I don't think Viridian Zealot would work out. It would be great to have a Naturalize that can attack, but I think there are too many problems with it.

1. It's too green
2. It's too expensive
3. It's not really that powerful

If you've got it in your hand, you need to pay 1GGG to do the same job as naturalize, and it's only sorcery speed to play as a creature. Once it's out, it's ok, but I think naturalize is a better choice when you need to remove artifacts/enchantments. Honestly, if you ever plan on using the Viridian's ability, then Naturalize is better. After that, all you're left with is a weak creature that's tough to cast.

I assume you meant the fourth slot to be Smokestack?



I saw a 5-color style deck once that had
4 Welder
4 Thirst
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Balance
1 Tinker
1 Ancestral
1 Time Walk

and possibly a Wheel of Fortune, and that was all the colored cards(that I noticed at least). I noticed that at least one poster on this thread didn't have Time Walk. Is there any special reason for that?

Ok. I'll dig right in.



At first I think "Trinisphere," but it's not really trinisphere as much as it is EVERY good artifact, and the fact that it's a reusable, if more narrow, black lotus. That's serious power, and it isn't even legendary.



Honestly, I think so. There's no need to explain blue. Not only is it the most powerful color in terms of broken power, but it also has a really nice card drawer that synergizes with a workshop deck's card qualities: Thirst for Knowledge in an artifact deck. A match made in heaven.
Red is there for goblin welder, and to a lesser extent, the sideboard. But mostly welder.



That depends. I've never used a basic land yet though. Crucible is good.



While every situation is different, I don't think a primarily artifact based deck (aka one with 4 MWS) will be able to reliably pack FoW. So, no. Not unless you're a very skilled deckbuilder. And if you find a good way to do it, throw me a line.



This depends on the deck build. If you can fit FoW, you may be able to fit Mana Drain, but I would be a little worried about times when you have blue cards and Misrha's Workshops in play.



Goblin Welder is not a must-include. He's really good at letting you play fatties and such without paying, but prison style decks make it without him.



I wouldn't go there. Sounds bad to me.



Energy Flux and Hurkyl's Recall. D'OH.



Here's what I do: In a welder version, I have Sundering Titan, Trisk, and maybe some others. Juggies are always good too, and Masticore (either) helps fight opposing welders, which are very common every once in a while in my metagame.



Thirst for Knowledge and other good blue stuff that's pretty obvious. Some decks use Brainstorm too. Those one's might even be able to fit FoW, now that I think of it.



Hmm... Welder. I saw a deck that managed to run all 4 colors once: it had Balance, Vampiric, Demonic, Welders, and broken blue. There really isn't a whole lotta room for anything but the best (and, subsequently, most obvious).

I guess those were pretty basic answers.

I wouldn't say that proves that turn two is most important. I would say that proves that the deckbuilder didn't want anything to be more expensive than standstill. Also, interaction with Cloud of Faeries makes the 2-slot packed.




Many of the best cards are perfect for playing on turn two, but that's also not necessarily because turn two is the most important turn. It's because all the best cards are undercosted and overpowered: Ancestral, Time Walk, etc. And most cards that are undercosted cost between 0 and 2 mana. Turn two could be considered important because so many tempo-bombs are played then, but, using your player A/B example, it doesn't matter if the opponent follows up with his/her own tempo-bombs.  So, by this reasoning, the REALLY important turn is the first turn in which one player plays tempo-bombs, and the opponent doesn't, giving the first player a lead. And from there, as you explained, it's one person trying to win, and the other person trying not to lose. (Offense/Defense)

Hmm... That makes sense too. In 4cc, the turn you play Yawg's WiN is pretty important.

Maybe we could just say that every turn is important, though some more than others, depending on what is played, and who gains the most advantage from the turn. After all, if not every turn were important, Time Walk wouldn't be nearly as good.

You make a strong case, but it seems indeterminable which turn is more important: the turn welder becomes active, or the turn you get him out (or fail to).  If you don't get him out on turn one, turn two isn't all that big.  The Mana Drain and Null Rod Scenarios seem pretty solid, though. Turn two is definitely very important, possibly even more so than turn one.

ok. I know madness pretty well, cuz' I read the rules section, so here goes.

I'm not necessarily favoring more restrictions, but I really doubt that more restrictions would turn type one into a single deck format of 5 color mostrosity. As has been stated before, in this thread I think, there's some merit to consistency too. So there will always be a choice, between the 5 color monstrosity (which I'm sure would be viable) and something much more consistent, albeit inherently less broken. For example, no one is crying over the power of black lotus, but it's definitely powerful. It's not a big deal because it's not consistently being played on the most important turn.

I don't claim to be an all-knowing Magic Guru, but I feel safe saying that turn one is THE turn in type 1. That's the best time to take advantage of the opponent. For instance, turn 1 trinisphere stops the opponent pretty well, but turn two trinisphere is not nearly as powerful, because the opponent already played their moxen, sol ring, crypt, lotus, whatever; or possibly even won with their combo deck. All turns are important, but turn 1 is surely the most important of all turns.

And if this hypothetical 5 color monstrosity was a combo deck...



... it still wouldn't matter, because type one is definitely NOT highlander, which means 4 force, among others. They're not gonna restrict FoW, for reasons that have been stated a billion times over.

I honestly don't think the first option would work. There's no way that an increase in supply of power cards could possibly not affect the price of the original power. (If that sentence was confusing, it means: more cards means less value per card, and there's no way around it) I think this topic has been gone over many times.

The second option is of note however. I'm not sure what Wizards' stance on sanctioned proxy tourneys is, but right now I think they wouldn't allow that. In the future maybe, but I'm skeptical. If they did allow proxies for their sanctioned tournaments, I think it would be a good idea (for all Vintage players, anyways). It really doesn't make much difference though, since the majority of major vintage tourneys are unsanctioned anyways, and especially more so now, with 9 SCG Power tourneys per year.

Another valid argument for the banning of desciple in standard:
Some vintage decks even use it.

http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=20337

I have no idea if the deck is any good, but that's beside the point. I think Wizards was mistaken in not ripping that card in half on December 1st, at least as far as standard is concerned.

I think they really should have banned disciple in Standard. As AF said, Raffinity would still be the most powerful, but I think knocking it down a notch just helps other decks have a chance. Maybe ravager will only win 60% instead of 75%. Cranial Plating is also ridiculous, but I think disciple is all they needed to restrict.

As for type 1, there are always and will always be people who think that all the good (but mostly just expensive) cards should be restricted. Basically, I'm talking about MWS. I don't own any workshops, and, unless they drop in price dramatically, I never will, but I think Vintage should never be without a few cards that are that powerful. Trinisphere is also a tough choice, but personally, I like trinispheres unique ability, and I don't think it's broken enough that proper metagaming can't handle it. Many people argue that Stax is so easy to play that any idiot could place well in a tourney with it, based solely on the power of MWS and Trinsiphere. That's completely wrong. They may be powerful, but they're not unbeatable, and it's been proven at almost EVERY tournament ever played, that idiots don't place well.

I also think that voltaic key should be unrestricted, and possibly MoM. Voltaic key because it's not competitive enough. MoM probably isn't good enough, but I'd be cautious because combos can come together unexpectedly, although Tendrils and Rector still have the advantage of not having an obscene casting cost for their win condition. Conclusively, though, it doesn't really matter if there are more unrestricted cards to put in the junk pile, but personally, I would like a short restricted list with a good argument backing up each card there. I'm definitely ok with WotC being cautious about it though. I wouldn't like it if they looked like idiots either.

I'm a little undecided myself, mostly because I haven't looked at the deck with great detail, or playtested with it. My statement was actually a response to what Clown had said earlier:



I'm not intimately familiar with the decklist right now, so I'm not gonna say it's wrong to keep Demonic out. My understanding is that there is already enough draw power in the deck to negate the need for Demonic Tutor, and sorcery speed means you will be using resources you would rather have available to counter spells, with any extra mana used eot to draw cards. So, the only time you want to use mana on your own turn is when you're playing Oath, a.k.a. win condition. That's my take

You sound pretty confident that you'll have 7 mana lying around whenever an angel hits play. Am I missing something?

As for Demonic being excluded from the list, I was surprised at first, because Demonic is usually always in a list with black (kinda like WiN), but the fact that it's a sorcery and the deck already has a strong draw/search base is a strong point.

In a similar deck of my own, I actually ended up playing UBW, still with b2b. White for Balance, Black for Yawg, Vamp, Demonic, Infiltrators, and Tog. And I also traded the powder kegs for Engineered Explosives. That's just a fun kind of deck I'm using though, because I'm really not very experienced in Vintage with control decks.

As for my post, I just questioned everything I wasn't sure about. I can see why Wastes are necessary to keep the person down before b2b hits. And I haven't playtested the deck, so I couldn't foresee whether you would have problems with UU or not. Also, I missed the Cunning Wish/Sideboard part completely.



that really sucks, man. All the tournaments in my area are 3 or 5 proxy.



Honestly, I would replace it with Vampiric Tutor from the board (assuming you won't have proxy power to make the WiN good), but that's my preference I guess. I like having powerful search cards main.

I suppose I might as well post MY decklist while I'm at it. Note that it's a little different style of deck though.

Basic Tog

4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
9 Island
4 Swamp
2 Plains
1 Strip Mine
1 Mox Sapphire (proxy)
1 Mox Jet (proxy)
1 Mox Pearl (proxy)
1 Sol Ring

3 Psychatog
2 Shadowmage Infiltrator

4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
2 Counterspell
2 Mana Leak

3 Back to Basics
2 Engineered Explosives

1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Balance
1 Mind Twist
1 Ancestral Recall (proxy)
1 Time Walk (proxy)
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Fact or Fiction
2 Cunning Wish
4 Brainstorm

Sideboard:
1 Misdirection
1 Stifle
1 Infiltrate
1 Gush
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Capsize
1 Hurkyl's Recall
4 Energy Flux (heavy workshop meta)
4 Control Magic

It's in no way tested, refined, or optimized. I just thought I would throw it out there. By the way, I've never had any trouble getting any of the colors I need with the deck.

OK. Here's a few things that came to mind:

First of all, you should make decks as if you had power, even when you don't. If you're going to a tournament, there's a good chance they allow some amount of proxies, and the general rule here is to post the best possible version of a deck, so you gotta include power.

Second, wasteland + b2b I'm undecided about, so I'll leave that. Underground Sea, on the other hand, shouldn't be in there if you're running b2b.



You can still shut off your opponent's mana base without losing two lands. Use basics.

Why only two each of Phid/Infiltrator? I think Shadowmage is better than Phid when you have black in your deck. And for your win condition, have you thought of using Tog instead?

No Vampiric Tutor? No Mystical Tutor? No Counterspell?
I see how you might exclude the tutors because your version doesn't have power in it yet, but in that case, you don't really need WiN either, cuz' it doesn't WiN without ancestral/walk/other goodies. As for Counterspell, it's tough to say whether it's better than mana leak. But most likely, you're gonna have UU available on turn two. Mana Leak is popular because it's a turn one counter with land + random mox. Since you don't have moxen in this version, Counterspell is better.

whew. that's all for now.

Or me. Thanx.

Yeah, I think keg is a little more versatile when you only have one color at your disposal. I think he might have meant for EE to be used in the Oath deck, since it has Forbidden Orchard and a couple colors already, in order to combat chalice for 2 and other annoying permanents.

Yeah, it triggers. Oath finishes resolving, Blessing triggers, welder responds.

I think waiting until you have a cunning wish to stifle/fire/ice the welder with isn't the best way to deal with a welder. But welder is very popular right now, so this deck shouldn't really be considered unless welder isn't a big problem like it seems to be when DSC is used. So I'm thinking, either find a better creature (which is hard), or, maybe don't play artifacts other than DSC. Losing the mox and lotus would suck, but I don't see how it could be worse than having welder own your game plan. Are the artifacts really necessary? The other options are not playing DSC, or playing an abundance (as in, 4 slots or more) of welder hate. I guess that could work.

I agree. I think a more stable mana base would be more useful in this case.

Arc Lightning is a sorcery. Plus, Fire/Ice costs one mana less. Kinda like the difference between Control Magic and Treachery.

I recently played against a UG Oath deck on MWS, and it used DSC. I was playing TnT (or something, I get the names mixed up). Anyways, I couldn't weld it back to his library because of Gaea's Blessing reshuffling all his artifacts that I could trade with. Now that I think of it, I probably could have responded to the Blessing effect on the stack, but it didn't matter. Welding my Duplicant in and out worked just fine. Also, Platinum Angel seemed to be a problem for him. I dunno if he was playing the best possible version, but it was an interesting matchup for sure.

Well, he's a beatstick. Like a really good Juggernaut, but without regen like the original Masticore. Since workshop mana can't be used to shoot with the original (not to mention it gets shut down pretty well against Null Rod) then I'd say Razormane is better than Masticore. He's ok I guess, but as for the Fish matchup, I dunno. Killing one creature a turn is pretty slow, but it'll stop whichever one has curiosity pretty quick.

hmmm. I'm still a little undecided.

I was gonna post my opinion of Gifts Ungiven in the Gifts Ungiven card review thread, but it was locked.

So here's what I think of it. I seem to remember people talking about pulling Yawg's Will with it, and I think that's a terrible idea. It's like saying to your opponent "Please throw the most broken card in the game into my grave so I can't draw it." Some people realized that pretty quickly and suggested having E Wit and Regrowth along with Yawg's Will and Ancestral or something. The problem with that is then you practically have to build your deck around Gifts Ungiven. Not too many U based control decks that want to use Gifts are gonna splash for 1GG that'll probably get countered.

I was thinking of something like this for Gifts: Mystical, Demonic, Ancestral, Time Walk. This way, there are two cards that are potentially Yawg's Will, and two broken quality cards that are really nice to have with will. So, you either get two broken cards (Ancestral Walk) or you get one broken card and a card that becomes Will (which a smart opponent really won't do) or you get both search cards, which becomes a Will and something else good (like lotus). So, your worst possible outcome is Ancestral Walk, and that's not too bad. AND, the Will is still in your library.


On another note, yeah, the CoK jokes were funny.

"So there I was at the prerelease, CoK in my hands, ready to go at it."

lol
There. I said it.

Tobi: My initial belief about whether local enchantments target whatever they're enchanting was that they didn't target while they were on the stack, but they couldn't enchant things that they couldn't target. So I looked in the 2004 Comprehensive Rules, and it's kinda confusing, but here's what it says:



For bibliographical purposes, that was the 2004 Comprehensive Rulebook, which can be found here:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dci/oracle

So, what it says is: yeah, it targets while on the stack, and thus follows normal targeting rules, but once it's enchanted the permanent, it doesn't target it any longer.

It's wrong to say that Hikari is unkillable. It's NEARLY unkillable IF you have 10 or so arcane spells at least. The problem is, there aren't gonna be that many good arcane spells. Definitely not enough Vintage caliber arcane spells to fill 10 slots. Even if Hikari were a 4/4 flying, untargetable, indestructible, it STILL wouldn't be better than Exalted Angel, game winner extraordinaire.

If you're running Null Rod, there really isn't a draw engine for the deck that's good enough to replace more threats. If you're not using Null Rod, you can use clamp, though.

Yeah, I tried it, but I found that it was too much of a diversion from killing the opponent. Crucible/Waste is a lock that ruins the opponent's mid to late game, but there shouldn't be a late game with RG Beatz. It's one less card to kill the opponent with. I'm sure it could work, but I didn't like it. I just threw in an extra artifact mutation or something (cuz' everyone else was playing crucible).

 I think that's a pretty close comparison, except that Time Stop is nearly a time walk (that costs 3 times as much). Either way, the card isn't good enough unless you don't have to pay the mana cost.

On the subject of the sideboard, I noticed that in the games I played with the deck, I never sided less than 6 cards, and usually 7 or more. I think having a variety of cards in the side allows you to have more options against variations on popular decks, which I saw a lot of. I expected to see some welder titan decks at the tourney, but I saw more drain titan instead. Fortunately, I had made the educated guess that I might see a lot of blue at the Vintage tourney   so I packed some hate, which came in handy against the brainstorm/FoW/Mana Drain heavy decks. So I guess what I'm saying is that most decks mix and match their weaknesses, so it's good to have a few copies of cards that work as broad answers.

Yeah, but Crucible is aggressively costed and especially symbiotic with Mishra's Workshop. Not to mention that it also opens a new path for a popular lock (mana denial).

Time Stop is interesting and powerful, but a tiny bit too situational and about 2 mana too expensive to be a truly powerful card in type one. In block and type two, though, it could be ok, cuz' a time walk is good there, even when it costs 6. I could be wrong, and I'm no professional at judging cards before they make their impact, but I think Time Stop is sub-par for tournament level Vintage.