This new land looks promising because it drastically solves one of the decks biggest problems, namely counter spells.
The fact that only a removal spell is able to deal with a turn 1 hatebear is like a wet dream to me. Be it Thalia or Arbiter, if they immediately come down you just screw so many hands against blue. The only disadvantage is of course the variety of creature types among the hate legends but that feels like something which can be worked out by adjusting the mana base accordingly and is outweighed by its utility.

What are your thoughts on this:
http://mtgsalvation.com/avacyn-restored-spoiler.html#5901 (Cavern of Souls)

Looks pretty powerful to me : >

Guli I run a very similar list which mainly packs pure hate and was quite surprised by its effectiveness (as I'm pretty new to vintage). I run also the search denial package of 4 x Arbiter and 3 x Mindcensor to combine it with 4 x Ghostquarter and 4 x Path. It is very strong with the mana denial cards of the deck (Stony Silence, Wasteland and Strip Mine) and I absolutely agree with you that both the mana denial and hate legends usually create enough virtual card advantage to win.

However, as mentioned above, the sticking points are twofold. The first one being other creature decks. For instance, your actual list flat out loses to your old list. This is also true against other creature based decks. Now, this is of course vintage and you usually don't expect such decks but it is still something to keep in mind and to be prepared for. Here, both Noble and Pridemage perform doubly duty by providing exalted and their utility against powered decks.

Secondly, and this is what I couldn't come up with a satisfying solution for yet, how to deal with blue packing enough creature removal. I just want to bring up a recent game I had (I don't remember the exact cards but you'll get the idea): He mulled to 4 and was on the play, I kept my starting 7.
Him: Land, go.
Me: Land, Mox, Hatebear, which he forces.
Him: Land, go.
Me: Hatebear, which gets drained.
Him: Jace -> I scoop.

Now you can basically exchange his force for dismember or bolt or whatever, the point is that removal + blue's card advantage just wrecks you and there is not much you can do about it imo. One way to counter this is to play real card advantage yourself e.g. Sylvan Library or splash blue for recall. The list which Bax provided goes into that direction and I think this is the way to go for this deck if you want to keep up.

Finally, Thorn got legs for a reasonable cost. And first strike. Bye Glowrider..

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=127171&stc=1&d=1326344441

Care to share your thoughts more accurately? Personally, I just want to have a first turn Null Rod/Kataki > Gaddock > Leonin Arbiter and mulligan accordingly, but you gotta take what you get. The rest of the deck consists anyway only of cards that disrupt your opponent, so as long as you are able to prevent lightning fast starts you should be fine.

Hey all

I'm a Legacy player and I plan to participate in one of the local Vintage tournaments in the closer future. This type of deck looked interesting to me for a couple of reasons:
- it is (especially with proxies) very cheap to build
- it is relatively easy to pilot correctly
- Null Rod seems incredibly strong against the format

Soo, I started brewing my list with some inspiration from this very thread. I played it only on MWS yet, which is admittedly really bad to test, but I felt both that the build played very well and is, surprisingly, strong. However, this impression may be biased because of some pretty terrible opponents. I also never had the opportunity to play against Oath, which looks like a terrible match up. I'm currently playing this build:


Main (60)

Lands (19)
4 x Savannah
3 x Razorverge Thicket
4 x Horizon Canopy
4 x Wasteland
1 x Strip Mine
1 x Ghost Quarter
1 x Plains
1 x Flagstones of Trokair

Creatures (28)
4 x Noble Hierarch
4 x Leonin Arbiter
3 x Gaddock Teeg
3 x Kataki, War's Wage
3 x Qasali Pridemage
3 x Leonin Relic-Warder
4 x Glowrider
4 x Elvish Spirit Guide

Artifacts (8)
3 x Null Rod
1 x Lotus Petal
1 x Mox Emerald
1 x Mox Pearl
1 x Black Lotus
1 x Crucible of Worlds

Enchantments (1)
1 x Sylvan Library

Instants (4)
4 x Path to Exile


Sideboard (15)
3 x Wheel of Sun and Moon
2 x Pithing Needle
3 x Phyrexian Revoker
1 x Kataki, War's Wage
1 x Relic of Progenitus
1 x Null Rod
4 x Leyline of Sanctity

Maybe some explanations regarding the card choices:

Since I always want to drop either Rod or a random hate bear on turn 1 (at least on the play), the 8 mana accelerators (Lotus, Petal, 2 Mox, 4 Spirit Guides) seemed crucial to me. The 4 Hierarchs weren't included in the beginning, but after giving them a try they proved to be golden. They not only help a lot against mana denial, they also strengthen both offense (by exalted) and defense (as a blocker).

4 Null Rods seem self-explanatory. 4 Arbiter are to hate on tutors and fetches. The 3-3 split on Teeg and Kataki is due to their legendary status, however, I play the 4th Kataki in the board because he is so strong against shop decks.

Originally, I run 4 Thorn of Amethyst, but then I thought "How much better would this be on a creature!" and voilà, Glowrider is exactly that for a mere cost of 1 additional mana. I started first with 3 because of his cmc, but 4 turned out to be fine. In the end there are only 5 spells at cmc 3 and I do not run any card selection (beside Library).

Pridemage was also a 4-of, but after I started testing with Relic-Warder I just had to make room for this guy. I feel like those two are pretty even on their powerlevel, but they both have their drawbacks. While Pridemage provides exalted (which is huge), he makes you pay 3 at least to destroy something. Relic-Warder on the other hand is smaller, but exiles its target for only 2, which can make a huge difference. The 3-3 split feels right at the moment.

The singletons Library and Crucible have both their merits. Altough Library doesn't provide immediate card advantage, it gets so good if you get it any triggers out of it. It allows to search for answers or mana, which can be very deciding. However, I would never draw more than one, so that's the number for me. The same is true for Crucible, which provides continuous mana denial via the land destruction package and card advantage by Horizon Canopy. It feels pretty slow nevertheless and I'm not yet sure if this stays in.

The board mainly deals with Oath (Leyline) and Dredge (Wheel, Relic, Needle). Revoker is there against both MUD and blue decks, depending on the targets I saw during the first game. 4th Kataki gets in against shop.

Phew, that got quite long... glad to hear your criticism and suggestions.