It totally depends on your metagame, if its full of wastelands than your better of with running something else in place of the tinker-colossus plan. If there are hardly any wastelands than there is little reason to not run them (they also make thirst for knowledge considerably stronger), remember though they can be hit by artifact hate which (depending on your metagame again) could be rampant in sideboards.
So its up to the metagame.

1) This should probably be in the rules forum
2) Yes a powder keg with 0 counters will destroy artifact land
3) Affinity comes to mind as a deck that might wants to run artifact lands (the faster version), they could also be suitable for thirst for knowledge based decks when they have to little artifacts to ditch (usually unpowered variants). They have also been used in conjunction with crucible of worlds and goblin welder to allow infinite slavering and tutoring for crucible lock with intuition (a welder and a artifact in play, tutor for crucible-strip-artifact land weld in the crucible and start stripping there land). The biggest disadvantage to artifact lands is that they are non-basics and thus can be hit by wastelands/b2b/blood moon.

@Hugo I would agree that SoFI is worse in this deck than jitte, I was more responding to his one liner that basically said nothing and was incorrect. I expected more from him. He said that jitte is always better, which I believe to be completely wrong. In a deck like ninja sword SoFI is much stronger than jitte because it serves a different purpose. I also explained why I thought SoFI can be better in the right deck and/or metagame so I won't be repeating that.
I stick to my point that SoFI is stronger than jitte in the right deck and metagame. His assertion that jitte is always better is just blatenly wrong.



This is exactly the biggest problem I have with this deck, a tinker is game over.  Sure you can try and let them discard it, but they have brainstorms to hide it with ease. Or they can topdeck to win, or they can mystical(/vamp) tutor for it or they counter your discard. Basically if they find the tinker your doomhed (the decks that run tinker can usually protect it quite well for a single turn or find and cast it the same turn).

@Maxxmatt Just to respond to one thing and that is how smmenen can basically assume he will resolve a gifts ungiven eventually. Lets look at the things that find or protect a gifts;
4x Merchant scroll
4x Gifts
1x Demonic tutor
1x Mystical tutor
1x Vamp. Tutor (or not depends on the build)
4x Force of will
3x Misdirection
4x Mana drain (if the first doesn't resolve than you can protect the second and the third with drain, if needed)

And a honorable mention to 4x brainstorm, FOF and the other broken shizznit these basically find protection or a gifts as well (or flat out win the game).

Thats a total of 21 cards not counting vamp. tutor, broken stuff (which they should also stop) and brainstorm digging for threats. Thats half his library!! If this deck doesn't resolve a gifts than no deck would've won that game.
So yeah you can assume that most of your gifts will resolve, or at the very minimum one will resolve.



To the deck; I am a aggro/control player at heart but this deck makes me reconsider my ways, my god is it insane. I honestly think that there is a decent chance this will end up getting a piece restricted (gifts most likely. There is still a lot of improvement to be made (It ain't perfect yet) but the concept behind it is so solid. I congratulate everyone who worked on this deck, I believe you managed to break the format.

I would say that misdirection is the right choice, but that mainly stems from my experiences with aggro/control decks that hate losing tempo. One mana really is a big road block for T1 decks. And especially in a deck like this that tries to win the game NOW (or if the matchup demands it later, but preferably now) needs to maximize all of its mana, that 1 mana for duress might be the mana you need to pay for daze or to cast that brainstorm or to cast that gifts with protection a turn earlier. Not to mention the other disadvantages duress has (gets worse the longer the game progresses, requires B, cannot be pitch to force and it can miss).
But as I said I'm a aggro control player at heart and thats the way I think, tempo rules the world of MTG unless we enter the realm that is called the late game (oh what a scary shit that is).
Personal theory of mine is that card advantage is in a way tempo advantage but thats a entirely different topic.

Standard is a creature heavy format, vintage is not. Usually it is less creature heavy than it is now, but compared to the other formats its still a creature light format. There is practically no creature combat, blocking is almost non-existent. Reread what I said, I said that vintage is a creature light format. Not that vintage right now is a creature light format, I was comparing it to the other formats where 4x removal spell is almost standard. You already play 2/3x jitte in a creature light format (creature heavy in comparison to the past, creature light in comparison to the other formats) playing a additional 4x swords is just not needed. There are only a couple of matchups where you want 4x swords maindeck; Aggro control decks (you already win these on the back of mongrel/jitte/vial madness) and dragon. So unless your meta is like 60% dragon I wouldn't run 4x swords maindeck. I am not saying swords is bad card, just not so good for this particular deck. I would run 2x swords, but in a heavy aggro/control and dragon meta I can see running 3x swords.


Now lets see your little list of cards worth swording:
Dragon - good target jitte takes care of this as well (3 hits is not THAT hard to get, granted swords is much better here although jitte also takes care of xantid swarm)
Angel - Good target but jitte does the same with one hit (when unmorphed) or with 3 hits, you can also race it
Colossus - Kowal explained very good how you can race a colossus with a jitte or even without a jitte, for goodness sake I raced colossus with Uw fish and succeeded!
Mongrel -Good target but again jitte does the same job (beginning to see a trend here?)
Meddling mage -Good target but again jitte does it just fine
Juggernaut and other big artifact creatures -Good target but jitte does the same job

The point is jitte can deal with all creatures, and it is very likely he gets to hit a couple of times before the creatures can be dropped. You play a total of 9 mana denial cards to prevent these creatures from dropping fast and 4x force to further slow them down. This means that you are usually save of whatever creatures untill turn 3 or 4 by than jitte has probably already hit once or twice. Than after they drop the threat you can attack again and by than you have 4 or 6 counters on the jitte. This takes care of about everything on that list. It seems to me you don't understand the true power of jitte.

I have no idea what the hell you just said, but thats okay. I will try and explain to my parents that this is a good investment, and that collectable cards (or whatever collectable items) tend to stay at a steady value. And the whole doubling money over a couple of years will be good to. Thanks a lot for your reply.

To recap:
1) Time walk or recall first (probably gonna be recall, in MWS I always LOVED casting a recall )
2) MOTL is fine if you know your shit (which I don't so I will skip it)
3) Ebay is fine if you have the patience (which I don't have, not that I have the money to pay for a recall yet I just can't stand waiting for power when I do have the money)
4) A bend test is fine if the power is real (not fake) and if the dealer gives his consent.
5) Floor dealers are a not good for me. Bad floor dealers *slaps some floor dealers around the room*
6) Dealers are solid to buy power from
7) I am sending a PM to mykeatog for some more info, if all else fails (which knowing myself probably will ) I got a solid backup option.

Some additional questions:
1) Any idea's on how to convince my parents that buying power is a economical sound thing to do? (I can at least get my money back or something similar) I need to convince them because if I don't I will always get the look of 'you wasted your money you idiot' when I mention magic. And I hate that look. (I once bought a xbox game and lost it the same day, everytime I mention my xbox my mother gives me this look)
2) Mykeatog this is not meant to offend you in any way or form. Just making sure, I hope you understand. How trustworthy is mykeatog? If I buy power from him can I reasonably expect to get it? (my guts say I can trust him with my money, just making sure) Again take no offense it isn't meant like that, I just want to hear other people say it besides yourself.


PS thanks for all the great advice I am getting, this is probably going to be the biggest purchase in my life so far (besides getting my drivers license, damn thats expensive) so I'm really really carefull.

I would definitely say that I would run the serenity's. My reasons:

1) It sweeps the board, you don't have to worry about artifacts they can pay for
2) It sweeps enchantments
3) Its faster (1 mana cheaper)
4) It counters a dropped but not activated memory jar (IE they have no mana left and wait a turn)
5) It hardly interferes with your own gameplan (you should be dropping standstill/disk/crucible AFTER the serenity because serenity is cheaper than all off those mentioned above)
6) It prevents welder craziness (no targets if you manage to nab everything and at least less targets)

The biggest advantage is probably that its 1 mana cheaper, especially in the stax matchup with all those wastelands/sphere's being trown around this is huge. The W mana is usually not a problem, you shouldn't be using your fetchlands anyway until you drop a serenity. It also gives you the opportunity to outplay your opponent, I can't say how many times I won against stax through dropping a serenity at the last possible moment after dropped one of there last lock pieces and have me almost locked out.

Oh my god I got power in my brains and my mind. Help me get it out into real cardboard.

Some questions to the TMD community:

1) I am a aggro/control player at heart, should I first purchase ancestral recall or time walk? (or maybe even a lotus instead of those two)
2) What is the best place I can acquire power safely and for reasonable prizes?
3) What is the lowest prize I can expect to get, and what is a general accepted huge prize?
4) Pointers to spotting fakes, need tips and tricks. I'm a little scared to damage whatever power I am planning to buy with a bendtest. So where should I look at?

Well thats quite a lot of questions, so for now I don't have any others.

So if I get it right if they drain my chalice with XX=1 they get 2 mana? Because mana drain says converted mana cost, this is the mana cost in the upper right corner right? And if I remember correctly x=0 for converted mana cost. Not sure.

I want to use it during the draw step to vial out a ravenous rats, if they have no cards in hand than there is no point in casting it during there upkeep.

To be fair I have ramped a aether vial before to 11 with fish and casted a colossus that way (yes I actually won that game), it doesn't happen often though. And yeah that was in the very-very-very lategame, I guess I just wanted to brag about the fact that I vialed a colossus with fish.


And a question off my own:

How competitive do you consider birdsh*t to be? And what are its weakest aspects? Any idea's how to improve this? (not asking for a decklist, just guidelines)

Some questions again (yes I store them to put them all in one topic ).

1) If somebody drains my EE or Chalice when x>1 they get 0 mana correct? (somebody was arguing me with this)

2) Can I use aether vial in somebody's draw step after he drew a card? Can I use vial in any way BEFORE he gets the chance to play the card he drew?

3) If I kill a creature after declare blockers and before combat damage on the stack does it still deal damage? (I presume not, just making sure )

lol, interested to see it.

Anyway you should probably tell this in the report. It got me thinking (which happens rarely so its all good).

Do you mind explaining this one liner? It is of no use to anyone.

Personally I would say jitte is better in this deck because its 1 mana cheaper (with such a low curve this is essential), I am not entirely sure which one is better in general though. The protection is huge in a red infested metagame, even pro-blue is often usefull (against for instance fish). The extra 1 mana cost and not being able to shoot down x/2+y critters is a big downside though, the draw a card ability makes up for this somewhat. As I said I am still not sure which one is better. Jitte is probably the way to go in this deck though. (another advantage of swords is that it isn't legendary)

Reread my post, I said you should cut it down to about 2 or 3 copies. Because it is redundant and not necessary as a 4-off (and probably as a 3-off), better stuff can be run in its place. This is not a creature heavy format, and jitte takes care of A LOT. Besides I rather have jitte that takes care of a thread than swords, because swords decreases my clock and jitte increases my clock. Jitte is just more versatile and stronger than swords in this deck, I am a strong advocate of swords but not as a 4-off (and probably not as a 3-off either) in here. It also makes your manabase a lot weaker in the progress.

Disadvantages swords (compared to jitte) in this deck:
- Requires W mana on the board
- Little creatures in T1
- Doesn't increase the clock or gain life (compared to jitte)
Advantages:
+Cheap
+Removes anything
+Doesn't need to deal damage to be effective (compared to jitte)
+Isn't legendary (compared to jitte)

The way I see it is that the advantages of jitte (clock/versatility) are more important in here than the advantages of swords (cheap/removes anything) because with vial you got mana to spare (vial produces insane amounts of mana in here) and the W mana is actually more prohibitive than the double collorless. (you don't have to fetch a non-basic/plains) Also jitte is a lot stronger against fish variants and (small) aggro decks.


I think its quite possible to cut the plains in your manabase because you only need W as a one shot manasource (for a mage or a swords, and mage can be casted with vial) and you need your U mana more than your W mana. This is just theoretically speaking though, I have no idea how often you will get screwed by running a plains (IE plains but no U mana). (note to self; Manabase needs to be tested )

A couple of things:
1) Mishra's factory is best when used in multiples, your really need 4.
2) Swords is less needed here than in most fish decks because you have umezawa's jitte (surprisingly it does a lot of dirty work). Besides there are only a couple of worthy creatures to kill in T1, most of them can be killed already with 2 hits from jitte (welder/plats/jugs/big artifact fat/fishies) anyway.
3) If you cut a couple of swords from the maindeck you can cut the number of tundra's down to 2 or 3 and make your manabase more resilient to wasteland.
4) Why run standstill when you can run brainstorm? It just seems better here, because you have more threads you want to draw early and lots of cards you want to get rid from. You also need A LOT of mana and well brainstorm is 1 mana cheaper.
5) Chalice of the void is best used as a 4-off, you really want to see it very early in the game. As a 3-off this happens a lot less, I know you will get more dead cards (duplicate chalices) but this is offset because of the early game power of chalice. Besides you always have wild mongrel to pitch it to (and brainstorm if you decide to run it).
6) Run ninja of the deep hours, the last thing you want to do is go below 3 with this guy. He is SO insane with aether vial/mage/rootwalla and is much better than standstill as a draw engine.
7) If you run white maindeck you should definitely run ray of revelation in your sideboard, its da shiznit against oath/dragon. (probably only 3 are needed because oath is already easier with 4x mage maindeck)


PS If you don't want your post to be moved to the newbie forum, edit some more content like matchups and please use the spell check option. It really does help a lot.

You seem to have forgotten to post your own decklist. I always like to absorb as much decklists as I can, GIVE ME MORE!!

Well it usually isn't much of a problem to play 2x flooded strand and 2x polluted delta in most decks. All they really need is a U fetchland, so after people tweak there decks its power level (in a fish deck) will decline. The decks running swamps do encounter this problem though, but really only non-mana drain decks (with duress) actually run those (TPS).

I will try my best to answer some of these questions (my English is not top-notch so I might have some things backward in understanding the questions )

1)
A mirror match is a match between decks who are practically equal (barring a couple of personal choices) and thus both have equal chances in the match (if both builds are almost identical) and thus playskill makes a lot of difference.
I am not entirely certain what you mean with a "mirror tournament" I never heard of anything like that before.

2)
Waterbury, gencon, starcitygames and the latest France championship are all considered strong representatives of the vintage overall metagame or as you call it "professional" vintage tournaments (the France championships is probably the best representative). These are also the biggest tournaments out there as far as I am aware (unless I am forgetting a few that is).

3)
a)
Well at the birth of this format it was mostly considered a casual format, since than the format has grown and became more competitive over time. However the pay out structure is still a lot lower than in a regular (big) standard/extended tournament, the competition level is also a lot lower than in a PT or qualifier than in most big vintage tournaments. With competition level I mean how far people are willingly to go to win the tournament, for instance in vintage you will rarely see so called 'rules lawyers' but in big standard/extended tournaments these are much more prevalent. Also people are willingly to prepare a lot more for a big standard/extended tournament than for a vintage tournament.

b) I would say standard, extended and limited. Vintage and legacy are much much lower on there list than most other formats.

C) Yes standard is the most popular format. Mostly because that is where the most cash is to win. The competition level is also much higher than in vintage which usually means that you have to tighten your play. If you make a mistake you can bet that your opponent will capitalize on that, also in vintage if you make mistake you can still win through topdecking a broken card.

d,e and f) I don't know a lot about pro players because I am hardly interested in them. So I won't be able to answer these questions. However I must say that I respect most pro's but I hardly follow there advice and; 'jump of a ridge when they jump of a ridge'. However these people have proved themselves worthy and there explanations should at least be considered somewhat true. I think that people follow the pro's a lot more in standard than in vintage, but again I might be wrong I am hardly interested in pro's so I don't follow what they are up with. I mostly follow there strategic articles as guidelines and there deck articles to see how to play against that particular deck and/or to see what the average scrub will play in the next tournament.
Minor point: In vintage people tend to play certain decks over longer periods of time because they are most familiar with them and they don't have to change decks (changing decks is almost a month to month business in standard while you can play a certain deck for years on end in vintage).

4) A lot of information regarding this question is in this post; http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/index.php?topic=23250.0. I suggest you read it there is a lot of interesting/good stuff there.

Ok thanks a lot for clearing that up.

Saturday school can be trusted right?

If so I thank you all for the quick response.
If not than I want some rules clarification (ie. more people), the way I understand it is that mage says card while scepter says copy and this allows the copy to resolve. I wasn't entirely sure though.

If my opponent tries to naturalize my hidden gibbons what happens?

If my opponent has a scepter with brainstorm on it, and I cast a meddling mage on brainstorm will he still be able to play the brainstorm on the scepter (when mage has resolved)?

When do you name a card with meddling mage? Is this a triggered ability (counterable by stifle) And when do you name a card with pithing needle?

If I steal my opponents mishra's factory (animated) with a seasinger will I still control it when the factory becomes a regular land (not animated) again?

Where did you get the idea sensei sensei is easier to build? You need the drains without them the deck just doesn't function right anymore. And you need most of the proxies for the power (which is also needed), drains are expensive you know.

Sensei also gets hosed a lot easier than TPS, and TPS can go off earlier (which is a big plus). I'm still on the fence which deck is better, but it ain't as easy as you make it out to be.

How can you judge his metagame if you don't know his metagame?


Ps. Cut the claws of gix in the sideboard (TPS), your goal in the matchup is not to finish him off in the late game but in the early game (where you have the advantage). Oath has inevitability, you don't (eventually they will resolve a oath and deal with the claws, before than they will have outdrawn and outcountered you).
Much better sideboard cards against oath are: Misdirection or extra draw. There oath doesn't kill you untill turn 3 at the fastest with a nuts draw.

Swords hardly helps against oath because you need a minimum of 2 to kill the oath player and you need to resolve them. Not to mention the protection creatures they often bring in when they notice you are running white.

You should cut down the combo pieces to 3 because they suck in the opening hand and you have plenty of draw/control to find them when you need them. Also play a maindeck bounce spell to make people scoop after you combo, certain decks will still beat you even with such a hefty upkeep cost. If the opponent manages to gain a bit of life than at least you already have one of the pieces in your hand.

Where the hell is brainstorm?

Well I for one would play TPS because it can be done easier with 10 proxies, besides I always liked it more than Sensei Sensei (personal opinion though).

Rebuild also bounces your artifacts and cycles (which occasionally comes up with mystical/vamp. tutor), unless you see a lot of annoying 2 mana artifacts that make you pay more for your precious spells rebuild is superior.

Actually the only cards that can counter a time walk early game (turn 1/2) is force of will, at which point they do get card disadvantage.

Does ancestral recall win games? Does yawgmoth's will win games? Does tinker win games? If the answer is yes (which it is) than PLEASE run demonic tutor main it essentially gives you one more copy of every broken card in your deck. There is no better tutor in this game (vamp might get close).


I'm not going to discuss the basic concept behind the deck anymore (including scepter in CS is still a bad idea in my mind) because it doesn't add anything to the discussion. So some tweaks instead:
1) Stifle>squelch Cute tricks like squelch are nice but not needed.
2) Cut reality ripple its horrible (you'd rather wish for something that actually deals with the thread like; swords/disenchant/Rack and ruin) again a cute trick but not needed
3) Add a rack and ruin to the sideboard it really is very good.
4) PLEASE add in time walk main, its a P9 for a reason. Early game it will gain you a lot of momentum (or tempo) it will also allow silliness like first turn mana drain/tinker/thirst when you have a mox. Remember it isn't just a cantrip early game its also a extra land drop.
5) Find something to cut from the maindeck, 61 cards (unless you have a really really good reason) is inferior to 60 cards. (probabilites and shit, if you use the search option you will find a bunch of threads about this)

My god this is sick, thank god its fiction (no this CAN NOT happen in real life, although I did hear stories of people sticking things in there penis -not smart at all-).

I don't want to know where you got the inspiration for this from, if they ever film this it will be high in the top 10 most disgusting movies ever.

As I said 'if I understand this correctly', thx for explaining.

Instead of brainstorm or impulse maybe serum visions is a good idea. It digs 3/4 cards deep doesn't need a shuffler and can be played first turn with ease. The sorcery speed is annoying, but it should be casted before mana drain so I don't think it is that much of a problem.

Consider daze (malhavoc's build has it as well) it does a couple of beautiful things for you:
1) If your opponent tries to play something you can return a land (a plus with stasis in play) and counter the opponents spell
2) You have plenty of mana denial and sometimes this means daze becomes force of will 5 and 6.
3) It protects you from whatever your opponents try to do when a stasis is in play.


I can see how this deck can trap opponents in false security and than proceed to drop a stasis and lock them down. I am actually testing a similar strategy with birdsh*t, basically I noticed that players tend to tap out often to deal with my threads so I figured why not run a couple of winter orbs to capitalize on that. It is working out great so far, so I can see what you mean with timing it right.


I still don't think you should be relying on winning game 1 this much. Isn't there a way to generate mana under a stasis for a fast win condition like tinker-colossus?


Edit: I must admit I only noticed this discussion after you posted about it in the vintage forum. Basically I read stasis and went tried that been there and moved on, I had no clue it was going in this direction though.

So of I understand this correctly you rely on your opponents to make mistakes? That doesn't sound like the best strategy.

Another point of concern is that any TPS (or other combo decks) player with U untapped can chain of vapor the stasis eot than go of during there turn. How do you prevent this from happening? Do you trie to lock them out completely (Ie. tangle wire) because that seems to add even more pieces to the puzzle. (making it less consistent)