My first impressions about Gifts are in so it's time for a Vintage article again

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/30306_Opening-Up-Gifts.html

Enjoy!

PS: I know I didn't answer in my other threads, was busy at the time and I like to try and provide rather well thought-out responses. I do (and did) read every comment, though!

Time to share my reactions to last week's B&R announcement - and posted here because celebrating Vintage's latest unrestriction is a pretty big part of that for me. Enjoy

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/30178_Less-Treasure-More-Gifts.html

A little different look at how we might adjust the Eternal formats to the influx of Treasure Cruise. Main focus is on Legacy (seeing as I'm actually qualified to talk about that format) but I also share my impressions about Vintage so I thought I'd post the article here, too.

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/29992_Unbanning-For-Fun-And-Profit.html

PS: Sorry for not reacting to any comments at the moment, being at my parents as I traditionally do for Christmas and New Years means that I don't spend as much time online as I usually do.

Well, it looks like I (finally) get to spread my focus over two formats again in the months to come:

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/29975_Getting-Back-Into-Vintage.html

Enjoy and happy holidays!

I've finally gotten around to write about Vintage again

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/29648_Vintage-Champs-Breakdown.html

I hope you enjoy this, make sure you let me know what you think&where my impressions might need correction

Well, I come here to post a link and somebody has already done so! Thanks

As to the low Orchard lists, that's obviously not a reasonable plan if Oath actually sees a lot of play, I totally agree. From my impressions, though, it's criminally underplayed so the approach seems to make sense for now.

Finally had something to say about Vintage again so I did. If you like Goblin Welder or are interested in the impressions of a recent returnee, check it out and let me know what you think:

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/27644_A-Vintage-Excursion.html

I think considering the community discussing the situation, the best each of us can do is to make it clear how we feel about the issue. Speculating about the other guys feelings is pretty much impossible because it totally depends who's sitting on the other side of the table. Clearly there are different social norms and they differ based on player preferences and background, region, age, among probably a ton of other things.
Given that all of these social norms are that subjective and I really don't think you should have to have a ten minute talk with your opponent before each round to figure out what they personally think, making the official approach "the rules are the rules" also the social convention seems like a good idea. Not that you can force anybody to adopt that idea, but it would be nice if people accepted that competitiveness means players will try to win and that what is dishonorable is a totally subjective question where they can't force their own answer on their opponents.

Thanks by the way for linking that article, it was really interesting. I think it's ridiculous that Basketball - a million dollar sport if you manage to go pro - is ruled by that kind of weird convention. I'd really like to see them trying to get that to work in something like soccer over here. You either make a play against the official rules or people will (and should, considering the stakes and given that they're paid a lot of money to win) do it. Personally, I'd probably consider what happened to that girl team at the hands of the home teams referee cheating. He basically made a play allowed by the rules illegal because he didn't like it, which is not how sports and games that have a rule book are supposed to work.

The spaceship tournament was quite funny to read about, too. Clearly people weren't interested in competition and playing to win but in repeating the same old patterns they were used to - which is fine in that case I guess, given that the tournament wasn't really a competitive sports event but more of an afternoon of fun. I wonder how many of the participants actually convinced themselves they were good strategists that did their best to win, though, in spite of there being proof that they were using strategies that were clearly not the best available.

@dawg: The discussion itself is definitely valuable because if nothing else it should educate people on the subject. As for what is too shady to want around, I think the easiest way to draw a line as to what represents unacceptable behavior is that a) the play you're making doesn't violate the rules and b) should be possible to see through simply by either asking a clarifying question, thinking about the game state or just continuing to play the game without scooping.

@bluemage55:
I just read the link. From what I understood there, angle shooting along those lines is already forbidden in Magic. To actually do something similar to how angle-shooting is explained in the link, Zack would have needed to knowingly try to make Mike believe he conceded (the perfect parallel to the "induce other players to fold by making it look like you fold" thing). As said before, I believe that play is already forbidden because the Magic rules consider it cheating as an intentional misrepresentation of the game state and relevant tournament information (you are not allowed to lie to your opponent about public information or the game state). I agree that this should be banned (otherwise you could theoretically go "just show me the Tendrils" and then call the judge because your opponent broke the gamestate by searching his deck without playing a spell that allowed him to do so).

By your definition the Profane Command play from the article should be discouraged - it intends to make your opponent believe Chameleon Colossus has fear when it hasn't and as such aims at having your opponent misunderstand the gamestate - and I disagree. That kind of mind game just adds more spice to the game and is easily countered by paying attention or asking a question.
Misrepresenting the rules in certain ways also is definitely fine in Magic - I have played Pithing Needle on a Metalworker that paid for my Energy Flux against MUD before, obviously with the idea of making it look like he now couldn't use it any more. That play was totally legal and isn't even a particularly shady mindgame imo. I'm happy to have it be legal in the game and encourage people to try using it on me. Sadly my opponent didn't fall for it and once we reached his upkeep asked if that actually worked - at which point I told him that, no, the Pithing Needle wasn't doing anything against his Metalworker tapping for mana.

Actually, I'd go further than that. The fact that you can't draw a clear line where scummy behavior starts is one reason for me seeing things as I do. The other is that scummy will be defined differently by different people. Clearly there is a difference between the Pithing Needle play and what happened with Flores.

The big problem I have with the whole Flores situation is that it is Mike who is jumping to conclusions - as you said you first have to define that there is a social rule, what it is and you also have to be sure that the other person isn't just using words in their traditional English meaning. If you tell me "show me the combo," I will understand that you ask me to actually kill you, not that you want to see my deck. The simple fact that a large part of the community understands the statement the same way means that assuming it implies a concession is just wrong.
As you said yourself
That is not what Mike did. The normal course of play would require him to enter his mainphase.

I would totally agree that intentionally leading the other person to believe you have conceded would be a problem (intentional miscommunication) but at the same time I would be fine with you trying to get them so excited to have the win on the table that they forget they're still in their upkeep. The problem? From outside the player's head the two things look awfully similar.
As such I totally agree that a situation similar to what happened between Flores and Zack created intentionally is much shadier than the Pithing Needle play but I don't think calling either cheating is justified (again as long as you aren't intentionally creating the impression you're scooping the game - say by putting your hand down on the table or making a movement that is the start of scooping up).

I think the game has very clear rules that describe what can and cannot be done during a match. Doing anything that isn't against them should be considered fine. If you can get your opponent to jump to unjustified conclusions about the game state or distract their attention from the game so that they make a mistake without breaking the rules, the play is totally acceptable to me. Playing on your opponent's preconceived notions is as valid a way to do that as trying to make them overlook something they theoretically know. Again, as you said, trying to make them deviate from the norm is a situation of your mind against theirs - in short a battle of wits. Also note that there is absolutely no hidden information in the Pithing Needle play, either (everything is on the table) and you're using their preconceived notion - Needle answers hate - to get them to miss what's going on.

The whole discussion about what happened between Mike Flores and Zack Hall at the invitational reminded me I've long wanted to write an article on Jedi mind tricks. Considering this one isn't specifically about Legacy, I thought I'd link it here, too. Check it out:

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/fundamentals/23878_Eternal_Europe_Mistakes_Mind_Tricks_And_Morals.html

Interested in deckbuilding? Because today I'm covering one of my absolutely favorite ways to build decks, and one which also informs a lot of my whole way of looking and understanding decks and Magic strategy. Posting it here because , while it isn't about Vintage, the concepts it is about are perfectly applicable to Vintage deckbuilding.
Sound good? Check out my latest article:

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/fundamentals/23497_Eternal_Europe_Deckbuilding_The_Easy_Way.html

But given that the lack of Brainstorm would make the format unfun for a large number of players, I think you have the burden of proof here. Especially because I'm quite sure the number of people made unhappy by a ban on Brainstorm even assuming strategic variety isn't touched largely outnumbers those that feel Legacy is unfun because of Brainstorm being present. Honestly, we can do this for hours. The whole "burden of proof is on you" thing doesn't get us anywhere as it is infinitely malleable. Just give your arguments and prove your points so that we can have a constructive discussion instead of playing rhetoric-games.

In the same vein, how do experience and logic seem to go against my position that banning brainstorm would reduce strategic diversity? You haven't at all elaborated on that, which should be especially easy if based on experience as you should be able to show me examples, while my point is pretty clear and simple:
There are a ton of different decks covering a large spectrum of different strategies that run Brainstorm right now. Without Brainstorm, some number of these decks might and probably will disappear. Considering some strategies rely on Brainstorm quite heavily (e.g. Stifle-Tempo decks) the likelihood for some decks disappearing is actually very high. Result: reduced strategic variety.
Now, we might assume that other different strategies will be able to compete with Brainstorm gone or that different cards can be used to implement the same or similar strategies but that's just that: an assumption. So far everything you say is based on your own assumptions as to what a ban on Brainstorm will do, nothing else. Either that or you're not sharing your actual corroborating evidence.

Color diversity necessarily leading to increased strategic diversity: It doesn't and I'd like to see your inductive proof because there clearly has to be a misconception in there somewhere. Proof? Here you go: One drop White Weenie, classic Green Stompy and Sligh as well as fast Zoo are, strategically speaking, (extremely close to) the same deck implemented with different cards. As these decks are in totally different colors but their presence in the metagame doesn't increase strategic diversity, increasing color diversity does not by necessity increase strategic diversity. The same is true for Mono White and Mono Black board-control decks, Storm decks using Rituals based in different colors and a wide slew of midrange decks that are called the rock if they happen to be base BG but carry different names if they're not.  


Your proof here is faulty.

1.) Agreed, five colors.
2.) Actually, most decks run at least two colors, but that is not essential to the argument.
3.) What does that have to do with the other two points? And while Brainstorm is probably the best blue card, it isn't  the most important one. That card is Force of Will.

"Banning Brainstorm increases the chance that another color would be selected instead of blue as a secondary or tertiary color."
Here's where the error sneaks in. Blue is almost never a secondary color outside of combo-decks because it is used to support Force of Will to provide on-stack interaction, a role Thoughtseize cannot fill with similar reliability in anything but Suicide Black/Junk style aggro-control decks (gameplans that take longer to implement simply cannot adequately protect themselves with only discard because the general powerlevel of the format makes quasi-lethal topdecks a definite reality). As these decks are already viable strategic choices, no color diversity or strategic diversity is gained by banning Brainstorm in this context.  
I'm reasonably sure you're aware of all that because you chose the only remaining group of decks to pull your examples from: combo. In combo-decks however blue is either a base-color that cannot be replaced or used to provide high velocity library manipulation, an ability not available to other colors. Therefore these decks would still use blue, even if Brainstorm were to be banned. Again neither strategic nor color diversity is gained.

In short, your assumptions are wrong and your arguments as advanced so far don't stand up under scrutiny because they are either based on nothing but personal believe or even faulty in their reasoning. Again we are reduced to a contest whose believes are "better". In such a case staying with the safe play (aka not banning) is definitely the right decision considering the possible consequences of both choices.

First up, sorry, I was editing my post above while you were posting so if you'd like to address my additional comment it'd be appreciated.

I would argue that while both count, the ability to play decks that work towards totally different goals following totally different angles of attack is significantly more valuable than the ability to implement the same strategy using a wider array of colors. As such valuing both equivalently when making decisions in how to shape the format is a flawed approach. Color diversity should be promoted only if it can be done without endangering strategic diversity.

You don't think it will happen, I do. Considering the possible consequences should I be right (the format becomes significantly worse) and the consequences should you be right (a great format becomes even better), the expected benefits simply don't justify the risk. If it ain't broken don't fix it comes to mind.


The point of that segment of my post was simple: you listed a number of decks using Brainstorm when making the point that removing Brainstorm would increase the marginal utility of other colors. I showed you that, as far as the decks you used as an example are concerned, you are wrong. Brainstorm or no these decks either will be using blue or simply won't be viable at all. Clarifying that not a single one of your examples actually supports your conclusion seems quite important to me as it makes it obvious that it is, as far as your arguments so far are concerned, essentially baseless speculation.

You're saying my argument is not well founded, factually. Neither is yours. Considering that is the case, taking a huge risk for a, in comparison, minor reward is a bad allocation of resources, a bad bet or whichever metaphor you'd like to use. You provided no conclusive evidence that the strategic variety would not be impacted (while the amount of decks running Brainstorm makes it likely we'll lose some of them) and you haven't even given us any reason to believe that your theory of increased marginal utility for other colors thanks to axing Brainstorm will even result in increased play of other colors - other than the fact that you believe in it. If that's your foundation for wanting to ban Brainstorm, my believe is as good as yours and taking a huge risk simply not advisable.  

Strategic variety is massively more important than color variety. Imagine they reprinted every single Magic card in Green. Would it really make the play experience much worse from a five-color format? The mana gets easier but other than that the games play out quite similarly, actually.
Now compare that to a format in which only a single kind of strategy is viable. Every player that prefers a different strategy is screwed. Every round plays out exactly the same. You tell me which one is worse.

Obviously a format with massive strategic variety AND color variety is strongly preferable to one where either is limited but if someone promotes color variety at the cost of strategic variety he is doing the format a disservice.

A format in which all decks are matched up pretty close to 50-50 would severely limit the efficiency of metagaming, which is its own problem, admittedly. From a pure gameplay perspective, though, it would be ideal. Note that I mean matchup win percentages based on decks assuming perfect play on both sides when I'm giving  numbers. If all matchups are close to 50-50 (assuming there are relevant decisions to be made and the 50 - 50 doesn't come up independent of playskill based on pure luck of the draw), almost every tournament would be won by the person making all the best plays (because that's essentially the only way you can pull matchup percentages of the expected value) independent of the pairings-god favoring you today.  

If that's what you think what Legacy is like, you should play it more. Every deck has strategic weaknesses, though some less so than others (that usually make up for it by being someone elses massive strategical weakness).
As for not having a tactical weakness, you should play some Tempo against Zoo, Fish or Goblins sometime. You'll encounter a multitude of situations involving tactical weaknesses on the blue side. The same is true for every single other blue deck but that's were they are most evident.

First your plan assumes that you always have Brainstorm and play it early (in itself generally not a very good play). Second the very same thing could be said about Ponder, Preordain, Sleight of Hand and just about every other library-manipulating cantrip. Third, if you think that is how most Brainstorm decks work I have to ask you: how many games have you actually played with the card, especially outside of Vintage were every relevant gameplan is easy to set up with flexible cards like tutors and abundant true draw effects?

Finally what "real formats" are you talking about, exactly?  And how is it an edge to be able to build something that is essentially mediocre against (most) of a format instead of  having strongly pronounced weak and strong matchups? It's more of a disadvantage, really. If you don't manage to outplay your opponents, you're going to end up somewhere in the middle of the pack while a deck with lopsided matchups is likely to get you to Top 8 with the right matchups even if your opponents actually play better than you do.

I call pure theorycraft here. First, you cannot ever devote your entire sideboard to the matchups you aren't outright crushing game 1 because being in the 40-60 range everywhere means you don't have any matchups you crush game 1. Every Brainstorm deck that has the ability to outright crush some strategies game one has paid for that ability by making moving a number of other matchups out of the 60-40 range. This is actually where, contrary to what you claim, the choices you've made in your other cards define the end result.
In addition, the reason blue is popular among skilled players (the fact that blue (aggro)-control decks, in general, exhibit less variance in their matchwin percentages) is largely independent from Brainstorm. It's based on the fact that blue has the most flexible but also generally least efficient answers (countermagic - which cost either additional cards or needs to be available before the opponent's threat). It so happens that the infinite ease of splashing in Eternal formats alleviates this by allowing blue decks to access the most efficient answers from other colors to compensate for the low efficiency of its own solutions. The "problem" (I don't see it as one, but I'm admittedly biased) you describe has its roots in the color-fixing available, not  in Brainstorm. Essentially what your argument boils down to is that the color blue (not Brainstorm) is better than the other colors (you call it "degenerate") in Eternal formats. I said as much in the article and there simply isn't a way to fix it short of turning Legacy into Modern II by getting rid of Force of Will, among other things - and I and just about every other person I know playing Legacy would much prefer for that not to happen.

This effect is reinforced in Stifle-based Tempo-decks in particular because the Stifle-Waste mana denial plan gives you a significant baseline winpercentage against just about anything (almost every deck needs mana and if you draw double Waste double Stifle, your opponent isn't getting any). Then again, you can counteract that by running a low curve and a lot of mana (say by running 22 lands, Zenith and a set of manacreatures) so even that isn't set in stone.

There are a number of ways to beat a "reposition and beatdown" strategy you claim has no tactical foil. You can go over the top by presenting threats the opponent isn't prepared to deal with (regularly involves blue and thereby Brainstorm because that is much easier to implement if you have countermagic of your own). You can stop the beatdown part and kill them when their answers run out (almost always involves blue and therefore Brainstorm because running a deck that plans to go to the lategame and not having countermagic in a format that contains combo-decks is very risky). You can win before they've had time to reposition sufficiently to stop you (this is the strategy that often doesn't involve blue).

All this is ignoring that different decks running Brainstorm have actually very different gameplans and "reposition and beatdown" covers only a small part of the spectrum. That, in itself, is the reason why there are so many Brainstorms in so many Top 8s. There are so many widely different decks following totally different strategies incorporating Brainstorm that even if the "reposition and beatdown" strategy you see as "the Brainstorm strategy" is being hated out, the other types of Brainstorm strategies will make their way in anyway.

Again, your problem isn't with Brainstorm. It's with how blue works in Eternal formats in general.

@Smmenen:
As I argued, the value of color variety essentially pales in comparison to the value of strategic variety. I don't think one color (whichever color) being disproportionately popular is in itself a reason to disrupt a metagame that has an unprecedented amount of strategic variety (which might and probably will falter significantly if you remove Brainstorm, considering how many decks making up these different strategies are running it. No that is not definite but has a decent probability and if it happens a good format has been replaced with a much worse one only to try to balance something of secondary importance to an enjoyable game experience - not a risk worth taking). Defining variety through the colors decks use instead of the strategy they employ is a limiting and short-sighted concept that shouldn't be applied to B/R decisions.

Your argument concerning combo-decks also completely ignores the fact that these decks are in blue because they either are base blue (Hive Mind, High Tide), have an midrange-control strategy simply backed by the combo-kill and will therefore want to run blue simply for the countermagic (NO) - I go into why you want countermagic and not discard in comparatively slow decks above - or run blue because what they want is high velocity library manipulation (TES, ANT) and no other color can provide that because that's blue's part of the color pie, Brainstorm or no. Just look at Modern (no Brainstorm yet all the combo-decks were based on blue cantrip shells) if you want proof.

/edit: Not to mention your argument totally ignores the impact on the playerbase and the likely backlash from the same. Do you honestly not understand what banning Brainstorm did to Vintage as a format? The ragequits and player backlash damn near killed it because so many involved players just quit. And please don't roll out the "the dominance of blue control in the form of Tezz did the damage. As I said in the article, if that were the case Gifts and Gush would have achieved that goal much earlier and the opposite was the case then.

Happy some of you enjoyed it, thanks for the props.

@Marske and DubDub: It seems I stole some heavy dispute from a different thread, did I not? I'll answer to marske because I haven't followed the discussion DubDub is quoting from:

Because Brainstorm is neither degenerate nor reducing strategic variety from the format, on the contrary (not too mention it neither produces a negative impact on skill and a ban would cause a massively negative reaction from the playerbase). I thought I was quite clear that color-variety is something totally different from strategic variety.

[/quote]
No, this is called a misunderstanding of what I'm trying to say. I should have been more clear. When I say "can win every matchup" I mean has close to at least even matchups across the board (every matchup ranging in the 40-60 to 60-40 range, with rare exceptions. That's what I'd call "decks that can win any matchup") compared to more "all-in" decks that boast a large number of 80-20 or 70-30 matchups but also a significant number of 30-70 or 20- 80 matchups (what I'd call decks that can't win every matchup). Over all, both decks will win a similar number of matches in the long run, they're just more evenly distributed for one of them. As it is much easier to influence close matchups with (superior) playskill than extremely lopsided ones, it makes sense that a large number of good players has a bias for choosing the decks that makes their superior playskill matter the most.  

If you think having decks with more equally distributed win-percentages in a format is degenerate, yes, there's trouble in Legacy. If that's your opinion, though, you could also just ban everything that enables decks that aren't combo or non-interactive aggro and maybe Prison because those are the decks that have extremely lopsided matchups. Doesn't seem like the most fun format to play in, though. A format of glass-cannons only sounds horrible, actually.

With Brainstorm repeatedly brought up for the Legacy chopping-block, I thought something about the general reasoning why to ban was in order to get the discussion to move away from "Brainstorm is br0kenZ0rz" and more towards "what's best for the format". As to why I'm posting a link here, just imagine a "restrict/restricted/restriction" in place of every ban(ing, etc) and this is, imo, very applicable to Vintage.

Enjoy!

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/23136_Eternal_Europe_To_Ban_Or_Not_To_Ban_That_Is_The_Question.html

Innistrad's release allows me to celebrate by brewing a deck for every format. So come celebrate Worldchange with me!

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/22849_Eternal_Europe_That_Time_Of_The_Year.html

Those interested in what I think about the recent bannings, go check out the bonus section.

@Chapuzas: tough luck man! How many of the games you lost came down to Null Rod?

The same could be said for Gush, so this really shouldn't matter too much (not saying Tcast is as good as Gush, but as far as Drain is concerned, they're pretty much identical).

Was that before or after you switched to the the B-splash-version with the full three tutors? Because it really seems like a resolved Gifts should just be GG every time in that list, which is kind of the definition of a sick card. Seems much better than Timetwister/Jar at the very least.  
Gifts also is far easier to cast with Drain-backup than Tezz himself on turn 2/3.

@ Rich: Thanks a lot. Praise from one of the formats brightest definitely feels good I suspect something that uses a mass-artifact mana-base but stops short of going to below 12 lands similar to the TurboTezz-list is likely more resiistant to MUD than a heavy-land/basic deck. Having acceleration was always really important in Gifts vs Stax because it allowed you to play the Moxen through his first turn Sphere, than having mana up to act under even two Spheres the turn after. If you only had lands, they'd just continue dropping a Sphere for every land you played and you'd die. As long as you can consistently hit your first 1-2 landdrops (and don't run into Chalice @ 0/Null Rod) mass artifact-mana seems rather good against MUD actually.

@CHaPuZaS: Not playing Ancestral would be something new, too. Not running Brainstorm is nearly as bad imo. Brainstorm is the second best draw-spell ever printed and should be in anything that has blue mana and fetches.

@Smmenycakes (sorry, couldn't resist using Womprax's nick for you ): I'm happy you liked it, another of the "big guys" who likes my thoughts after two years of ignoring Vintage - definitely reassuring
As for MaxMoxBase, I didn't even think of it to be honest. At that point I'd have been forced to go with MaxMoxMix just for the heck of it, though, don't you think? *g*

@Shax: For my thoughts on MassMoxen vs MUD see my answer to Rich. As long as you don't go overboard like I did in some of my sample-lists, MUD should actually be easier to beat with more accel, not harder.

@ReubenG While I see problems (the Leylines are so bad if you draw them but at the same time you're quite reliant on them when on the draw), the concept you suggest blows my mind. I hope you get that to work, it seems utterly beautiful.

@Matt: Thanks

@CHaPuZaS: That list looks sweet - I so want to have Vintage tournaments around here, if only to run something like it! I don't believe not playing Brainstorm can ever be right, though.

I completely agree that the MassMoxBase forces you to sacrifice a lot of resilence that can be gained from having a solid number of landdrops. That's the reson why every deck I presented outside of the Tezz-list at the end was fast combo - a decktype notoriously weak already on the subject of profiting from regular landdrops because it doesn't plan to see more than two turns (and therefore two landdrops) anyway. Those decks also have trouble beating Sphere-effects anyway and additional Moxen seem better at doing that than Dark Rituals. The "good reason" you mention in that case would be "my opponent is dead already so who cares about how many lands I have."
This isn't meant to say your concern isn't fundamentally valid, just that in the decks I suspect will want the MassMoxBase it hopefully shouldn't matter much.

Thanks for the links, the lists are definitely interesting. I wasn't aware of something similar to my Tezz-combo suggestion already existing before someone blasted me for stealing Jones's list on scg - now I at least know what decklist he was talking about *g*. Using Top-Key as your draw-engine has obvious synergies with Mox Opal so that seems like a good idea.

While I don't get to play Vintage any more, that doesn't keep me from still thinking about it. Sometimes I even have a new idea:

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/21251_Eternal_On_The_Other_Side_Of_The_Ocean_MassMoxBase.html

Let me know what you think It definitely feels good to talk about Vintage again for once!

Oh man, I so miss those old times when I had Vintage tournaments I could play in at a reasonable distance.... Tmd was sweet, the only place ever aside from our team-boards where you could have a meaningful discussion about Vintage. The first time I built a deck that I actually thought was sick was on here, working with Womprax (The Shining, if anybody remembers, shortly before Tendrils became printed and made the deck completely absurd - even though for some reason it never took off before the restriction of BWish killed it).
TMD saw it all - the birth, death and rebirth (as GermBus) of modern Keeper (I won my first Vintage tournament with a slightly modified version of Zherbus' and Azrael's four color, Fetchland and Brainstorm Cunning-Keeper list, C.o.P.:Red and SB Alter Reality tech included), it's renewed death and revitalization through Scepter, GAT and Long, the boom of Vintage, Gifted (and Smmenen stealing our thunder by finding the brokenness of Merchant Scroll and making it known as his deck afterwards ), the stupidity that was unrestricting Gush - though it was a lot of fun, it was also just plain broken. So many sweet memories...

I also met a ton of great people here I wouldn't ever even have heard about without tmd - meeting Toad and Gabethebabe while hitchhiking to Morocco was just the best. Thanks guys!

I think I also have to thank tmd for being close to bilingual in English - I practically spent whole days reading this site in my teens *g*

Oh yeah, one of my favorite features of early tmd were definitely jpmeyers Q'n'D reports - hilarious AND informative.

It's too bad I can't play Vintage any more since I've moved and therefore can't post anything constructive and have no real reason to follow the format and read tmd consistently enough to participate. It's sad, really... at least I've stumbled about this thread, so thanks for the nostalgia

I think I'll have to make it a habit to come back here and look in once in a while even though I can't really add anything of actual substance to the discussion any more. I miss this place!

Make infinite mana, draw (most of) your deck with Spellbomb, bounce or Explosives most opposing permanents, then drop all creatures in your deck into play and Time Walk. Attack.

I've tested a bit two-fisted against both Slaver (~30 games) and GrimLong (~20 games), and I have to disagree a little with your matchup-results.
When I started testing against Long, I lost the first 4 games in a row and was somewhat disheartened - till I realized Long had won through Duress + Fow on turn 3 each time, not exactly its standard draw. Further testing went a lot better. Still, the matchup does not seem extremely favorable, just slightly so (did you test with the 3 Counterbalance build? Because whenever CB came down, Long got smashed).
As for the good news, the Slaver-matchup doesn't seem unfavorable, either, I' actually somewhat over 50% I think (and my build of Slaver does run 2 more MD Duress than the builds I see online). The MD Tendrils was surprisingly relevant, I won quite a few games by mini-Tendrilsing for ~10 the turn before Slaver was gonna slave me or kill me with Titan. Using Trinkets to get T.Crypt asap won quite a few games, too.

General comments:
Sensei's Divining Top is really the heart and soul of the deck, it's just so insanely good in here, I'd even like to find room for a fourth. Starting the game with Top in play is just sick for this deck.
@KnowmaD: The reason for three tops is that you don't have room for 4. Honestly, don't cut any, it's not a combo-piece, it's just an insane card in here and getting it with Trinket is horribly slow, you prefer already having one pre-Trinket.
I switched the Duress/Thoughtseize count around. Between Bobs, 8 Fetches, Mana Crypt and Vamp, you deal a hell of a lot of damage to yourself already and those two life would often have made the difference in my testing (even against these non-aggro decks). I might want to run 4 Duress, Thoughtseize becomes a Future Sight (uhm, ok, Magus) block because of its damage in close games.
Counterbalance was a house whenever I got it down with a Top, against both Slaver and Long. I won quite a few games playing Fish-style beating down with just a 2-power dork and hiding behind Counterbalance.

Mana Drain was really really good. I might want a third.


Well, the MD is testing fine so far (and looking at the American metagame, the deck should be great there, especially if Workshop is really roughly 50:50).

Any consolidated SB-plans yet? My ideas so far:

- at least 1 Pithing Needle
- Jailers as main Ichorid hate I think
- what for Shop? the classic bounce SB seems mediocre to me in here as you usually need two turns to combo out, one where you drop Magus and the one in which you win. And Magus sucks with Spheres. Bitterblossom actually seems interesting, especially as it doubles against Fish and aggro. Might be to much lifeloss, though.
- Something to compensate for Controls SB would be nice. But what to remove from the MD?
- a third Counterbalance in the SB should be good vs Long and control, considering the way it was performing for me
- Aether Spellbomb to have something to fetch that handles Titan?
- you definitly want something that deals with Null Rod, being locked out of topping has to be really really bad...
- some creature-kill/steal against Fish and possible true aggro-decks
- a single Darkblast to kill opposing Welders or Confidants might be nice

As a final note:

Thank you for making Future Sight (or rather its animated brother) good again! I just love playing with that card.

/Mystic Remora: Could be interesting. I am tapping out completely most of the early turns at the moment, though, so it'd slow me down, too.

May I suggest Gaea's Touch? It costs essentially 0 mana, just make sure you declare which enchantment you're using to make your extra-landdrop before saccing it.

I love everything Future Sight ever since Shining in 2003... I will definitly be testing this and come back with the results.
A few first observations:

You seem really low on actual carddrawing (Trinkets and Tops provide great filtering admittedly), has this proven to be a problem in locating Magus + the mana to play it early enough?

Is 24 mana working out fine? I know I ran 25 back in 2003 with 4 Brainstorms.

How is the Workshop matchup? It's the only one you didn't mention in your first post on page two. Did you have time to test it yet?
What about Ichorid (Trinket -> Crypt + the decks own speed might push this higher than the typical 5-10% of most decks G1)?

Chain of Vapor is far and away the best bounce you can run, it's the very last of these effects to cut (in a deck with a Tendrils kill). For one, it's your  only out to Enchantments/Creatures. But more importantly, it is just an insane storm-enabler because it's cheaper than the rest (a U-Ritual that makes storm 3-4 is sooo good). It also can make a nice stand in for Rebuild for only U (bouncing all your artifacts then the one lock-piece that stops you going off). The non-synergy with DSC is a non-issue. I ran them side by side in Gifted and that problem never came up in the whole 2 years (and I was running Scrolls to search the damn thing, too). If you have DSC in play, you rarely need to bounce anything, actually. Strange but true, 11/11 tramplers do that.
I'm quite sure from my Gifted experience (and the few testgames I played with this deck) that you'll want to include it in early Intuitions->kill once you already have the Tutor/Will you need.
Basically what I'm saying is that CoV will win you more games than any other bounce-spell in the deck. Why in heaven would you cut it for a non-synergy that will come up maybe once in a hundred games, if that. The preferred way to win is Tendrils, anyway, DSC is just here because he randomly steals games vs highly disruptive decks. There's surely a reason Cody ran 2 Tendrils 0 DSC  before and never cut down to zero Tendrils. That means a card that is great with Tendrils but rather sucks with DSC is far more likely to make the deck than a card that sucks with Tendrils and is fine with DSC (and you still can't profitably bounce in a DSC-stand-off).
As for the Hurkyl's/Rebuild argument, removing all outs to Leyline, IEOC, Oath, Mindcensor, Meddling Mage, TTyrant, etc seems like a really bad idea, especially as CoV is actually better at enabling storm in non-shop matchups. It is actually a great tutor-target to allow you to just run a lethal Tendrils out of nowhere vs aggro.

Having tested the deck a little lately (I played like three or four games when you won SCG with it, too, but soon returned to Gifted, so those don't really count), I'm unhappy with the TfK, too often it doesn't hit an artifact. I'd like to remove the 4th for something better. FoF was ok, but really slow. Scrying had a similar problem but at least became insane with Drain for 3+. What about cutting a TfK and the FoF for Merchant Scrolls? It leaves you with the same amount of draw or at least cards that get draw and gives you even better access to AK 4 (and Ancestral, obv). Scroll-Intuition can substitute for Scroll->FoF so FoF isn't needed either way. Not to mention you'd be far more likely to access the correct bounce at the time it's needed and it should help immensely vs fast combo (a matchup that should be somewhat soft, considering you have only 8 counters and only FoW to interact before turn 2 at all) by representing extra-FoWs.