't wait for the Bringers and Joiner Adept to get online.

 

What is it?

No one besides me is reading.

 

Off the top of my had how bad would:

Balance
Yawgmoth's Will
Mindslaver
Memory Jar
Any of the tutors (not Vampiric)
Time Walk (likely not that relevant...)
Academy Rector
Etc...

You guys think we'll be seeing these in Workshop decks? We're testing them here in Ottawa right now...

This ability seems just too good.

As an aside, does the "You" clause mean only its controller can do it?

Pierre