What I'd like to see in the sequel is with Dent gone, Batman now "persecuted" by police and the effectiveness of the "freaks" made obvious by Joker's antics is a full out mob war, with Black Mask coming in as the main bad guy and some of the lower level Batman villains (Killer Kroc anyone?) brought in as muscle against Batman.  Maybe run a Catwoman side storyline, playing into what happened to Rachel Dawes and Bruce's vulnerabilities.  Trying to top Joker likely won't happen, so might as well play up the aftermath.

I will be making an appearance, but likely won't play in the event.  Someone better bring a Type 4 deck though.

They're reporting $18.5m from the midnight showings alone.

In other news, if you haven't yet, go see this movie!

Only allowed if he shows up to a Midwest event with it in tow.

That list looks like it was built by someone who just didn't have full playsets of things.  Anything less than a full set of Bazaar is flat out wrong in Dragon.  Yes new versions are geared towards winning without it, but that's no reason to cut the strongest card in the deck to less than a full set.  Likewise, you cut RTRs for Careful Studys, which while the two cards have been debated as being interchangeable in WGDX whichever one you have does alter how you play the deck, since RTR is a great dump for excess mana/permanents (especially now with Mulldrifter in the deck).  Careful Studys are less able to compensate for the loss of the 4th Bazaar than RTRs would be, since you see a lot less potential cards out of it.

I see that you also cut 3 mana sources (all artifact mana), but added more expensive and dead draws in their place?  I'm completely confused by what benefit this provides, as you're falling into the trap of "cool things".  Yeah Titan and Tyrant "win" certain matchups flat out, but why are you running dead draws in the place of cards that are good in all matchups?  I could see doing it if you meta is heavy to one deck (like running a Titan main if you're playing against a lot of Fish), but in an open meta it's not really something you should be doing.  Nevermind the fact that you're running less discard outlets than the standard Dragon.

As far as Pact of Negation and playing "safer" decks goes, I personally don't run Pacts, so I'm not entirely sure why you would bring that up.  I would personally stay with the 4 FOW and then either Duress or Thoughtseize, which is no different from your disruption, except that Mulldrifter's card drawing (coupled with the extra Bazaar and RTRs) means I see more disruption than you would.  I'm not seeing anything about your deck being "safer".  You have a weaker mana base, you have more situationally dead draws, you have weaker card drawing, I'm just confused all around.

Lastly, if Ichorid is all you're worried about, why wouldn't you just play 4 Leyline and protect them?  Jailer/Crypt/Extirpate, they're all even more situational than Leyline is, not to mention Leyline has the advantage of not completely wrecking your own gameplan to implement.  Yeah, you could board like 8 cards instead of Leyline and mess up your main, but why would you?

Alright, I have a few comments on this:

1. What exactly is your full list?  You run 3 Dragons, then claim to be running a lot more Tutoring/card drawing than what should realistically fit in the deck (Bazaar/RTR/AND Study?  Plus tutors?!)  The reason you run 4 Dragon is to guarantee maximum opportunity to see one when you need it.  You throw that out in fear of drawing multiples, and yet you replace it with 2 cards that are equally useless draws (Titan and Tyrant).  You're deck design is nullifying your own intentions there and I don't think you even realize it.

2. Tarmogoyf *can* be a big critter.  The problem you have is that in your argued scenarios you're depending on your opponents playing subpar graveyard hate and relying on them playing into your Tarmogoyf, neither of which is an acceptable argument for inclusion.  In fact, I'm wondering where exactly it is you play so I can show up and have a field day.  Not playing Leylines is likely suicide in this format, and if areas exist that don't I'd like to exploit that.

3. Your argument for including Titan and Tyrant main deck is rather lacking.  If a standard Dragon deck wished to rush out a clock it could easily do so with Oona, but the whole idea of the deck is to not rush into the win game 1 but rather build up your hand and just bury your opponent with the card advantage you generate off DAs and Mulldrifters.  Post-board most Dragon decks have some sort of sideboard option that allows them to run out a big dude quickly, but that's usually a pretty poor strategy to commit to.  The "well if they Extirpate my Dragons" argument is flimsy as well, since the normal Dragon deck still has Oona, Mulldrifters and Witnesses to reanimate to win without adding otherwise "dead" draws to the deck.  The advantages Titan or Tyrant provide in certain match-ups are sideboard considerations, not main deck ones.

4. Your "game 1 plan" is no different from any other Dragon deck, except that the other Dragon decks are running less dead draws than you.

5. Trike has seen maindeck play in Dragon before, but currently it's not used because it requires you to have 2 Animates in hand, where as Witness wins as well and allows you to have that second Animate in the yard.  Yes it can be useful on its own, but Fish now has things like Goyf and Jotun Grunt to play with, as opposed to the old Fish decks which had a multitude of things that died to Trike.

Yeah, like Diceman I also usually go 2x DA and a WGD with the first Intuition.  The second is usually dependent on the board situation, but I've gone for triple Read The Runes for the second quite often just to insure I will find the win and get it where it needs to be.  I can see getting Mulldrifters with it as well if you're looking to bury your opponent under card advantage.

As far as Reanimator Salvagers goes no it's not an established deck, but with Mulldrifters and such it's definitely something you could consider trying if you want to try an animate combo that doesn't "lose" to instants.

Flamewave Invoker "wins" on its own because you can Intuition for it, Oona and an Animate and make it a "damned if you do, Damned if you don't" without burning an extra slot in the deck for the spell bomb.  With Dragon you want your win condition to be as efficient as possible to help make up for the fact that you have to work harder than most other decks tend to in order to set it up.  The most successful decks out there that have used Auriok Salvagers have been control decks that could afford the large mana investment that comes with Salvagers, something that I personally would be loathe to do in a Dragon deck.  Not "losing" to instants is a perk, but to get the mana base to supporting that you'd need to reconfigure it, and if you're going to go that far you might as well just play Reanim Bomberman and gear the whole deck towards it as opposed to trying to wedge it into Dragon.

Before the format changes Bomberman was a difficult matchup for Dragon because of the sheer number of hate cards it could throw down.  Spellbombs, Stifles, Forces, Drains, Crypts, Needles, Swords, all these things have seen play in mains for Bomberman, and those coupled with a solid clock with a combo finish have made Bomberman a pain to deal with in the past game 1.  Games two and three Bomberman is one of the few decks that can bring in hate without seriously compromising its own gameplan, making the overall matchup a real challenge if the Bomberman player is properly equipped (and with Ichorid around they would be).

Losing Brainstorm should hit Bomberman's consistency quite a bit (as does the fact that Bomberman has never realistically been tier 1, which limits how much play it sees), but it's definitely something that should be taken into consideration.

Don't forget that Cunning Wish (which is probably the best choice for your other kill card besides Witness/Oona) can fetch you a bounce spell game 1.

Your list is no less vulnerable to single card "answers" than standard CS, so I'm failing to see what sense you're trying to make in your argument.  "I don't play that card because it might get countered/bounced" is definitely more of a "Standard" kind of thing than it is a Vintage one, as in Vintage you recognize the possibilities on such events and aim to play the most "broken" cards possible so that if they don't have the answer they lose, period.  Your deck fails to capitalize on this concept in the same way it fails to abuse Will, you completely lack the ability to "go broken".  That is why CS, Tog and Gifts were able to muscle 4cc and 3cc out of the format to begin with, and you're returning to an evolutionary "throwback" when the format is still filled with decks that necessitate the "combo" finish.


Yes those decks aren't viable, but not for the reasons you think.  Green decks running Elves and Birds don't work because they don't have haste and are a one for one mana investment, so you're technically not "accelerating" your mana production at a speed which is acceptable in Vintage.  Moxes, Sol Rings, Crypts, Vaults, they all see play because they provide more mana than they cost on the turn you play them.  Look at Stax, that deck is all mana acceleration, robots and disruption, and I don't see anyone arguing that the deck isn't viable.

What you're failing to realize is that in a deck like CS robots are specifically chosen for the effects they have on the state of the game.  Trike, Sundering Titan and Duplicant control the board position, Crucible fixes your mana against decks like Stax, Mindslaver usually wrecks your opponent's gameplan and Darksteel Colossus is the fastest "win" condition around in robot form.  You consider spare Moxes to be "useless" in that they don't do anything late game, but the fact that they allow you to play Thirsts ASAP and drop a Robot if necessary make them invaluable to CS.  The fact that they are also free storm and allow for the casting of "expensive" cards such as Gifts or Will made them invaluable to Gifts.  The fact that they are potential dead draws later on isn't taken into account because worst case scenario in CS they give you another Weld, and in Gifts it means one less storm to win.  Robots, on the other hand, can be a dead draw at times but CS is designed to minimize that, and seeing one robot isn't a terrible thing in CS as for plays similar to what h3x described above, which is usually how CS beats decks like Fish.


I don't believe you have.  Brainstorm and Ponder were both considered "too good" to keep around in multiples because they provide you with the "vision" of 3 cards and allow you to make adjustments to what you draw.  Top does the same thing, but is more mana-intensive.  Card drawing in Vintage is measured based on how many cards you can see for as cheap as possible.  Impulse didn't make the cut in the past because it cost two mana to see 4 cards (where as Brainstorm was 1 for 3), and with Star you're paying 2 mana to see 1 card.  Top is 2 mana to see 3 cards, which on first activation makes it worse than Impulse, but the fact that it's from that point on a "Brainstorm" worth of vision makes it much better in the long run.


You can still "cycle" Top without a Fetch, you just get it back next turn without needing Welder tricks, which doesn't seem awful to me.  Multiple Tops are useless true, but once you have the first Top active, why on Earth are you seeing more?  Top also can put itself back in your hand late game to pitch to Thirst if you need to make sure that you have an Artifact to pitch to Thirst.


That much is obvious, you're undervaluing the fact that manipulating your draw then cantriping is better than a plain cantrip.  The fetch land argument is weak because once you have Top active you normally don't want to *not* have it active, so getting your Top right back is nice.  If you want to put off drawing that top, then pay to activate the top and tap it with that on the stack, then shove the Top down as the 3rd card.


That's a fair argument, but I don't think a card that is slow in the early game and useless is in the late game is going to sway many people when the "late game" in Vintage can start as early as turn 3.


Except that said Street Wraith or Star could've been mana or a business card and you wouldn't need to do the math at all.  What h3x is arguing is not that this alone makes it bad, but that the drawback of that and its other drawbacks are not mitigated by the pros of the card, and that makes the card bad.


I've already made my arguments above for this, although it seems more like a stubborn stance in the face of more experienced players than anything on your part.


This is true, but Top gives you 3 options of parity to the one that Star provides.


Star functions the same as Chromatic Sphere, which had been cut completely from decks for not doing enough.  The more you argue the more it sounds like Star is merely in there for you to have something to cast turn one if you don't see Thoughtseize, and that's a poor reason to keep a card around.


Skeletal was run in Gifts as a one of by a large number of players (including myself) towards the end of the deck's life span with the second two issues existing, but the raw power of the card for large numbers made those issues worth risking.  The first is more problematic now to be certain, but Fetches and Counters still provide plenty of fodder to use for it.


That's actually the standard way most Drain decks win quickly.  Maxx's list is capable of winning without Drains, it's just a more difficult task.  it was the same way for CS and Gifts.  4 Force and 4 Drain has often been considered an acceptable amount of disruption game 1, so I'm failing to see why you feel he'd struggle to protect his spells when it's never been an issue in the past.


I agree that this is not an ideal strategy, but the fact that other decks are just flat out superior in the card drawing front to Keeper make this the case.  Your deck has the same issue about card drawing, but fails to address the bombs part like he does.


Welders also take up slots you could've devoted to "win conditions" and other disruption.  The recursion is nice, but unless CS you're not set up to capitalize on it with your lack of "bombs" to bring back.  If you're looking to abuse EE and T. Crypt, Bomberman does it better than CS does.  Welders also generate mana better when you have a full compliment of Moxes, which you refuse to do.


All decks are vulnerable to Duress/Thoughtseize without Brainstorm.  Your deck just "feels" less vulnerable to you because you run next to no bombs.

As far as the comparisons are, it's not appropriate to compare to past decks because of the sheer card drawing power of Brainstorm.  The past CS lists ran 9 cards that specifically read "Draw 3 cards", along with 3 Tutors (Gifts and Scrolls also had the tendency to pop up in CS as well).  Bomberman was running 8 cards that read "Draw 3", but also ran tutors like Trinket Mage to find Top to fix draws and provide a clock.

Your list is running 5 cards that say "Draw 3", a handful of tutors and some cantrips.  This is a significant decline in drawing power, and losing the interaction between Brainstorm and Fetches means not only is your drawing weaker, but your mana base is weakened.  The effect that Brainstorm had on blue decks is such that just retrofitting isn't enough, you're looking at reinventing the wheel.  Just adding FOF isn't enough, as you're still looking at the fact that you're replacing Draw 3s with cantrips, which is a significant drop in power no matter how you slice it.

Also, which CS lists are you referring to?  FoF main?  No Vamp?  I don't believe I've seen any list in well over a year that would be considered "optimal" with those sorts of decisions.


Its not so much that you can't justify its inclusion as it is that you're not using it nearly to its potential.  You are not fully powered, lessening the ability to "go off" with Will.  The lack of Draw 3s to cast off Will mean it's more difficult for you to sculpt an "unbeatable" hand on your Will turn and you have no card that reads "I win if Will resolves" in your deck.  The reason why Gifts was able to be the 800 pound gorilla for as long as it was is because it never had to pass the turn after resolving Will.  While most CS builds didn't win on the spot from resolving Will, they had Mindslaver to make sure that they could pass the turn with no fear of reprisal.  All Will is in your deck is a CA tool, which is a gross misuse of the card compared to how other decks in the format can abuse it.  Will has been the most powerful restricted card in Magic for a quite a long time, and while it's strong enough to boost your deck, not taking advantage of its power is pretty criminal in terms of deck design.


Yes, you are falling into that danger with Gush.  Gush was good unrestricted because you had Fastbond to keep your mana production on track.  Losing Fastbond means while it is free you set yourself way back in tempo, especially with the format slowing down and decks like Fish or Stax rising again.  Against a deck like those putting yourself back a turn or two of mana because you don't have Fastbond could easily cost you the game, and you lack the explosiveness to capitalize on the free cards.  Gush has never been popular in control decks because of the tempo loss associated with scooping up lands, they'd rather have all the mana on the board that they can to take advantage of things like Will.

So your entire card drawing "engine" is just your TFKs?  For the sake of comparison, lets bust out the draw engines of other "known" decks in the format:

Ichorid: Bazaar of Baghdad, Street Wraith
Goblins: Goblin Recruiter, Goblin Matron, Goblin Ringleader
Fish: Dark Confidant for sure, other options vary based on builds
Bazaar Oath: Bazaar of Baghdad, Deep Analysis
Control Slaver: Thirst for Knowledge, other options available include Bazaar, Top and Careful Study, or even going back to the Goth Slaver Intuition + Accumulated Knowledge
Drain Tendrils: Intuition + AK and TFKs
Long: Draw 7s
Bomberman: TFKs, Spellbombs, possibly Intuition + AK, Top
Stax: Bazaar and Crucible

If your entire "card engine" is just TFKs, I'm at a complete loss as to how you expect to outclass any of the above listed decks, as they all have engines that are frankly flat out better than just your TFKs.  Stars are at best "cute", and cute doesn't win tournaments.  Tops would be a bit of an improvement, but you're still going to only be better than some of the above listed decks in terms of engines with Tops instead of Stars, and when you're the control deck, your "card engine" frankly *needs* to be better than the other guy's.  That's essentially why Keeper died out in the first place, it's card advantage engine (Skeletal Scrying) proved to be inferior to CS and Gifts and thus it was muscled out.

Another thing I'd like to ask about is your use of Will.  Decks like CS can "go off" with Will to stuff their mitt with cards and use Mindslaver to completely incapacitate their opponent.  Long and Gifts used it to generate the storm to just flat out win with Tendrils.  Even the old Keeper decks had Balance or Mind Twist (or both) to completely rob their opponents of outs.  Your deck lacks the ability to do this, which is a severe oversight in design if you plan on Will actually winning games for you.  Yes, sometimes Will for something simple like Recall and replaying Lotus is enough to win the game for you, but every other deck in recent memory that used Will was designed to at least in part capitalize on the "going off" aspect, and your draw engine and win conditions seem designed to negate Will's ability to do that.  I'm very curious as to whether or not you really put much thought into how Will effects the deck design, or if it's just there because it's "broken".

With the death of Ponder, Merchant Scroll and especially Brainstorm I'm a bit curious as to why you'd be in a rush to drop a "blind" Chalice to begin with.  You can no longer count on the fact that 75-80% of the format is running the same draw engine that you can disrupt with cutting them off Brainstorm or Merchant Scroll, so you run an increased risk of playing a dead card and cutting yourself off Goblin Welders or Spheres.  With 9 Spheres available to you as "run out there blind" threats and the format no doubt going to be diversifying their own threats it seems more likely that the smart Stax players are going to hold back Chalices till they know they can bring the hammer down with them.  Perhaps once the metagame stabilizes you'd have enough information to make a "blind" decision in regards to Chalice, but as it stands with the meta in total flux it's a complete crap shoot, and you should almost always have a play that's better than "total crap shoot" available to you.

Each kill has it's pros and cons.  Since I've been debating this on and off with Rich for some time, I figured I'd makes some points about each:

Slivers
Pros:
-Can hardcast Slivers to attack and win if necessary
-Immune to hate like Tormod's Crypt, Pithing Needle, etc., and much more resistant to hate such as Extirpate (Extirpate on a Virulent Silver is still bad times for this version)

Cons:
-You have to attack to win.  This means you cannot win in response to your Pact triggers, nor can you win on your opponent's turn.  Things like blockers also become an issue, and with decks such as Goblins putting up stronger showings having your combo neutralized because your opponent dropped a couple of blockers is bad times.
-Has no built-in method to deal with Platinum Angel, meaning you may have to waste valuable time finding a bounce spell if your opponent gets one down quickly.  Not a huge con, but one that should be mentioned.

Reveillark
Pros:
-Instant speed kill, allowing you to react to your own Pact triggers and kill your opponent on their own turn.  This allows you to kill your opponent when he's tapped out as well as allowing you to have a last minute gambit if your opponent is trying to combo you out themselves.
-Immunity to blockers.  You kill with direct damage, meaning you can usually ignore creatures on the other side of your opponent's board.  There are obviously still some troublesome creatures for you, but those creatures (Meddling Mage, Aven, etc) are problems for both versions.
-Built-in method of dealing with Platinum Angel.  Not a huge pro, but one worth remembering.

Cons:
-A wider variety of sideboard cards can damage you.  The truly damaging cards rarely see use in main decks (notable exception being Crypt and rarely Needle), so with proper boarding you can usually overcome this weakness.
-Lack the ability to generate a real clock.  This build doesn't have the ability to drop down a sliver and two and just clock opponents with it, making you a bit more reliant on your combo to get the job done for you.

With all that said, my personal favorite is the Reveillark kill, as I like the flexibility of the timing of the kill, as well as (for the most part) being able to ignore my opponent's board.  Proper sideboarding helps get around a lot of the hate cards, as there's a variety of options to that (such as switching to the Sliver kill, or boarding in 4 Dreadnought for example).

Ugh, the Sunday ones are just too hard for me to get to since you keep scheduling them on days where I got prior commitments Ben.  Move 'em to Saturdays and I'll likely put in an appearance at all of them.

Great job Rich, way to represent.

Sure, I love most anything Mythos related.

I will almost certainly be in attendance for this.

Yeah, and you also beat me in 3 to knock me out of contention too, my deck just loved me that round.  Go go hardcast Slivers!

I just now got back, which is why I bailed on everyone after round 7.  Fun trip and event, even with the god awful metagame, getting lost in Chicago and the awfullness that is the staff of the Knight's Inn Shay put us in, but was worth the money.  Congrats to the top 8, and hopefully the turnout for SCG Chicago in November will be even better.

Good job to everyone, especially Ray, who's been long overdue a top 8 at a major event.

You have my undying support good sir.

http://www.liquorwits.com/code.html

My personal favorites are #21 and #57.

Personally, if I were to play Bazaar-Stax in the current meta (the restriction of Gifts makes me wonder if Uba itself is even worth using at the moment) I would be taking a cue from Vroman's most recent lists and run probably the strongest tool available to decks that like to essentially "goldfish":

Serum Powder.

Stax is a deck that wants to drop as many lock pieces as quickly as possible, and to that end UbaStax in particular is incredibly redundant, which makes Serum Powder all the more appealing.  With so many four-ofs in the deck removing a few lock pieces to insure a quick start is almost always going to be acceptable, as there's always plenty more where that came from.

This is probably the "starter" list I'd work off if I were to seriously test UbaStax in the meta:

4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Barbarian Ring
2 Mountain
2 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Black Lotus
5 Good Moxen
1 Sol Ring
4 Serum Powder
4 Goblin Welder
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Duplicant
1 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Tangle Wire
4 Crucible of Worlds
1 Trinisphere
3 Null Rod
3 Sphere of Resistance
3 Smokestack/Leyline of the Void (depending on whether or not you have Ichorid in your meta)

Obviously the numbers are fairly rough, but you want to have a good mix of lock components and threats, preferably recurrable threats.  Right now Smokestack seems like almost a sideboard card to me, as it's fairly ineffective against combo and Ichorid, although I'm not sure what you would want to replace it with.

As far as the threats go, I opted for ones that were excellent against the creature-based decks in the meta, as the lock components are your main weapons against combo.  Duplicant is excellent against pretty much every non-Ichorid creature deck in the format, either by offing their dudes or by just having a fat 2/4 frame that blocks all day long.  Solemn is also excellent against Fish, and solid against other aggro decks, the lack of basics to fetch be damned.  Don't forget he also draws cards.  Factories are perhaps the most important win conditions, as once Crucible comes down they never ever go away, providing you with nigh infinite fuel for Welder tricks as well as a win condition that will trade all day long with Fish creatures before getting in there.

As stated before, this is just a rough list, but I think it's a list that points in the right direction in terms of changes that you need to make to shift focus on the decks you're preying on in the meta.

Ouch, sucks for Fisher.

Looking over your list Mark, I can't help but notice that your list is slowly encroaching more towards being a creature-heavy version of SS than being its own deck.  Such changes are quite understandable, as the two decks attempt to to accomplish very similiar tasks (although in quite different ways), but I question whether or not such changes are necessary.  Namely, I'm curious as to the addition of the Cutpurses at the expense of disruption.

Cutpurse does in a way provide disruption (in the form of discard), but is the extra body truly necessary?  Cards like Daze and Remand are in the deck to help capitalize on the massive amounts of mana disruption (Wastes/Shamans/CotV) the deck runs, giving it the tempo it needs to win with the critters.  You potentially speed up the clock with extra creatures, but you also lose the tempo that cards like Daze and Remand bring to the deck.  The posted build also loses a Shaman, which hurts the Ninja a bit (as you never want to use a Cutpurse for the Ninja and rarely want to use a Bob) as well as further lowering the disruption count.  I'm curious to the necessity of this addition, as it looks like it alters the deck's gameplan a lot.

That was Mark, Dave Carhart's little brother.

I still like that deck, but with SS running around it's a pretty poor choice.  I had a blast at this event, and I'll no doubt get a report up later.

3 minutes a pop more than I got to spare.