It's efficient. Will the life matter? Most likely not. One mana is huge... say...against workshop decks. Say against lodestone golem, which makes your ancient grudge cost 3. It also depends on your win condition. If you're swinging with a 7 powered robot, will the 4 life let them live an extra turn? If they're still at 20, it takes a whole 'nother turn to kill them with the robot alone after you've cast nature's claim. I don't know. Sounds like something I'd want to be conscious of when deciding on mah' hate.



About theda adel: I hadn't really thought of deducing exactly what's in their hand from seeing their deck. It will matter less game 2, though, since you don't know exactly how they boarded. But man, she's a hell of a lot cooler than rootwater thief.

For sure. I've been wanting to get into vintage for a while, but I failed miserably at finding tournaments when I could go. The superstars tourneys are the perfect size and frequency for what I've been after.

An unusual side effect of theda adel is that the current bounce hate works really well against her. Imagine... Theda adel connects...play time vault. The opponent plays chain of vapor, targeting time vault. If it resolves, the chain of vapor player just tutored for time vault for one blue. A strange scenario, but not that strange. It doesn't break her, but it's DEFINITELY something to think about. It's definitely not the same thing as removing it from the game. If theda adel sees enough play, I'm positive this scenario will come up.

Another cool side effect... If you pull out their sensei's divining top, then when you tap it to draw a card, it gets put on top of the opponent's library. If you do this with Theda adel's ability on the stack, you tap the top to draw a card, it gets put on top of their library, then theda adel's ability resolves, allowing you to replay the top. If you're in a solid position already, it might be safer to do this instead of being greedy with the infinite turns. Also, it's probably never worth grabbing a part of their combo if you know they have the other part, unless you are confident they can't bounce it.

Hm. While I know my sideboard was a bit janky, I think it's a little unfair to call the deck I played (the black homebrew) a "bad deck" and a generic mana drain deck a "good deck." This is vintage, not standard. You're not just optimizing low probabilities. If I had wasteland instead of ghost quarter/sinkhole, mox jet instead of Tomb of Urami, etc... it would have mattered in very few games, and not at all in the games I actually lost. Beyond that, I was forced by the situation to play pithing needle instead of a full cluster of null rods (there were no shop decks that I saw so that didn't really matter), and I totally didn't know how to sideboard against Fish.

Ultimately, I had a huge amount of fun playing with you guys. I just love the impact of each decision, and how wonderful it is to see a vintage deck function. That said, Marit Lage eats Sundering Titan for breakfast.