In the original functionality the creature had all of its abilities, power/toughness and so on. It just happened to be upside down. That had some weird consequences if you for example played an Enchantress upside down:
Me: I play this enchantment and then I draw a card.
Opponent: Hey, why is that?
Me: Mind your own business.
Opponent: I want to see what creature you have upside down over at your side.
Me: No you can't.
......

With the new wording, you must first attack with your enchantress to make it draw you card. Hence, the new wording is only close to the old one when it comes to creatures that want to attack. I think that they should have given the creature Morph since that in my opinion is even closer to the original functionality and as a bonus Illusionary Mask would still be playable. Now the card becomes rather useless.

The reason to play Rector over Ad Nauseam is that you can play FoW which at least I believe is necessary in Stax-filled metagames.

I agree that Rector died completely with the restriction of Brainstorm. The deck must be able to keep Yawgmoth's Bargain in the library. (Necropotence is much less effective.) I have experimented with one or two copies of Lat-Nam's Legacy, but they are dead when you try to go off. Scroll Rack is also an option but can be too expensive to play and activate when you try to go off and it increases your vulnerability to Null Rod.

It seem that the discussion about the draw engine can go on for ever, so I would like to bring up another topic relevant to Tezzeret decks: removal.

There are so many things that just kills the combo: creatures kill Tezzeret, Null Rod and Pithing Needle disrupts Time Vault, Gorilla Shaman eats time vault, Goblin Welder shifts out your combo pieces, Engineered Explosives blow them away and so on and so forth. Unless the deck is extremely fast, I see a need for removal. So there are two relevant questions:
1) Should the deck be combo style and just regard all of the above threats as speed bumps or should it be conrollish and remove possible threats
2) If the deck should use removal, what removal is appropriate?

My oppinion is that there is a need for removal, but I don't have any really good option on point two. Putrefy could be one option if you include green. It removes creatures and artifacts at instant speed, and all of the above mentioned threats are creatures or artifacts. It does however cost three mana and requires two off-color mana. If you inlcude read, there is no single card that for a reasonable cost removes both artifacts and creatures. Engineered Explosives is nice but a bit expensive and falls short to Null Rod. Then of course, we also have the more drastic measure in Pernicious Deed which however also sweeps away Time Vault and Key if any of them are on the board.

What are your thoughts on this subject?

We can compare Dark Confidant (DC) and Night's Whisper (NW). They both cost  at sourcery speed. It will take DC two turns to draw the same amount of cards that NW draws you immediately. The difference will be that in the mean time DC can inflict some damage on your opponent. A Tezzeret deck does however not (primarily) win by inflicting damage and the real difference is hence that it takes two extra rounds to draw the cards. In rare cases, DC draws more than two cards and that can win you the match, but it will happen more often that you lose the match because the two extra turns it takes you to get the cards. The only conclusion can hence be that DC is strictly inferior to NW in Tezzeret decks.

I have also tested the approach with Thoughtcast but I'm not satisfied with the results. In early game, the result is most often that you must pay 3 mana on turn two or three to draw two cards. It's nice in midgame but too weak in lategame. Once again, we can compare this to NW which is good both in early game and midgame. The Thoughtcast approach also makes you more vulnerable to Null Rod and Gorilla Shaman which both already are huge speedbumps.

Finally someone that puts the finger on the main problem with Tezzeret decks: the card drawing engine. Many list packs random artifacts just to be able to use thirst for Knowledge. However AK/Intuition is kind of clumsy now when Brainstorm has been restricted and also a risky strategy with Extirpate lurking in each and every sideboard. I have still not found a suitable card drawing engine. I haven't however tested Night's Whisper or Skeletal Scrying which both could be complement to Fact or Fiction and Gifts Ungiven.

To play out Time Vault before Tezzeret gives your oponent time to find artifact removal, Pithing Needle or Null Rod. It is furthermore a (temporary) card loss since it does nothing on the game board until you find Tezzert or Key. It is then better to shuffle it away to find cards that brings your gameplan forward. I can agree that just playing Time Vault works against combo, but not in a metagame filled with artifact removal.

You could play a single copy in an Oath deck. In that case, it would take the spot otherwise reserved for Scroll Rack. The advantage with Lat-Nam's Legacy compared to Scroll Rack is that it's fetchable with Merchant Scroll.

I can also see a single copy being played in Tezzeret decks where you don't want to have Time Vault in your hand, and you don't want to discard it to Thirst. Hence, Lat-Nam's Legacy can be a great backup to your single Brainstorm.

Other than that I don't see the card as playable. It's of no use in Slaver decks where you'll be happy to discard the big artifacts to Thirst. It's of no use in storm-decks since you cannot wait for the next turn to draw the card.

I really like your deck Bongo. I would only like to see some way to retrieve artifacts from the graveyard (besides Yawgmoth's Will). How about an Accademy Ruins? It's a great way to retrieve Engineered Explosives (EE) as well.

Talking of EE, I would rather use a Trinket Mage than Merchant Scroll. As already pointed out earlier. Trinket Mage can protect Tezzeret. One can seem random, butter with one than none.

Time Vault isn't of much use without Tezzeret. What should you do if you draw Time Vault early on? Play it and wait for Tezzeret? That's often two mana and one card down the drain. Throw it to Thirst? Then Tezzeret becomes rather useless. On top of that, add Anusien's argument. Tezzeret and Time Vault will probably need Welders so that you can "store" Time Vault in your graveyard while waiting to find Tezzeret.

Voltaic Key is crap. Even if I play with Time Vault I would never play with Voltaic Key.

Finally, when it comes to find any artifact, so does Tinker.

I have played Bomberman for a while now and can add the following to the discussion:

* I definitely prefer to run black. I have won so many matches on Will or Demonic for the missing combo piece. Sweden has a meta game crammed with Stax, and I have never experienced any trouble with the mana base, just make sure to run a basic Plains. The deck has a high mana curve compared to other decks and Duress or Thoughtsieze are nice first turn play which buys time to play your Trinket Mage.

* If you are running black and Cunning Wish, try to put Vampiric Tutor in your sideboard. It adds a lot of flexibility. It turns Cunning Wish into something you want to draw instead of something that is just in the way.

* Talking about the high mana curve, I would never cut any of the off-colour moxes. I have tried to play with Lotus Petal, but in 90% of the cases, I just wanted a permanent mana source instead and in the other 10 % it didn't add any brokeness.

* Why is everyone so affraid of Tezzeret decks? As pointed out by The Wolfe, just attack Tezzeret if before side board and Pithing Needle will get him after sideboard.

A very nice article indeed. I think that your analysis is correct in broad views. There are however two points on which I disagree. The first one is about Bomberman. Just to recapture the earlier discussion:
Who would ever want to play Painter's Trinket when there is Bomberman? The combo parts of Bomberman are useful by them self (I have won numerous matches against Stax just by recurring Engineered Explosives and moxes) or can be "stored" in the graveyard until it's time to combo off (spellbombs). Grindstone, on the other hand is pretty useless on its own and Painter's Servant is potentially suicide to play without having found Grindstone. My personal belief is that the Painter/Grindstone combo is best included in a Control Slaver frame, much like Time Vault/Fuselage once was.

The second point on which I don't agree is the arguing that the more or less only way to beat Workshop decks is to play Merchant Scroll for a bounce spell. The Swedish meta game is crammed with Stax decks, but I seldom rely on playing a Merchant Scroll for a bounce spell, it is just too expensive. As long as you build your deck having Workshop decks in mind, you will do absolutely fine without four Merchant Scrolls. It's all about acrificing some mana acceleration for more permanent mana and some more answers to artefacts, e.g. Gorilla Shaman or Engineered Explosives. This does of coarse mean that the format will slow down even further than predicted by most, and I think that this strengthen the arguments to why Mana Drain will become viable again.

The list looks pretty solid although I would perhaps have opted for a Merchant Scroll over the second Fire/Ice and with all combo floating around, I would probably go for the Angel rather than colossus.

Anyhow, I'm concerned with all Leylines floating around in the current metagame. An eraly Leyline forces you to go for the Tinker plan. Both Yawgmoth's Will and Welders are shut down and you have only an echoing truth to deal with it. Have anyone more than I found this to be an issue and what possible solutions are there?

I do not like that Chalice. The deck has way too many 1 and 2 CC spells. Even though you may stop that single spell you are talking about, it is a way too unpredictable game plan and you might end up locking yourself more than your opponent. I would much rather go for an Aether Spellbomb which amongst others deals with Dryads and Platinum Angel.

I was just wondering the same thing. When I first saw this deck, I immediately though: "What a nice deck, but how can Life from the Loam be stronger than Yawgmoth's Will?" I can agree that there are strong arguments for LftL against Stax, but in almost any other matchup, I would prefer Will even if it not tremendously broken.

Hopefully in your dreams only. It seems like DCI tries to minimize the effect of Yawgmoth's Will and create other means of winning besides Will. Gifts is perhaps the single most powerful card setting up a Yawgmoth's Will and Fact or Fiction isn't far behind. Voltaic Key can potentially be used in some kind of wierd combo and Black Vise will give aggro a powerful weapon. Perhaps they want Ichorid to be in the format to force people to increase the graveyard hate count. In that way they hamper Will even more.

My experience of Counterbalance in Vintage is very much in agreement with the first three points in Malhavoc's post. If you have both Counterbalance and Top in play it is decent since you can always counter anything with CC 1. But it doesn't hinder your opponent to play something with CC 1 (forcing you to put Top onto your library) and then cast something broken with another CC than 1. The big drawback is however that a lone Counterbalance is nothing but a card with CC 2 that quite often does nothing. You have no control what so ever on its functionality, you can just hope that your top card happens to have the casting cost of the spell your opponent will cast. And if it hits, your investment in a card has still not given you a card advantage, just a one-for-one trade.

Much of my experince with Counterbalance is however from including Mana Drain in the same deck. This is of course a bad call since you on turn two wants to play both Dark Confidant and Counterbalance and have mana open for Mana Drain. To replace Mana Drain with Duress is probably a very good idea.

Cutting Brainstorm is however not a good idea. A control deck or conmbo deck that cannnot support Brainstorm is in my experience not a good deck. You have way to many spells that you don't want on your starting hand such as Future Sight, Tendrils, multiple Top and so on. Without Brainstorms you will be stuck with those cards in your hand until you can combo out. You will have to think of a way to fit at least three Brainstorms in the deck. Suggestions:
- Frantic Search
- 1 Future Sight
- 1 Top (3 is plenty)
+ 3 Brainstorm

I would furthermore cut one Helmet and perhaps one Counterbalance to fit in Tinker+DSC just as Shock Wave suggests. That will give you one more wincon and Tinker can always fetch the lone Helmet or a Top.

I agree one the inclusion of Green and Nights Whisper. Xantid Swarm is much better than Defens Grid, but I think you can use the green more extensive. Have you tested Fastbond? A big problem for decks like these are sideboard cards like Chalice, Arcane Laboratory, In the Eye of Chaos. You will have at most two Chain of Vapor to deal with non-creature hate. As you include green, have you tested Krosan Grip?

I think three Tendrils is one too much. In reality, the only way you can win with so many Tendrils is with Yawgmoth's Will. This might sound strange, but you will seldom have mana to play both and when you have, you will have waited so long that at least one of the Tendrils would have been better of as some kind of buisness, for example Mind's Desire which costs two mana less.

I live in Sweden. A Nordic Legacy Championship would be awsome. The trouble is to get people to actually show up. I would say that Gothenburg is the Magic-center of Sweden and easily accesible by train from both Oslo and Copenhagen.

I would like to argue for the inclusion of Mind Twist. To make room I would cut one Misdirection. With two Misdirections, four FoWs and mana acceleration, it is perfectly possible to cast Mind Twist for three or four cards in turn two or three. Its strength, however is when you Gifts for the first time. Mind Twist is one of those cards that your opponent cannot let you get. That will narrow their choices and turn your Gifts into an Intuition that gives you two out of three cards. The drawback is that one Island has to be exchanged for an Underground Sea. As Smmenen has already pointed out, the mana base cannot support another black card and I can only agree. People will argue that Mox Jet, Black Lotus and Lotus Petal gives you all black mana you'll ever need. That is however a false assessment when you play against decks with Chalice, Wasteland and/or Null Rod. I think however that one less basic land is a much lesser price to pay than the advantages gained from Mind Twist.

With that extra Underground Sea, black mana is abundant and it opens for the option to change one Merchant Scroll for Vampiric Tutor and one or more Duresses in the sideboard. That is however not a central issue here. I would like to hear your oppinions on the inclusion of Mind Twist?

Basalt Monolith + Power Artifact wasn't anywhere broken even before when it was allowed. Back then Dishenchant was more commonly played and you could play only one Braingeyser and one Stroke of Genius which made the combo a little less viable. Today you would probably play something like two Monolith, a couple of Power Artifact, Tinker and Transmute Artifact or suitable transmute cards and a lot of Cunning Wish, but how fun is a Power Artifact without a Monolith? Not at all! Correct. More a legacy combo than a Vintage ditto.

The same goes for the Time Vault combo mentioned above. Each combo part is terrible without the other.

I run DSC. I can see virtually no deck where I would rather want Platz. Against combo, it is much higher probability that DSC kills your opponent before he combos you out than for Platz not to be bounced. The only common match-up where Platz is strictly better is Oath.

I run two slavers since a common situation is an early Thirst that discards a Mindslaver. Then if you find your Tinker and plays it, you'll have to fetch something suboptimal if you run only one slaver. You cannot build a deck that takes mulligan when you start with mana, Thirst and Mindslaver on your hand. Indeed, you want to thirst away a Mindslaver early on so that Welders become a threat, just not a 1/1 creatures that meddle with your moxes. These arguments make it clear that two slavers is a necessity.

How can you compare Memory Jar and Fact or Fiction? Fact or Fiction is often played in in you opponents end phase enabling you to have to have mana open for Mana Drain or Mana Leak (the latter is underpayed in Slaver). Memory Jar covers the same spot as the other expensive artifacts, i.e. tap out on your own turn to do something good the next turn. Like Mindslaver, Jar gets owned by for example Null Rod and Stifle, both played in Fish. Null Rod is played in both Oath and Stax and as already pointed out, Memory Jar is suicide against Dragon. That's quite a large part of the meta game here in Sweden as well as in other parts of the world.

People are considered extremely much with brokenness but very little with consistence. In the consistency aspect, the difference between four and five mana is huge which makes Memory Jar improper to replace Fact or Fiction. On an average, you'll hit five mana several turns later than four mana, specially if you're up against Null Rod or Chalice or Waste effects. To refere to the situation when you resolve a Tinker is also improper since you'll then win anyhow. A Mindslaver does the job as good or better than a Memory Jar against virtually everything except possibly aggro where DSC will win you the game.

In conclusion, a much more proper question would be whether you should play Memory Jar or Mind Slaver number two. I have no good answere to that question.

Oath, TPS, monobrow aggro and Deathlong then? It often turns up to late against Fish after Vial has made its thing and a few Wastelands already have hit your mana. I can find some use for it, but "shines" seems rather strong to me. When you think about it, it's only very good against things that are not sacrificed upon use, such as Welders and Bazaars. Anyhow, I get the arguments for Echoing Truth and would like to add that it is not because I fear Chalice for two but rather the heavy presens of combo decks that make me reluctant to include bounce.

I have also tested versions of Confidant control decks, but not this particular one. You say that you want the fourth one, but I object to that. If you haven't found your Angel, you cannot risk having two Confidants in play and instead they tend to clog up in your hand. Three Confidants is probably the right number.

Then I have a question if you think that this version with massive counters is better than one more like a classic Control Slaver, with say two Welders or so? It would definitely not hurt to have more ways to bring in your Angel. Life can become an issue quite quickly with a Confidant and a few expensive spells on the top. It can be argued that DSC would have to go then and instead be something that can be welded. I'm not sure that is an argument, but it can be worth having in mind.

Last I would like to comment on crap like Pithing Needle and Echoing Truth that people tend to put in their decks. I myself is much more comfortable having a few Cunning Wish there. It is often enough to be able to fetch a bounce, a REB, a Mogg Salvage and a Darkblast. More mana intensive but, the flexibility outweights it by far. The combined answere to Thugs questions below combined with the answere to the question "What is more flexiblible?" won't at least rule out Cunning Wish. I would guess this is a bit in line with the comment from Cross.

Re: Thirst
So you don't lose tempo on waiting a turn to draw the lock component that ends up on the top of your library? If you have a Welder out, you can even gain tempo from Thirst. Tempo gain and card advantage must be superior to card disadvantage and tempo loss. Now you will argue that if you have an active Welder, you are winning anyhow, but that's not true, specially during the first few turns when you have nothing in your graveyard to play with. You must have more threats to drop than your opponent can deal with. If you are actively reducing your number of threats (most tutors), then your opponent will counter the vital lock components and break free of the rest.
Thirst is by the way strictly superior to Compulsive Research since the latter is good only when you have a Crucible i play while Thirst has synergy with Welders.

Sensei's Dev. Top is interesting, but you don't want more than necessary on CC 1 since the strongest Chalice play is for one. This has already been noticed, but in other words. I would put i in the way that if your deck cannot operate if you cast Chalice on one, your deck is missbuilt.

I mostly agree with what has already been said about Thirst and Crucible and Null Rod does not pull its weight in this deck. I would also like to add some things.

Regarding the mana base, I was sick and tiered of getting hit by City and to see my Gemstone Mines dissappear. I tinkered with several different land configurations and has settled for the following base for colored mana:
1 Tolarian Academy
5 Moxen
1 Lotus
3 City of Brass
2 Gemstone Mine
1 Tendo Ice bridge
1 Shivan Reef
1 Barbarian Ring
1 more colored source of your choice
(I have 28 mana sources in total)
I'm currently trying Mox Diamond in the last slot, but I'm not sure if I'm going to keep it. The philosophy here is that Tendo basically is a Gemstone that stays. You cannot replace all Gemstones because then you're doomed after sideboard. Most of your spells are either blue or red hence, you can replace one city with Shivan Reef without getting colored screwed.

One thing more. Use at least two copies of In the Eye of Chaos in your sideboard. It absolutely houses storm decks.

Once again then. Would banning Will and only Will, no other card be bad for the format? It is a theoretical question but please try to answere the question and no other question. Banning only Will won't make Legacy out of Vintage, but if that is your oppinion, then it is more urgent than I thought to ban Will because then you are arguing that Vintage is one card only.

@dandan
Sure it wouldn't allow Stompy and genuinely bad decks to enter, but I think that Y. Will is one order of magnitude worse than anything else and how could anyting be less interactive than Yawgmoth's Will? About 90 % of all FTK includes Y. Will. That's pretty non-interactive. Graveyard hate doesn't work either. You cannot sideboard cards against a single Y. Will sitting with them in hand as dead resources just waiting for your opponent to eventually play his Will. You and everyone else know that. You didn't however answere my question. Would banning Yawgmoth's Will be bad for the format?

EDIT: by the way, Will doesn't need setup. It only needs you to do whatever you would do anyhow, i.e. play spells.

In the early history of Vintage cards were actually banned. Mind Twist and Channel were considered too powerful. I cannot explained exactly why they were banned, but I think it was much because there was no answere to first turn cards (Fireball+Lotus+Channel).No one spoke about restricting the moxes and such just because a few cards were banned. Nowadays the situation is different with many free counters.

Tinker isn't a problem. You still have two turns to respond to a Colossus. Yawgmoth's Will on the other hand is way too powerful, it adds too much randomness and "whoops, I won" situations. If we for a moment consider banning Yawgmoth's Will and then shutting the door again saying that no other cards should be banned ever more (impossible I know, but lets pretend it can happen). Should anyone be really sorry and think that it would destroy the format? I think that it would open up Vintage making the format so much more fun.

@orgcandman
The most useful thing Belcher does is to ping Welders and Gorilla Shaman and other small creatures. That's pretty good, but seven mana for killing a Welder is very much. The point is, as you noticed, that the Severance is crappy in the begining. If you can spare a card in lategame you are winning anyhow. It's getting there that is the hard part and Severance won't help you. And yes, a five turn clock is at least two turns too much. as noticed above by doylehancock, Burning Wish is seldom used as a wincon. Nine times out of ten you abuse Time Walk rather than killing with it. It is just a secondary kill that  takes one sideboard slot. It is without doubt the most slot efficient wincon and on the same time it is least in the way in early game.

I must agree on Time Vault/Fusillade and you have above given clear reasons why the combo is perhaps the worst alternative of them all. Thanks.