Currently weighing whether or not the force/5c pitchers are superior to running gargadon for oath. Asked myself the same question this weekend, don't have an answer yet. It seems like it would help out the protection suite, possibly in a cunning wish build i mentioned earlier.

Sorry I haven't been able to update, got slammed at work

@Wagner

The change I made to the pitch creature left my deck with 4 Progenitus & 2 Reaper King. Spoiling for a non 4 of is....questionable lol
The issue with the combo, or the deck in general, is not "Shoaling Out". I see why original lists ran Apostle's Blessing and why the legacy lists run Vines/Mutagenic/Berserk, etc. I feel like this deck can't play that game without going all in & removing the Shoal combo. It may turn out that smaller pumps will work out, but it may make it too slow by allowing combo to go off or allowing too much interaction. I'll sleeve up a version & post the decklist here with what I find. It certainly has merit in other formats

@Jar/Gunslinga

Great point about Greater Gargadon, I had not considered it. Stupid oversight on my part. Thank you for pointing that out!

Wife is out of town this weekend so I hope to have more to contribute then.

Hey guys!

There was a blazing infect deck recently that seemed like a fun way to break up what I'm normally playing (Combo/Shops)

Here is the decklist to the best of my knowledge:
1st (Top 2 split) - Joaquín Fernández - Blazing Infect

Maindeck:
1 Bayou
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Mana Confluence
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Blighted Agent
4 Glistener Elf
4 Greater Gargadon
4 Plague Stinger
2 Progenitus
1 Ancestral Recall
2 Apostle's Blessing
1 Black Lotus
4 Blazing Shoal
1 Brainstorm
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Duress
2 Flusterstorm
3 Mental Misstep
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
3 Spoils of the Vault
1 Vampiric Tutor

Sideboard:
2 Apostle's Blessing
4 Defense Grid
3 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Ravenous Trap
4 Steel Sabotage

I made the following changes but i'm still tinkering with it:
-4 Greater Gargadon
+2 Progenitus, +2 Reaper King
-2 Flusterstorm, +1 Mental Misstep, +1 Spoils of the Vault
- 4 Duress, +4 Thoughtseize (why not remove the potential blocker)
- 1 Brainstorm, +1 Imperial Seal
-2 Apostles Blessing, +1 Lotus Petal, +1 Time Walk

I Went to a 5 color mana base (4xCoB, 4x Mana Confluence, 4x Gemstone mine). I believe I need to add a land or 2. There are currently 17 colored mana sources, but 2 are black lotus & lotus petal.

Current considerations:
1. Another version that I saw was very blue heavy, using cunning wish to find shoal & pitch counters but I haven't tried it yet. Cunning seems slow in a deck with such a low curve but maybe someone here can dispel this until I test it.
2. Does anyone have any input regarding the plague stingers? Currently Im running 4 inkmoth Nexus in its place since the shoal Kill is free.
This deck will never be tier 1, but its a nice way to break up the normal decks I always have sleeved up (Forgemaster, Dredge, TurboTezz, Belcher, Burning Oath, BUG Doomsday).

Any feedback would be appreciated. I'll update this as I have time to test. Thanks guys!

Edit 8.28.14-

It would be helpful to post where I'm at with the list, so here it is

Mana Sources - 17 ish
4 City of Brass
4 Mana Confluence
4 Gemstone Mine
3 Mox UBG
1 Lotus Petal
1 Black Lotus

Beats - 12 ish
4 Inkmoth Nexus
4 Glistener Elf
4 Blighted Agent

Shoal Combo - 10
4 Blazing Shoal
4 Greater Gargadon
2 Progenitus

Protection/Disruption - 8
4 Mental Misstep
4 Thoughtseize

Search/Draw - 10
4 Spoils of the Vault
1 Demonic COnsultation
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk

Total - 57 cards

We have 3 slots to play with. Right now the deck seems protection-light & possibly mana-light.
I don't think the lands need to be 5c, so fetches & a brainstorm probably make more sense.

This wouldn't see play in even my most experimental charbelcher brew. That deck is just fine on accelerants, and this is worse than pretty much any other ones available. It's a bigger choke point then seething song at that cost. Kenobi memes is right.

Justin on BD. Kept the handle from BD, then again after the crash. "Cry havoc & let slip the gods of war"! Smennen has done a great job of plugging the Oscar Tan void. Wonder what that guy is up to these days, & if he still has the raccoon hat.

I've been toying with something similar to the OP list. Dismember works pretty well with what you're going for. Good luck!

Interesting lists, thanks for posting! Sorry I couldn't make it. We need to get a playtest group together again man. PM me

I'll be there! Been far too long since I've been in a tourney. Hope all is well Wiley, see ya then (or call me to test beforehand)

If the 12 rep sets don't kill you, I find the taking the stairs afterwards usually does

Thank you for the links! You're absolutely right, I'm going for performance more than anything else, and that's not for anyone looking to get back in to shape. With all the crazy fad diets & misinformation out there, and having been lifting for 21 years now, I treat everything with skepticism lol.
I get unsolicited offers from people to train them all the time, but honestly I only know how to make athletes into better athletes, not bring someone back into shape.

Aside from "not being able to out-train your diet after thirty", I do have one more piece of relevant advice: Make adjustments to your diet slowly. I've seen a lot of gung-ho resolutionaries toss everything out of their fridge, only to be sick & starving a week later & giving up on the diet. Unless you're competing, these things need to happen at your own pace to be sustainable in the long term. Your happiness is your own, and even modest gains over time will give you the momentum needed to keep pushing forward.

Enjoy your day guys & happy training =)

(Wow, all this age talk just made me realize I've been playing magic for 18 years....Where does the time go!)

So my daily intake is appx. 400 grams of protein....I should eat that at once? Along with my daily assortment of cruciferous vegetables, cabbage, bok choi, brown rice, etc., this would seem impossible. Also, if the fastest digesting protein takes several hours to digest just a couple of grams, how many hours is it taking me to digest 400 grams daily? That's not including what I get from 3/4 gallons of skim milk daily.


I don't know how to reconcile those 2 statements, but If you cited where you're getting this info from, it would help.

As far as eating all your calories in one sitting, how are you accomplishing this without insulin spiking? What time of day are you eating? (You mention "proper timing" without any description of the time. I'll set my feeding alarm for "proper"

At any rate, maybe all of your respective milages will vary, but after reading everyone's training methods & advice, I think we're working towards different goals (perhaps you guys are focusing on building slow twitch & losing fat over fast twitch & gaining a competition ready build). Ultimately, the longer you work out, & the more research you do, you will ultimately find what works best for you & your body. Wish all of you the best, and look forward to throwing down at SCG's next steel cage match =)

It's worth noting that you will only digest between 35 & 45 grams of protein at a clip, so if you're attempting to build muscle, you will need to eat every few hours to reach your daily protein intake requirements. This is less of an issue of you're not competing as you'll probably be happy with being in shape (not fat), but if you're looking to bulk up your muscle (which will in turn burn more calories daily), this will need to be taken into consideration. Personally, to get the amount of protein i need in a day to maintain my size, I do need to eat about every couple of hours from when I wake until I sleep.

As far as lifting on an empty stomach, this is the best way to lose the final few lbs of body fat which are the most difficult to get rid of.

Ultimately, I realized once I hit 30, you can't out-train your diet (ugh), but it seems everyone here has that well under control.

Best of luck guys

If you guys want any tips when you get your weight down, I can help (been grappling since 11, 48" back, 30" waist, 19" arms).

While there are a number of ways to get the weight down, the last bit is going to be the toughest (getting from a 6 to an 8 pack)

Also, there are a number of excellent supplements that will speed this along. I use Cellucor products after having tried everything else over the last 22 years of lifting & grappling. I also have some recipes that will help remove excess estrogen from your blood which are actually pretty delicious.

Best of luck guys

Ive tried several builds attempting to utilize Forgemaster as a combo enabler (with metalworker, a singleton staff of domination, 4 keys + vault, obeyline, painters & a single grindstone along with a single sword of fire &ice /cranial plating/batterskull, even basalt monolith & rings of brightearth).

The nice thing is that mox opal & artifact lands have at least made a color splash viable while still running workshop, tomb, & some # of city of traitors. I tried grim monolith in the key-vault build as well. I even tried a white splash for rest in piece, enlightened tutor & ancient den, and a black splash running obeyline, consultation & vault of whispers, a blue splash build (tinker, ancestral & thoughtcast w/seat of the synod), even tried a red splash with welder & gamble. They all have the same problem:

The problem is having to pass the turn (in forgemaster/metalworker builds), and i just cant bring myself to test lightning greeves lol

You can crap out some wins (all splash builds but blue ran serum powder) but ultimately it seems like the best way to achieve a win via forgemaster is a creature (blightsteel, titan, etc).

So yeah, I agree with boggyb.

Good luck with this. If you crack it, I hope you share the results because I want this deck to work soooo badly lol.

Belcher (although Ive been calling it RG Ritual since its not reliant on belcher)

Lands-1
1 Taiga
Creatures -8
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
Search-8
4 Land Grant
4 Burning Wish
Acceleration-35
4 Chrome Mox
8 McSoLoMox
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Vault
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Metamorphose
4 Rite of flame
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Seething Song
Draw - 4
4 Reforge the Soul
Kill - 4
4 Goblin Charbelcher

Sideboard - 15
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Past in flames
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Memory Jar
1 Channel
4 Goblin Welder
4 open slots (probably 4 shattering spree, possibly a hunting pack)

Im not trying to take any credit for this as it was an obvious build, but you can nearly always ramp into reforge the soul, or burning wish->Wheel of fortune until you draw enough hands to get enough mana to belch or fetch empty the warrens for at least 20 tokens if not double that.
Notable Omissions -
Id love the memory jar main, possibly in place of 1 land grant or a pyretic/desperate/seething song
Anyway Its fun to goldfish, draw a ton of hands, and fold to a well timed force of will/flusterstorm, etc.
Hope someone enjoys it!

Sorry I couldn't make it guys. Hope to see you all at the next one. Congrats Garret!

Question - Would generating 40 goblin tokens turn 1 be considered a turn 1 victory for the purpose of this thread? I understand the attack isn't until turn 2, but the work has been done. Thanks!

Edit - 1:47est - That's what I thought. Thanks for the input fellas! Will post a list tomorrow.

Finally! I haven't been to a tourney in forever. Should be able to make it. Good to see ya Wiley

Awesome. Thanks for the quick response & supporting link!

Hello!

Dumb question:
Does the Painter's Servant/Grindstone combo work w/Rest in Piece in play? I don't believe it does, but can't explain exactly why by quoting the rules which apply.

Thanks guys!

The draw 7 builds im testing originally ran dark rituals, but I'm not very confident in the Tendrils kill at the moment. Gush & Fastbond do a great job. Went with the tinkerbot/vault key win conditions. What I found was that you're rushing to abuse ancestral & if you run out of gas then hit the draw 7's until you can abuse ancestral. I know this is obvious but figured I'd add it in there. I'm using a full suite of tutors, including imperial seal.  I added Gitaxian probe originally so that snapcasters can always have something to flashback (and for storm) , but they seemed better for reducing the topdeck tutor lag. Empty the Warrens still may be good since it is more castable without the rituals.

Figuring out the best pairing for Snapcaster has been tough. Intuition/AK is one engine im testing, gush is another, & rituals are yet another. If the deck used more creatures (like bob & so forth) then ninja of the deep hours is even a fringe consideration. one thing I know is that loading up a deck with every restricted spell & 4 snapcasters gives you a lot of gas. Playing Draw 7's from the graveyard is crazy. The deck honestly feels like it picked up 4 blue regrowths. I have no idea where the final design will end up.

Thank you for listening to the feedback & writing this article. While I believe most of us use a similar method of deckbuilding, providing a standardized method & presenting it to the community will hopefully spur some feedback on what, if anything, can be improved or considered in the future.

The quality of vintage-related articles lately have been tremendous. I'm thrilled just about every other day to see these go up!

Organic growth, eh? WotC has been printing Vintage-worthy answers spanning multiple sets over the years (chalice, null rod, pithing needle, misstep, flusterstorm etc). Addressing a format's woes year after year, set after set seems pretty organic to me, but then again I may just not understand the word. Its almost as though WotC is addressing 3 major concerns about Vintage as a format: Reducing variance, fostering interactivity & increasing playskill required.

If a card like this will ruin the format for you, by all means overreact & quit. Chicken-Little posts like the one you posted are chock full-o-ignorance & bad for the perception of the format. I'm sure I'm not the only one here that played the game prior to the printing of Yawgmoth's Will, Tinker & Time Vault's erratta/Voltaic Key. I loved it then, wasn't thrilled about the blowouts caused by Tinker & Yawgmoth's will but adapted & found contentment in the format again, and am thrilled to see Big Blue decks & dredge require the same careful deckbuilding required by aggro players.

This kind of writing is unacceptable on TheManaDrain.  If you'd like to disagree with someone please refrain from using language that could be considered as an attack.


I appreciate your sanity.


If you like 1 card blowouts I hear Yu-Gi-Oh is great. For the rest of us, Magic The Gathering existed prior to the printing of Yawgmoth's, Tinker, Oath/Orchard & the dredge mechanic. Personally I play because I like the game, not because of my affinity for a handful of cards printed in the last 4 years.

Full Warning for violation of section VII, line 2:


Deletion of moderation text is, as is aforementioned, a major infraction and merits a full warning.  Further efforts on your part to avoid moderation (including the deletion of this text) will merit additional warnings.

Quit while you're not so far behind - Prospero

Prospero - I did not edit any red text. I was logged out of this post 3 times while writing it. Sent you PM lol

I love the fact that Wizards is printing cheap, splashable fixes. Chalice, needle, mistep, flusterstorm, & now cage, all good stuff. I was happy just to see the white thorn-bear, but this is great.

This article is so full of win, and is exactly what Vintage-curious players need to see. There are so many misconceptions about the format & your work will go a long way to dispel them. I keep 8 decks in my Vintage Rook case & most people wouldn't believe there are even 8 decks to play lol. As a player since 1995, THANK YOU!

My 2 cents,

I've been playing since the tail end of Legends (with the exception of 2 "breaks" where I sold all my cards, only to reacquire everything and then some). I'm absolutely thrilled with the following somewhat divisive things & I just figured I'd throw them out there:

1. The restriction of Brainstorm (blue has plenty of toys. Feel free to flex your decision making skills everywhere else in the game)
2. The current Gush/Merchant Scroll balance (restrict the tutor before it's target seems like good policy)
3. The removal/reversal of power level errata (for the most part this has been great)
4. The removal of mana burn (this did not need to be simplified. However it did not add anything to the game that I find myself missing)
5. The tremendous amount of relevant goodies that Vintage has been fed for the last few years in new sets
6. The staggering amount of engines, win conditions, & hybrid builds that are available (with ever-adjusting viability due to new printings & interactions)
7. The new card frame & general quality of the art & flavor in more recent sets
8. Foil reprints of vintage/legacy staples or old school favorites with new art & frame.

I've never felt more excited about the format or more anticipation to see the newest crazy brew to get posted & it's ripples on the metagame. There are truly wild interactions & strategies that you could have never dreamed of while slinging bolts at berserked flying men.

I've also have not seen the ship sink, despite the recurring manic responses to printings, bannings/restrictions etc. These things are best taken as a challenge, discussed & overcome as a community rather than seen as the end of our beloved game. Wizards, in my opinion, have been very good in dealing with imbalance after the lessons learned in Mirrodin Block & have been (imo) great with regards to giving us Vintage players cheap elegant solutions to many of the format's gripes. Far better than at any other time in the game's history.

One final thing I'm thrilled with is the quality of the discussion among the community. Article content & discussion have continued to improve by leaps and bounds as the more savvy & well spoken of us M:TG players have led the charge, and I believe a good deal of love should be shown to businesses like SCG for their support of not only the game but our eternal formats & communities.

This is, in my opinion, a golden age of Vintage. I can't remember a time where it has been this fun since I was first learning to turn Ball lightnings sideways before my parents came to get me lol. Good times.

-Justin

A complete history on the evolution of dredge with no mention of Meadbert (Albert Kyle)? Son I am disappoint.

That's me, Justin from Team Arsenal