Buried alive costs 3.  I wouldn't think of running buried alive over intuition.  However entomb costs 1 and can also get C. therapy or deep analysis.  costing 2 less could really speed up the deck as well as allow you to only run 1-2 bloodghasts main reducing the chances of drawing them. 

Could also open up some reanimate sideboard options instead of tinker agianst other creature decks.

Anyone test entomb?  Seems like a great way to get the bloodghast engine going.  I'd rather spend turn two casting entomb than playing a land rather then spending 2 mana to hardcast him.  What's the most common method of getting him in the graveyard?

Without bloodghast I think you will be in big trouble.  Sure you have dark confidant but you really don't want to be sac'ing your draw engine and if you are forced to then you are in top deck mod locked under your own blood funnel.  If you hold blood funnel until you get a bloodghast then your stuck with a bunch of high casting cost spells that you can't cast and delaying your game plan.  Since you can't run more then 4 you need another card that interects well with blood funnel.  These are the leading options that I can see.

Options:
bitterblossom. 
Upside:A steady stream of one creature per turn.  Creatures can be clamped.  On color.  doesn't rely on graveyard
Downside.  Costs 2, and can't be cast after blood funnel.  Only one creature per turn.  No creature on turn cast.

Myr Servitor
Upside.  costs only one.  Can be clamped.  Has limited graveyard recursion.
downside.  Creature must be in play during upkeep to recur. Must run 4 to get full value out of them.  Need 2 to be able to recurr

reassembling skeleton
upside:  on color, can be clamped.  graveyard recursion.
downside:  mana intensive.

Mogg war marshal
upside:  3 creatures available same turn cast, not graveyard depandent
downside:  must add third color.

I love bitterblossom as it's pretty good in several matchups on it's own.  It also isn't graveyard dependent which helps if you are facing graveyard hate.   If you run bitterblossom I can see you dropping down to 3 blood funnels and 3 donates as you won't be casting either turn one and they bolth suck in multiples.  You'll also need clamp to replace the bob draw engine which sould be fine.  Mogg war marshal seams to be the most interesting option just for the speed it gives you creatures.

Mana:
1   Mox Jet
1   Mox Sapphire
1   Mox Pearl
1   Mox Ruby
1   Black Lotus
1   Sol Ring
1   mana crypt (seems better then petal with only 22 mana sources)
3   scalding tarn (more fetches instead of paradise)
4   Underground Sea
4   Polluted Delta
1   Tolarian Academy
2   island
2   Swamp (up to 23 mana sources)

4   Blood Funnel
3   Donate (removed one donate as you don't need it early)
1   Illusions of Grandeur
4   Bloodghast
3   bitterblossom  (Replaced bobs)
2   Intuition
1 thirst for knowledge (replaced one intuition with one thirst)
1   Demonic Tutor
1   Vampiric Tutor
1   Merchant Scroll
3  skullclamp (removed jace and 2 deep analysis
4  Force of Will
3  Spell Snare ( I don't think these should be in here as you do too much on your main phase, removing them for duresses seems right, but it may lower your blue count too much to support FOW.  Not sure what to do here)
1  Time Walk
1  Ancestral Recall
1  Frantic Search
1  Tinker
1  Echoing Truth
1 Tinker Target

What happened to Top?  I remember when this deck first was discussed Sensi's Divining top was one of the best cards.  It helps you find the combo before going off.  Allows you to get channel in your hand off your top deck tutors.  And while going off turns your 7 card hands into 10 card hands all for no colorless mana.  You can also float the draw ablility in between Mirrors so you start with 8 cards in hand.  Should be in the list somewhere if not as a 4 of.

Affinity with clamps and disciples is extremely powerfull since null rod will not be very popular.  Even without moxes you can still get really explosive hands.  ancient tombs can be used to speed up the deck as well if you stick to blue black then you shouldn't have any mana issues with them.

I ran painter a lot last year and placed in several tournaments.  I had the most luck with sticking with blue-red and resisting the temptation for adding black.  This was mainly to do to problems I had against strip mine decks such as fish and workshop.  The deck is not very mana hungry and you don't want to run a ton of mana sources.  If you run black with duress effects then you are almost always wanting to fetch a dual turn one as you need all three colors early.  Too many games were lost to mana problems that I ended up cutting black for more basics instead of increasing my mana sources.  The down side to this was turn one duress was so good against faster combo decks that I really missed it in that matchup.  You should decide based on your meta.

I also strongly suggest running all 4 painters, one grindstone with 2-3 trinket mages.  The 4 painters are there to turn on your REB's early.  You should be running at least 4-5 reb effects main, if not then why are you bothering running painter in the first place?  It's the decks biggest strength against tezz.  Only one grindstone is needed since you run trinkets that act as stones 2-4.  They also give you utility to fetch explosives, top, or needle.

I also liked 1-2 welders in the deck especially with only one grindstone main.  They were good disruption against workshop decks as well as slowing down time vault decks.  Not quite as good now with thirst restricted, but still not bad.  They also can be a draw engine with top in play.

I also would suggest sticking with the ancient grudges in the sideboard.  Against stacks it is very difficult to get to 3 mana when you need it most.  I would run a combination of grudges and shattering sprees for my artifact hate package.  I did this and it was very useful.  Sure sometimes grudge is just a shatter, but that is just fine in the beginning.  You can use it to stall long enough to find the emerald or a mage to get an emerald and go to town.  This happens enough times to warrant the grudges in my experience. 

living wish can get a creature OR land and costs 2. 

wouldn't living wish be better then into the north?  It costs the same but it can search for either missing piece.  Into the north seams very one dimensional as the mana accel is not important in this deck compared to the search function.  It can also give you silver bullet answers to many hate cards. 

Dan here, I finished top 4 with a tez variant based off the world championships deck list by Itou.  I made a few changes of course as everyone always does.  Some of them worked out pretty well, some didn't, and others are still up for debate.  First was I changed out the bobs for nights whispers and for the most part they were better.  They dug faster and I never had to fear darkblast or fire/ice.  In the mirror matchup I had round 2 or 3 they actually won me the match.  I was able to cast it for 2 cards and my opponent followed with bob.  Before he was able to draw his second card off bob I was able to assemble my combo while he was left with his vault on the top of his deck. 

I also swapped out the misdirection for a REB as I believe it serves the same purpose, to protect my spells, without the card disadvantage.  While misdirecting a recall is "cool"  I'm just as happy to counter it as well as any other blue card. 

Magus of the unseen I knew was gonna get cut, but I was worried about having so few win conditions that I knew I wanted another creature.  I didn't want it to die to darkblast or fire/ice so it had to have a decent butt.  I had several options, none of which I liked so I finally settled on shadowmage just to try it out.  I only saw it 2 times, one was countered and the other came down way to late to do anything so I'm not sure what it think of him just yet.  I would try him again just because I don't have a better option.

The last 2 changes were more questionable and may have cost me.  First I really wanted ponder in this deck and I still do, I just think I cut the wrong card to add it.  I cut the chain of vapor when I should have just replaced on of the tops for it instead.  This problem was compounded by the last change which was swapping out the rack and ruin for an ancient grudge.  I even want and made it worse by making all my sideboard anti artifact cards grudges as well.  This made me totally dead to chalice at 2 which is what happened in the top 4.  Had I diversified the answers I would have one because in the game 2 I had drawn all 3 of my ancient grudges and couldn't cast them.  (I also swapped out the library for one tropical island to have access to green for flashback.)

My sideboard had some differences as well.  first I wanted 6 dredge cards in my board as there are usually 1-2 dredge decks in our meta.  To make room I cut the darkblast and the pyroblast.  I figured with one REB main I could afford to cut one from my board and with darkblast and fire/ice the second darkblast wouldn't be needed.  I wanted 2 more ancient grudges so I put them in for the hurkyl's and the rack which I don't suggest.  I wanted more for the fish matchups as well as shops but didn't want to cut all the combo hate so I decided to try bitterblossoms.  They can block fish all day until I can stabilize and combo and they give me permanents to fight shops so I cut the 2 pyroclasms and one arcane labs for 3 bitterblossoms.  This was the best change I made by far. 

If I were to play this again I definitely would put the chain of vapor back in, probably for the second top.  Ponder is so much better turn one then top if you are light on mana.  I also would change my 2 ancient grudges to probably ingot chewers as they seem to get around most of shops key lock pieces.  Surprisingly there were no dredge decks Sunday, but I still wouldn't reduce the slots for it.  I would also strongly consider changing the mana base by swapping out the 2 flooded strands for 2 of the new blue red fetchlands and the trop for a basic mountain as red is so important against shops.  this would main changing the maindeck grudge to something else but that's not really a problem. 

I'll keep my actual match report short as my memory of the details is not good.  First round I was surprised to play against a turn one goblin guide.  I could have forced it but felt my hand was strong so I let it go.  When it attacked if revealed fire/ice which was good in this matchup so I was pretty happy.  Next turn I could have fired the guide but I was hoping for better targets and I wanted land so I took another 2.  Needless to say I ended up taking way too much from the little goblin before I finally fired it.  By that time a gorilla had joined his team and proceeded to attack me for like 10.  It was pretty sad.  My deck kept giving me crap and I was soon dead.  Game 2 same thing as I let a first turn guide resolve this time with no fire/ice and it proceeded to do 14 damage to me.  Needless to say I lost that game as well.  Not a good start.

Round 2 I played against a GB hexmage deck.  Game one my hand was really strong as I managed to counter 2 hexmages before vaulting him out.  Before game 2 I asked if the 20/20 token has trample, no?  Hey these bitterblossoms seem like they would be pretty good!  He starts off with a bang and goes land, rit, dt, lotus, and then the black jesters cap spell.  No problem for me though as I already have a bitterblossom in and as well as my tezz.  He takes my robot, my vault and one of my blossoms but it doesn't matter as he has no answer to my turn 2 and turn 3 blitterblossom and they go all the way.

Round 3 was the Mirror I believe with me taking games 2 and 3, one of them on the back of my whispers being faster then his bob. 

Round 4 I got paired against the one of the other goblin decks and wasn't happy.  I was able to take game on on the back of having a god hand and getting vault/key very quickly.  Game 2 I got a turn 2 bitterblossom, but it couldn't race his god draw this game as I'm swarmed to death by multiple piledrivers.  Game 3 was epic as I had turn one blossom while he kept dropping goblins.  I used my tokens to chump his piledrivers and conserve my life.  Finally at around 9 I get my vault/key combo and it becomes a race to see if I can kill him before my blossoms kill me.  I do the math and I should be fine unless he has a burn sell.  I figure I have 5 draws before I am in range so I should draw 1 counterspell.  I do have vamp in hand and looking back I probably should have vamped for tinker and increased my clock but I just sat on my blossom and road it all the way.  Fortunately he didn't have any burn because in 7 draws I didn't see a single counterspell, tutor, or drawspell accept whispers which I wasn't going to cast.

Round 5 was a ID and the top eight is covered by the feature matches so I won't get into them too much.  I will say that I believe I made a mistake in game 2 of the top 4.  I played the turn 2 blossom off a mox and a basic swamp.  In hand I had left force of will, tinker as my only blue card, and ancient grudge.  I don't remember what turn it was, but either turn 2 or three I had to decide to counter something pitching force or let it resolve.  I believe it was a thorn.  I had the grudge, but my worry was that if I sacked my fetchland for a volcanic I would be open to waste since I haven't drawn any more mana sources.  I'll have to wait till the feature matches get posted to refresh my memory.  I seam to recall having the chance to cast it but not wanting to lose any mana sources.  If that is the case it was pretty stupid as I don't think he can answer inkwell especially with a blossom out.

Anyway I had fun and hopefully I will be able to make it to the next one.

Dan

Entomb is unrestricted and should be considered. 

Bazaar takes a land drop and will slow you down a turn.  You need to get to 3 mana to cast trash so entomb would be better at loading the graveyard.   

If you are only targeting artifact creatures then animate dead would be much better then trash for treasure.  So no, I don't think TFT is playable at this time.  I would work around welder and animate effects first with entomb.

I fail to see the benifet of this line of play.  Your mana base is plenty stable as you don't need to sac the pedal and you still have the vault.  You are basically stating that you would rather have twister resolve then necro since both plays can be made with force backup and both plays leave you in top deck mode if they have 2 counters.  After necro you would have swamp, academy, pedal, vault(untapped) in play for 7 mana available on your turn 3.

In your line of play, it would have to be sapphire or jet so you can play it before having to tap academy.  You need to leave the swamp untapped for the ritual.  tapp swamp and jet for ritual, 4 in pool.  Use one for mana vault.  Tap academy for 3 and mana vault for 3.  9 mana in your pool.  Play twister for 3.  Hardcast force for 5 with one mana floating.  If countered you would have swamp, acadamy, pedal, vault(tapped) and a mox for 6 mana available.  Hardly worth it since necro is a much stronger card for the same risk.

New game to post with the same deck list as my first post.  It's still a game one and you know your opponent is playing tez.  You are on the draw this time and open up:

Imperial Seal, Timetwister, Force of Will, Swamp, Tolarian Academy, Cabal Ritual, and Lotus Petal

No question this time you keep this hand.  It has good mana, 1 action spell and 1 tutor plus some protection in force.

Tez opens with volcanic island and mana crypt and attempts to case merchant scroll,  It resolves and he fetches a force of will.  A logical play as he knows what you are playing.

He passes and you draw mana vault.  I definitely believe you are going to seal turn one.  The question is what do you get?  You have plenty of mana so you want one of your bombs.  You have to hold back twister to use to pitch to force since you know he is holding a force.  My gut says to go for necro.  The down side is if he has 2 counters, and you should assume he will have drain mana up turn 2 then you are out of threats since twister is the only other blue card.  You could wait another turn and drop mana vault on your turn 2, that way on your turn 3 you will have swamp, academy, petal, vault and C. ritual for 9 mana so you could necro and hard cast force.  Setting up a turn 4 win though with no disruption slowing tez down seems to slow though.

Another option is to seal for ancestral and hold it in case he taps out or until you draw a second blue card.  That way you can respond if they tap out for instant card draw, or bait with ancestral on their turn and if they counter you can untap on your turn and cast twister with enough mana floating to hopefully win.   

My first gut reaction was necro, but I think the ancestral play is the safer play.

I think it's safe to say that this hand should be mul'd.  While my original line of play of timewalk-vamp-ancestral isn't bad, it really doesn't do much to help me win and the risk of getting countered really puts me in a big whole.  So shuffling up and drawing a new 6 I get:

Polluted Delta, Vampiric Tutor, Polluted Delta, Inkwell leviathen, Dark Ritual, Underground Sea

Crap, I don't need much help with this one as it clearly is crap.  I think I can do better with 5 so lets try one more time:

Force of Will, nights whisper, Cabal Ritual, Polluted Delta, Rebuild

I don't think I can do much better then that with 4.  Unfortunately I will need to get lucky and draw another land soon or I'm screwed.  Hopefully the force can buy me a turn or to.  This goes to show one of the downsides of posting my playtesting live as it happens as my first run-through seems to be doomed from the start.  Oh well, lets see what happens.

It's obvious I play my land and pass, no real option here so lets move on.

My opponent starts with ruby, delta, fetch a sea and cast demonic tutor which I let resolve.  I don't think the tutor is worth countering, I'm I wrong?

On my second turn I draw Island and give a quick thanks, at lest I can play something.  I fetch a sea and cast N. whisper.  He lets is resolve and I draw:
Memory Jar and Demonic Tutor.  I pass.

Opponents turn 2 he plays Seat of the Synod and passes.  He now has drain mana up.

On my turn 3 I draw Minds desire.  Not the best draw, but my give me an out verses his card advantage if I can string together the right spells.  My hand is force, c. rit, rebuild, memory jar, dt, and mind's desire.  I tap my 2 lands and cast DT.  My opponent responds by attempting to drain my DT.  I think it's safe to say I have to force back so I force pitching rebuild.  He forces my force and pitched Ancestral.  My dt is countered, but at least I made him pitch his ancestral.  I pass the turn.  Interesting question though is if I was able to resolve dt what do I get?  Lotus was my first thought as it would help me get to the mana I needed to cast desire although the desire would be pretty small.  Necro was also an option and probably would be the right call.

On my opponents turn 3 he draws and has 2 drain mana floating.  He plays mana crypt and taps it and the seat to play gifts with 1 colorless still floating. He gifts up lotus, mana vault , time vault, and V key.  I give him mana vault and v key.  He taps he sea and the ruby and casts will and wins.  He casts his artifacts and replays the delta to fetch another land and replay dt for tinker so he can't be killed by crypt. 

Unfortunately I don't see any line of play I could have made to win this game.  The only thing was maybe the mulligan, but I still feel it was the right play even though it went against my first instinct.  At lest I learned something from this in that just because you can see a line of play doesn't mean it should be taken.

I think I will try again and start a new post and a new game and see if I can't get a more interesting starting hand.  I am using excel and a randomizer program to simulate the shuffling and not progressing the game state until I post.  I don't know how it will turn out until I post so forgive me if the game turns out like the one above.     

If I follow my original line of play, assuming my opponant is holding force in there opening hand and counters my ancestral, I am left with 26 possible cards that I could play and have an impact on the game including black mana sources to cast grim, cheap tutors, duresses, and cheap card draws.  Also force is the only play my opponant can make to stop my ancestral since he will not get a turn first.  The downside being if the card is a dark ritual effect then getting value out of the grim tutor would be difficult and even if it is a perminant source, I would stil have to pass the turn after tutoring. 

If I follow Lennox's line of play I'm giving my opponant one turn before I play any threats.  That's one turn to duress me , draw a force or dig for one before I try to fire off recall.  If I assume he counters my ancestral then I am left with 15 useful cards to top deck out.  That includes tutors, duresses, card draws and bombs I could play with BU2 mana, 8 of which I would have to pass the turn before casting since I used one blue to attempt ancestral.

The hand as no disruption and really 2 useless cards in tendrils and rebuild, I'm almost starting to think this hand is a mul.  The only reason I see keeping it is becuase I can fire off an ancestral before my opponant can get a turn. 

 

I'd like to try something different here and try to do a playtest session walkthrough with active feedback.  What that means is I will post the current game state and what my line of play would be.  After a bit if there is significant feedback suggesting a better line of play I will make that one instead and proceed with the game.  The idea being to get peoples opinion on the options available while not giving them future knowledge.  Because the game isn't finished changes in decisions won't cause the game to become void.  My goal is to learn how other people would approach the hands and hopefully train myself to see different play lines I normally would have missed. 

So the setup, you will be piloting the below TPS decklist.  You know you are playing against Tez but don't know is exact deck list.  It is game one and you have won the role and are going first. 

you open:  Mox Sapphire Grim Tutor Vampiric Tutor Mox Jet Tendrils of Agony Time Walk and Rebuild

Going first I think this is keepable.   You have 2 tutors and access to both your colors.  I would keep and lead with both moxes and time walk.  The plan being to timewalk, untap vamp on my upkeep for ancestral and fire it off on my turn.  If my opponent forces, I still have grim tutor assuming I can find another black source.  the rebuild also cycles to help me dig. 

So now I ask you if this is the best play?  Would you keep this hand?  Lead with a different play?  when a consensus seams to be reached I will continue.  Below is the deck list:

2  Island
2 Swamp
1 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Lotus Petal
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
2 Underground Sea
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Dark Ritual
2 Cabal Ritual
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Imperial Seal
1 Grim Tutor
2 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
4 Force of Will
2 nights whisper
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Rebuild
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Necropotence
1 Mind's Desire
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Tinker
1 Inkwell leviathen
1 Memory Jar
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Tendrils of Agony

Odds of hellkite overlord being the last card in a 60 card deck

1 in 60 

While reading the article I played along in my head and at almost every point I choose a different path.  Now I'm not saying that you were wrong, it's just interesting how many different paths there are when playing tps.

First on the very first turn I was surprised you started with duress.  When playing TPS I like to use duress to clear the way for one of my bombs.  I usually don't care what they do first turn unless it's post board becuase I am almost always faster.  With your hand you really have no play turn 2 to protect so my thought was to lead with ponder to help set up my hand better and save the duress for turn 2 as my most likely play is a turn 3 tinker or bargain.  Duress turn 2 gives them one less card you don't know.  Also turn one ponder lets you start with island and save your fetch for turn 2.  That way you can choose to shuffle away the worst card of the three you ponder into.

After you lead with duress I was then surprised not at the card you took but at your logic for taking it.  Clearing the way for a turn 3 tinker while leaving them Hurkyls in hand doens't make much sense unless you were going to tinker for memory jar and break immediately which is just bad with no mana floating.  So I ended up taking the same card, but thought tinker was not a good option anymore.  So you pass the turn and your opponant plays land top mox emerald and activates top.  From this play it is obvious that he drew the mox emerald on his turn.  Something you didn't realize and were playing around an unknown card that didn't exist for the next few turns.

On to turn 2, were you ponder.  I would have stacked them the same way, but I wonder about playing the lotus that turn.  I know why you did and it was probably the right choice, but it just sucked to lose that free storm count.  

Nothing much happens on your end until your turn 4 where you go for it.  I think it was the right plays, the only thing that left me scratching my head was why you didn't ponder before you cast desire for not only an additional storm count, but also the chance to ponder into moxes or rituals for even more storm.  The one black mana floating isn't that helpfull post desire and the extra spells whould have been much more useful.  If you wanted to float mana through your desire then shouldn't you have just not tapped the sea you fetched?  That way you could have played the sol ring and tinkered it out for jar and seen a fresh 7 with 3 black mana still available.  If you sack collossus instead of sol ring then you can even chain sol ring for an additional mana if needed.
  Now that I think of it, with your black mana floating, why didn't you just play bargian off the ritual and sol ring you flipped to desire?  You had 6 mana.  You could even have chained the sol ring and relpayed if for an additional 1 mana that way you can continue to float a colored mana.

Like I said, so many different lines of play.
(mod for spelling)

I can't start a new post, but someone should mention that the July 1k tournment wiill be this coming sunday, the 19th.  It's finally up on the superstars calender on their web site.

If someone could start a new post that would be great.  I can actually attend this month and would like it to be a good turnout.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but won't tarm be a 6/7 after druid activates?  you have land, artifact, creature, instant, sorcery, and enchantment.  Wouldn't having 2-4 goyfs be better then the lord of extinction and 1-3 other cards?  Adding goyfs and maybe Bobs may even allow you to play around with a few chord of callings although they still may be too expensive. 

2 goyfs+3 druids+4narcomebas = 19/21. Dragons breath bumps it to a 20/22 and that's with no other creatures in your deck.  Add Bobs or leave in a few S. wraths and you get the point.  Why have a dead card in your deck if you don't need it?

For me thirst was important as a way to replace duplicant cards in your and with more usefull ones.  Painter's servent is such a key componant to the deck that you want to see it as early as possible, but if you run 4 you risk drawing multiples that are not nearly as useful as the first.  Same with Sensei's top and grindstone.  Thirst served 2 rolls almost like brainstorm does.  It helped you dig for your key cards and let you get use out of redundent ones.  If you run welders then you also get additional use out of thirst.  My point being the decks that got thrist restricted only used it becuase it was an instant that lets you see 3 cards.  They will be able to find replacements for thirst and really not even notice it's gone.  Meanwhile other decks that were struggling to find a nitch have been delt a more severe blow.  By trying to make a more diverse meta you've eliminated or severely weakened several deck options.  It doesn't make sense.   

I would like to make a comment on the overall approach wizards has been taking over the last year or so for vintage.  I consider myself a casual vintage player in the fact that I don't get to play that often and when I do I always look for a deck that I will have fun playing as well as having a good chance to win.  I like fringe decks that are different from the standard "best" decks and do quite well with them.  A year or so ago I was playing mostly fish variants but wanted something with more combo power.  Flash was new at the time and I liked the fact that it used many cards never thought playable in type one.  It took a while and a far amount of money to do, but I eventually got playsets of flash, P. hulk, pacts, and the 1 of combo pieces.  Now I definitely agree that the deck was too powerful at the time and needed to be hit, but outright killing it was a bit much.  Packing away my now worthless cards and moving forward I turned to building painter decks for much the same reasons.  The deck wasn't nearly as powerful, but I enjoyed it and had some success with it for a while.  Now without thirst the deck is pretty much dead as well.  More useless cardboard now sits in my binder.

My point isn't to bitch about card values and money, more importantly it's about deck diversity.  In our attempts to make a "balanced" meta where you have drains, workshops, rituals, and bazaars doesn't mean much if that means you only have 4 viable decks.  I've just listed 2 decks as an example, but you don't have to look very hard to see many other casualties of this approach.  Slaver and grow decks can be added to the list as well not 2 mention the number of decks that got hit harder then drain did by the restriction of brainstorm.  It's obvious to me that restricting blue support cards isn't going to do much to lower the power of blue drain decks anymore.  I think we've reached the floor.  Instead of power creep we are doing the opposite and having power drain.  It's like dumbing down the textbooks so the stupid kid can read it.  Nobody wins when you do that.  The only alternative to me is to try to lift the power level of other decks up so we can stop restricting the options available inside the main shells.  Looking at the list I can see lots of cards that are dangerous and deserve to be on there, but also could probably be argued that a 6-12 month pass off the list would actually be healthy and fun for the format. 

It may be time to view the restricted list as more dynamic in nature then something set in stone.  Everyone agrees that by the time they re-restricted gush last year the engine had gotten out of control, but how long did it take to get to that point?  Was it really that bad to let the meta re-learn about it, see how it interacted with the new cards in the format, fine tune it, and try to adjust to it?  When the cycle slows and the format begins to get stale, return it to the list.  Vintage is a slow format in the fact that decks take time to develop, metas shift slowly.  Why not give cards second chances even if we know they eventually will need to be re-restricted? 

If that is what they are doing with unrestricting crop rotation then I say bravo!  I only hope they explain it that way on Friday.  As for thirst I feel it was a mistake and unnecessarily put another nail in the coffins of blue based welder decks and painter decks without really doing much to the drain decks it was targeting.   

Any word on when the 1k tournament will be for May?  The 3rd sunday is coming up and I haven't seen any announcements yet.

As an avid fish player I used to think the same thing and was actually excited to play in a drain heavy meta.  I even built a fish deck that severely hated on blue heavy decks and decks using the vault combo kill.  Unfurtunately this is not the case for 2 main reasons.

First is the printing of an untargetable tinker target.  Fish used to be the answer to drain decks.  They could restrict there mana or hand development by wastes, nul rods, and durresses and cheap counters forcing the drain player to go to plan B, usually tinker into big dumb robot.  Even then fish had many usefull maindeck answers in the form of cheap bounce and swords.  These cards were also useful in many other matchups and at different times in the game.  Now the fish player is forced to main deck severely narrow and specialized cards to deal the a decks "plan B"  the cards are also completely dead until the drain player actually gets the leviathan in play.  You can't cast them early like a w. bouncer nor can you get any additional use out of them.  Not to mention who as room in there sideboard for 4 Edicts to deal with 1 card when you need 6-8 slots to have any hope agianst dredge. 

The second fact is that drain decks no longer have to splash a 3rd color for their kill.  There mana bases are a lot more streamlined and therefore they can afford to run more basics.  The converted mana cost of there decks also went down and there kill cards can be completely cast of of drain mana.  The mana denial route became a lot harder to pull off.

Fish used to be one of the decks that helped keep drain decks in check.  Heck, isn't that the reason the deck got designed in the first place?  Unfortunately the new weapons that drain decks recieved in the last few months really help it nueter on of it's best checks.  One of there bad matchups now isn't quite so bad anymore.  I think that is something many people are overlooking as to why drain decks are on the rise.   

So what's the answer?  Honestly I don't know, but I do believe that E. Laviathon has just as much to do with the current situation as Terz does.

I was reading your post and remembered the discussion that started when the card was first spoiled.  I like the idea of the deck and have been brainstorming some cards for it and was wondering if you thought of them or tested them.

First of the kill I always thought goblin cannon was the way to go for a colorless kill.  It will cost you 44 mana which may be too much, but it seems possible and may be easier then finding a colored mana.  Also cutting down to 3 colors would allow you to switch to a fetch land mana base which will make your tops more useful.

Next I liked cards that not only helped you keep the combo going, but also helped you find channel for colorless mana.  I agree top is the best bet for this, but have you thought of supplementing it with a few scroll racks?  It's a colorless investment that not only lets you did 5-7 cards deeper, but can come down early to help you find channel or protection from channel in the first place.  May be worth testing in a few of the fabricate slots. 

 

Is there going to be a tournament this thursday?  I actually have a free night and hope to dust off my type 1 cards for one last go before the baby comes. 

Dan

Your current list with a few changes.

Finding Channel:

4x Personal Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Imperial Seal
1x Channel

Resolving Channel:

4x Force of Will
4x Pact of Negation
3x Duress
2x Misdirection

-3 duress
-2 misdirection

8 protection spells should be enough, you won't have the black mana to duress before going off most times. 

Recursion:

4x Lich's Mirror
4x Planar Portal
4x Fabricate

Misc:

1x Time Walk
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Stroke of Genius
1x Brainstorm
2x Divining Top

+1 divining top.  Top is perfect in this deck. pre channel can help you dig for it.  Can also draw the card after a top deck tutor as been cast.  Post mirror it makes your opening hand 10 instead of 7.  Can also stack both abilities then kill yourself with channel to look and draw after mirror resolves.  Top almost guarantees you go infinant.

Mana Sources:

1x Emerald
1x Sapphire
1x Jet
1x Lotus
1x Lotus Petal
4x Chrome Mox
1x Bayou
2x Tropical Island
3x Green search land
4x Gemstone Mine

-1 chrome mox
+1 bayou
+3 green fetch lands  (wooded foothills, windswept heath)

More mana sources are needed, 22 should be about right.  4 chrome moxes is too many, 2 in opening hand is an auto mull. 

+2 chromatic star

Helps smooth out mana and digs one card deeper. 

This deck plays a lot like flash.  Granted your turn one wins are a lot less frequent, but The feel is the same.

I love the idea of this deck, it seems like a fun way to win.  It does looks like the deck can't do much of anything until channel resolves.  I think it needs more help getting to that point.  For starters your mana base is a mess.  You currently have 7 ways to play channel.  1 is just GG for channel, 5 need UGG for mystical/personal then channel and one requires BGG1 for demonic then channel.  I didn't see vamp, but you should probably find space for it as well.  Maybe even emp. seal.  In most cases your plan is to tutor for channel on turn one and cast it on turn 2.  To me this means that both the lands you play turns one and two have to tap for Green.  Your color base should revolve around the green fetches (all 8) with tropical islands and bayous as the targets.  Since after you channel your plan is to chain the mirrors together then I would rely on the lotuses, mox ruby and spheres to get you the red.  The red lands really don't help as you can't play them anyway.  LED should also be tested as well as elvish spirit guide for faster mana and color fixing.

The mana drains seem out of place.  It comes down to roll assignment.  You have too many combo cards in your deck to try to play the control game against most decks.  Your pacts only are playable after you have mirror out so they can't protect you from losing.  You have to be the aggressive deck and use the pacts to protect your channel.  You must be faster, not slower.  You are basically a flash deck, you have a 2cc win condition if you have the second piece in hand.  For additional protection duress would be much better if needed.

The creature that cycles for 2 life may also be helpfull since almost all of your tutors are top deck tutors.  Allowing you to tutor and draw it on the same turn. 

Only 17 mana sources?  Did I count that right?  Clamp is pretty mana intensive.  Your curve is also pretty high with 3cc and 4cc spells.  This seems like the perfect deck to utilize chrome moxes unbanning.  I would add 4 C. moxes and another land or 2.  Remember your wastelands aren't supposed to be used to cast spells. 

Mog war marshal is also very bad.  In order to get any benifit out of it you will need 3 mana open and clamp in play.  You have to cast him and equip him on the same turn to draw 2 cards and have 2 1/1's that can't swing for a turn.  You will need to be much faster then this. 

Dan here, I split in the finals and took home half the lotus with my painter deck I've been tweeking for the last few tournaments now.  We played the finals out for bragging rights and I lost 2-1 basically to the die roll and a mistake game one.  Game one I keep a almost perfect hand of mountain, island, fetchland, reb, A. recall, trinket mage, S. planning.  Going second I was too slow.  I open with mountain and say go keeping REB mana up in hopes of casting recall turn 2 and play around daze.  At my end of turn my opponent casts his own ancestral and I attempt to reb.  Of course it gets dazed.  Thinking back if I was going to attempt to play around daze I should have stuck with my read and just let his recall resolve.  Had I had protection for my recall then I would have been much better off as my card quality is higher then fish.  Instead I wasted my REB and allowed my recall to get countered.  Good thing we weren't playing for the lotus.

As for the rest of the tournament of course I was pretty pleased.  I got my first round bye and won my next 3 matches to make top 8.  I felt pretty lucky as I had some pretty favorably matchups and also avoided getting parred against some of the top players there.  I don't remember much of my matchups, but I played against a bomberman deck one round.  Lost game one to him having his combo in hand with counter backup.  Games 2 and 3 were much easier as he brought in a fair amount of painter hate and I just went directly to the trike/plats beatdown plan.  Another round I faced a tendrils deck that rightfully should have beat me, but both games were punted even after he resolved will against me.  Game 2 I managed to cast slaver and activate it.  Of course the top card of his deck was necro so that was nice.  The forth round I believe was against a slaver deck and I pretty much had the nuts hands both games with plenty of card draw and answers to all his threats.  

In the top 8 I get paired against fish and feel pretty good.  Game one I get my basics out while he plays tundras and factories.  Down came Magus of the moon and that was pretty much game.  Game 2 I kept a hand I probably shouldn't have as it was light on lands.  The one land was a basic so I thought I was safe but his hand had the stripmine and it took me a while to recover.   I believe I was able to grind him out for the win, but I may be mistaken.  

Top four I played Jeff and felt like his deck didn't want him to win.  He took many muls and had no acceleration which I hear is bad for a shop deck.  It would have been nice to have more of a match as matchups with Jeff are always entertaining, but I'm happy with the win and half a lotus.

As for my list I still feel like it needs some work.  I have too many 2 and 3 of's and my sideboard plan against tendrils decks still seems week.  The Magus's were a nice surprise as I was able to catch a few players with no basics out, but as people become aware that I run them they become less effective.  I wanted to cut the welders, but I feel they are to important to the deck to cut altogether.  With only one grindstone they become a way to get it back if it gets destroyed or countered.  They also mess with my opponents board and help in shop matchups.  The plannings were OK in the deck, but not busted.  They nicely filled the void left by brainstorm though to give me a early way to filter through cards and find what I need.  The deck is quite capable of combo killing turn 2-3, but has no problem switching to a control beatdown mod and ignoring all the grindstone hate people bring in.    

Anyway, thanks to Eudemonia for another great series and for keeping vintage alive in the bay area.  Sucks with the recent DCI unbannings we will have to wait tell next spring to try out some new decks, but that's the way it goes sometimes.  Thanks to Eric and congrats on the lotus split.  

There's been a lot of discussion on how to sideboard to beat the hate, but with the popularity of the deck growing, isn't it just as important to talk about how to board against the mirror? 

@jeffthefob

I agree that red may not be right, but I also think that green isn't a lock for the third color.  It just seems that everyone is sticking with it and I would like to explore other options for the splash color.  Unless someone can give a good reason why green is the only option.