How low do you mull with leyline?

Hey guli- I do think that the frantic search engine for recycling duplicates makes a ton of sense in this hate filled deck. That said, Isamaru seems pretty terrible given that he he's a fairly weak clock and nothing more.

Also, null rod - I don't see how you'd run less than 4 with it being so central to so many MU.
Wasteland is interesting - but it's inclusion seems to really point towards choosing careful study over frantic search. I love the frantic search effect, but you don't have any instant effects that you will want to run to keep mana open for. It's also much stronger in an opening grip that has 1 blue mana source.

I also don't understand why envelop is in the board. What's that for?

I just played my first games vs ichorid and got rolled.
Leyline, is not what I want to play with this deck. What's a better card for the board? The spellbomb? Relic? Crypt? A Mix?

And yea, key vault isn't going anywhere.

Well I haven't tested repeal extensively, but it's hardly ever a dead draw. It can create some tempo which gives me time to set up my drain or have them tap out so I can drop Jace/Tinker.

As for thoughtseize - I really don't want to be tapping out in the early game - I'd much rather play permission especially with the probes which sometimes will give me perfect information making pierce and drain that much more powerful. I tested a bunch with duress - but it was pretty underwhelming; I want to drain into Jace/Tinker/will/vault etc. and duress doesn't help me accomplish this.

So bacon, what do you think of my decklist? have you tried it?

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

1 Mox Opal
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Voltaic Key
1 Time Vault
1 Inkwell Leviathan

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Yawgmoth's Will
3 Gitaxian Probe
1 Tinker

4 Force of Will
3 Spell Pierce
3 Mana Drain
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Brainstorm
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Repeal
1 Chain of Vapor

5 Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Volcanic Island
2 Polluted Delta

SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 3 Pithing Needle
SB: 4 Ingot Chewer
SB: 1 Mountain
SB: 1 Pyroclasm
SB: 2 Red Elemental Blast


Heya, here's the Jace list that I've been playing with on cockatrice for a week or so. I haven't had a chance to play vs shops, but vs fish combo and control it's been fairly impressive. Originally, I had 3 duress in the spell pierce slots, but I found that they were very often too slow and spell pierce would have been better.

I guess the most interesting addition to the deck is gitaxian probe. Probe has been amazing in every game where I played it - having the ability to see your opponents hand ( especially turn 1 ) is worth 2 life every time. Additionally, it's a free draw and storm off yawg will. I'd really like to fit an empty the warrens in the deck somewhere, but I'm not too sure where I'd fit it. I don't think it's really needed but something like -1 pierce or -1 drain +1 ETW could be really strong given that this deck can combo off using will, hurks (with loads of artifacts), repeal, chain, probe yawg will into a a very big storm count.

I opt not to run ponder or some U sorcery scrying cards in favor of the probes. While this does somewhat limit the consistency of your draws, it does help to power mystical and vampiric tutor in addition to giving you tons of info about your opponent. The main goal is to control you opponent and land your bomb (jace/tinker/will) like any good blue mage so I found that probes helped me achieve this better than ponder or some scrying card would. Not to mention, running drain + pierce there's alot of time I'd really like to keep the 3 mana open.

I'm not sure that the repeal, chain, hurk package is optimal, but I haven't had a chance to test on cockatrice yet so I really don't know how well this deck will fair against shops.

So forum... do u guys think this deck wants ETW? Is ETW > key/vault? I've only got 1 top so the key/top interaction is there but it's less important that other decks. +1 top +1 ETW -1 key -1 vault is also possible... but, I think that the shell of this deck feels really good.

Well this deck isn't too interested in tapping out on turn 2 in the main phase to drop anything. I use the artifact mana to help cast intuition, life from the loam (sometimes on T2) or in certain situations a tarmo, while still keeping my disruption online. Additionally, having the artifact package allows me to run tinker which can be a solid win condition.

Also, I haven't play-tested vs metalworker so I'm not really sure how this deck will fair at the moment.

At the moment, I'm considering switching up the following slots

-crop rotation
-jace x 2
-thirst

I'm debating the usefulness of steel sabotage #4, intuition #4, fact or fiction and gifts ungiven. With the tempo/control style of this deck, tapping out early is almost always suboptimal because it gives your opponent the opportunity to play around your mana-base disruption. This makes eot plays like intuition/fact/thirst/gifts more attractive than say Jace.

Thanks for the info though, and I'm really starting to think that steel sabotage may be a great 4-of.

1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus

4 Force of Will
3 Steel Sabotage
3 Intuition
2 Spell Pierce
1 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Frantic Search
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Fact or Fiction
4 Stifle

3 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Tropical Island
1 Strip Mine
3 Wasteland
2 Flooded Strand

2 Trygon Predator
3 Tarmogoyf
2 Whirlpool Rider
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

2 Life from the Loam
1 Tinker
1 Ponder
1 Time Walk

SB: 1 Tarmogoyf
SB: 4 Ravenous Trap
SB: 2 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 Umezawa's Jitte
SB: 1 Trygon Predator
SB: 1 Forest
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 3 Mindbreak Trap

Hey guys, I came across cockatrice the other day and decided I was going to play some magic. My deck for live T1 events is oath, but I wanted to take advantage of the software and mix things up a bit. Aside from the disconnects, I had some great games with my limited experience piloting my UG Tempo pile.

This deck is looking to get some early advantage by exploiting decks with weak mana bases and decks that are reliant on artifact mana. Stifle, spell pierce, steel sabotage, wasteland/stripmine are great at filling this role. For now I've included crop rotation, but I haven't yet had an opportunity to play it and I am not sure it really fits.

The deck focuses on card quality in a few ways.  Brainstorm/ponder are included because they have great synergy with fetchlands and life from the loam. The TFK singleton is intended for some mid/late game gas and intends to pitch lands. Intuition is great with a loam/loam/strip pile, a tarmo/tarmo/tarmo or tyrgon/tyrgon/tyrgon pile. On occasion you could also use it to tutor up a force or steel sabotage to deal with a non-levi tinker target. Often if you have managed to stifle a fetchland, wasted a dual or otherwise disrupted their mana base, most players will actually counter your early EOT intuition (which may ultimately be correct), but can help you solidify your lead.

Jace is my newest introduction to the deck. In some games I have stalled, got slightly high on mana and really never had any very powerful card to even hope to top-deck. I think that Jace fills this role, and may or may not function well at removing creatures. Jace is the highest cc card in the deck minus levi who I don't plan on hard casting. Jace's card filtering abilities seem quite good with the high number of fetches in the deck.

As for the creatures, I think it's pretty clear that Tarmo can get quite big quite fast and act as a clock. Tyrgon fits with the theme of disrupting artifacts and is also pretty solid vs oath.

Hopefully I've written enough and this is a unique enough deck that my thread won't get deleted, but I plan on watching this thread and updating it over time.

P.S. i'm MackTheTemp on cockatrice and I'd love to test some games vs shops / combo as I haven't had a chance to do that yet.

Cheers,
Mack


Edit: I've included whirlpool rider who works great when I have lftl online or am digging to find a silver bullet to answer tinker or other combo. I've ditched one of the predators because in alot of games it can be tough to get him online while keeping U open. I replaced one jace for a fact for the same reason. I squeezed in a frantic search but there's a very high probability that thirst for knowledge is going to be strictly better there.

What are the peak hours for ppl playing on cockatrice? Vintage I mean.

Has anyone attempted to set up a small tourney yet?