Mike likes to push for solidarity in his deck builds, to make sure the purpose of the concept comes out in every game, instead of being a string of random win or lose situations.

I'll be posting how it goes in an upcoming tournament (in April). I hope someone else has some results/insight. The 5c thing helps for people to see that all of those disruption elements are good for keeping some matchups at bay. I think the regular brown-pound lineup really makes the deck shine, though.

OH MY GOD R/G IS BACK ON TOP, THIS DECK IS DEAD!!!!!!!

Heh, just had to put some insanity in to the thread, you guys were getting too dry.

I like the swedish nationals finish, seems pretty good.

What are you going to do vs crazyman goyf? It takes a bit more than land disruption and smokestack to get around. (previous sentence included to allow first sentence dumbassery)

Tog (various forms) was t8 in two separate tournaments at the end of last year, and I think made t10 at the first SCG of this year. I don't have the time to go fetch the links, and the SGC homepage is there for everyone to use. I don't see how four gushes is going to make a difference in the overall quality of the deck as it is strong now. I'd pick up two, maybe three and focus more on the development for the rest of your deck.

I am going to have to agree that GAT is probably still going to be the best tournament contender, simply because it doesn't play the waiting game. Bull-rush strategy seems to be the forefront of Vintage at the moment and you are either on the train, or fighting it.

Why night's whisper over read the runes? Blue = better in my opinion.

I'm not going to write a book on this deck, as Mike has his own in the works.

I am, however, going to throw out a zero-land list as an alternative. I am not going to explain why it has what it has in it, if you are looking for more belcher tricks, you will know how it works, why it works, and what the benefit of taking out five of the most cumbersome cards in the deck really is.

Cheers.

// 4-ofs
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Tinder Wall
4 Street Wraith
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Rite of Flame
4 Serum Powder
4 Pact of Negation

// Singles
 Sol Ring
 Mox Sapphire
 Black Lotus
 Mana Crypt
 Lotus Petal
 Chrome Mox
 Lion's Eye Diamond
 Mox Ruby
 Mana Vault
 Grim Monolith
 Channel
 Tinker
 Timetwister
 Ancestral Recall
 Demonic Tutor
 Memory Jar
 Wheel of Fortune
 Mox Pearl
 Chromatic Star
 Mox Emerald
 Mox Jet

I'd like to talk to a moderator about a verbal warning I recieved regarding my post and its content.

I believe PM would be much more appropriate than here.

PM Jacob Orlove.
-Godder

I can't report my own post to a moderator, please contact me via PM. Thank you.

Do I care if magicthegathering.com write for free? Do they constantly get people on with little to no knowledge of a format talking a bunch of junk about the mock-games they play in an effort to hype up the worth of this "knowledge"?

*edit* - Forgot the rest of the point.

I was being sarcastic. I do not think it all that bad if people were "forced" to actually play the game and speak with each other in a way that is interactive instead of lecture->discussion format.


I am not attacking you so much as attacking the entire situation of vintage magic and the hype-market. The largest prize from Vintage to the average person is store credit. People will spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars for this game to never see a top 8 and still think they need an "edge" from people who are writing about the game from some sort of seat on-high.

I am happy you can make any compensation for Magic: The Gathering, though I am not happy that you feel the need to come to the forum and solicit your articles, because that is exactly what you are doing. Its a machine that is created by this sort of behavior, which leaves the "game" behind.

You mean all we would have is people playing the game and forum talk?

Really?

I don't remember this game a few years ago before pay-to-play came along I guess.

Why do you continue to talk about yourself in the third person? Who else is going to write that blurb, really?

Ungh, I'm sure its a good article though. I still refuse to pay "premium" for a site that is talking about a card game.

Verbal warning for lack of content. If you want to complain about stuff like this, try the SCG forums, not here.
-Jacob

Ok, threw it together:

1. braids is unnecessary.
2. chains is not that great unless you are playing fish or tog. (this means I tried both versions, was bored)
3. Tinker->colossus->death
4. Rifstone portal saved me a lot as I was able to produce colored mana. Having to rely on it because the deck is filled with +1 CC cards instead of artifacts leaves play at a disadvantage.
5. I liked yawg's will. Thats about it.

Cheers.

If there is a better card, use that. Otherwise, Necro has had strong numbers for people who know how to use it, I don't see the problem with including it in decks.

The Meandeck Eggs deck did not include it for the first showing at a tournament, but people who used that same deck later on had it in with exellent results.

Show me a more broken play, that will completely overshadow the usefulness of necro, THEN talk about its worthlessness in the format.

There are a lot of solutions:

Echoing Decay
Echoing Truth
Scattershot
Slice and Dice
nev's disc
Mindslaver
etc.

A million tokens are easy to get rid of, especially 1/1. How is this any different than dragon with caller of the claw?

The oath matchup has always been winnable. I don't see why you would think otherwise.

As is the gifts match and stax match.

R/G dies to renewable, consistent threats that are bigger than its own. How would that have ever changed?

I played before 6th edition rules. "My gun is faster than your sword" was a concept then, but since has been changed. The rules changed was begrudgingly accepted then, as it is now. Except now, instead of saying "oops, we screwed up with our game until this point" (see sixth edition and the color wheel re-design in 2004) wizard just says "hey check out this shiny new mechanic, aggro is saved!."

Is aggro really saved? Is combo really saved?

Everyone was talking about how split second wasn't going to be that big of a deal as long as they didn't put it on undercosted, extremely powerful cards.

Well...

And yea, this is my opinion, and it was a rant. We are, however, discussing extirpate and I decided it was appropriate and on topic to voice the opinion here.

Cheers.

This game is broken.

We have heard it time and time again from everyone (even paragons, if you remember who those people are) that the game is spiraling downward in to a place that it will never be able to come back from. While that statement is very general, the truth is the mechanic of split second is proof that the overall idea is not far from the truth.

Last year (or the year before, I can't remember), there was a call to ban Yawgs Will from Vintage by a reputed player who has already weighed in here. The move was controversial, and many believe unwarranted. However, you cannot dispute that the card is horribly powerful, is auto-included in every deck running black (or that can reasonably support black) and is, along with power, a -1 to the possible cards you can put in to a deck.

Goblin welder is an undercosted threat that makes players quake in their boots, and breaks games as well. This card makes it possible to completely shut someone out of a game by using one ability a turn after it comes in to play. Granted, there is some setup to be done, but really its not hard to do. There are people who design entire decklists around removing this critter from the game simply because it is that powerful. So ~20 cards to combat the effect of one. And it isn't even restricted.

Power is the lazy man with money's way to win the game without trying. Until proxies were allowed (I call it the great equalizer), the game was always one-sided to those who had power and those who couldn't afford it. Proxies do not, however, change the fact that there are at least five cards in every decklist out there because they are so powerful to not use them is folly.

So recently, control is super hot in all formats. Abusing graveyards is a concept wizards has brought in to the game to shake things up and to keep players playing something new instead of the same old crap. Well, both of these concepts have become so commonplace, those who would keep their game at a top level have adopted them and those who cannot adapt have been relegated to obscurity. This doesn't mean that those who don't play control or abuse a graveyard are not going to win, it does, however, say that without control or the ability to use and reuse your entire deck you are gimping yourself from your true potential.

To fix the gimping, wizards decides to print a new ability that will counteract the "control problem" that was counterspell (because banning counterspell apparently wasn't enough); split second. Split second literally breaks the game. The stack is created so people can stack on fast effects in an order that is fair to both players and gives people a chance to do something. Split second breaks this fairness and says "no, I'm not going to allow you to use the spells you have saved up for a situation such as this by cheating you out of your time to play."

Armed with this new ability (giving a choice back to non control players? Was the aggro approach not enough?) wizards also apparently wanted to punish people who abused the abilities given to them to use their graveyard as a resource more, and give them an ability that costs four mana and a random guess previously and let it cost one mana with the knowledge of the target firmly in place.

How is this fair? How is this good for the game? How is this nothing more than a band-aid to fix a problem that requires a real bandage to mend?

How is this not going to let the gaping hole that is broken magic not just fester and become a truly righteous infection?

Homelands 2.0

/rant

I swear the other r/g thread JUST died a month ago.



Rancor all the way.

After testing this weekend, the only bad part about the gifts matchup is tinker->colossus as well as tanglewire being pretty ineffective at slowing the deck enough to be in a "race" situation for permanents under `stacks.

The standard MDG list was used with zero mods and no sideboarding at all. The games were 1/2-1/2, and the gifts list HAD to have a good opening hand.

So people can understand what is meant by strength in consistency. MDG, to beat this deck, must have a strong opening hand on the draw and on the play. Otherwise, the deck will be locked down quickly without the ability to get out of the hole that consistent hands from MUD will create for that player. Unless the MUD player is manascrewed either way (I know thats an old term, but mulligans are a disadvantage for either of these decks) the outcome for the match will obviously be negative, but otherwise you can count on seeing the ability to play multiple threats almost every turn.

Gifts does not have that ability when the manabase and counterbase are constantly under attack.

Observations:

1. The games were pretty much 1/2 and 1/2, but the gifts deck needed stronger hands than the mud deck and to mana shuffle twice as often.

2. Games played on a purely theoretical basis tended to work out in the gifts deck favor. I.E., games played open handed to explore all possibilities of what could happen in a given turn. Yea, this isn't the best testing method in the world, but when you don't have world class players to test against, some practices must be modified.

3. Switching decks between players found that tinker->colossus was THE biggest threat, and that most other situations could be contained.

4. Ghost quarter became a strip mine in multiple games. There were only two games out of all played that crucible actually resolved, so it has strength on its own. Please understand that the MDG list runs five basic lands. How is this possible? the quarters took out the basics and the wastelands did the rest.

5. Rod was never an issue. Sorry Mike, I have to tell it like it is. Rod was never a factor in any of our games, and chalice was the real winner.

Thats about it, I'll check back to see if anyone has any other questions, but I'm sure you can draw your own conclusions from this non-empirical data.

I seriously don't think anyone wants to bring stax to a MUD discussion. Welder is powerful, as is shaman, as is barbarian ring, as is uba mask as is....Do you see where I am going with this?

I like the inclusion of masticores because they give the ability to do something while you are locked with null rod. It has always been a crazy thought to put the rod in a brown deck because of the counter-productivity. However, with the effects I see in this board it appears this isn't an issue. I would like to see more triggered brown pieces that can take advantage of the lockdown situation. Currently tanglewire, masticores and smokestacks are really good at progressing the game.

I don't exactly know what else to say. You have been testing this deck for close to two years now, I think its about time to put the stamp on it and for someone to take it to tournament.

Platz is more than that, though. It stops opposing aggro (READ: OATH) for the most part game 1, and it really DOES help against combo, because she is good as soon as she hits the table instead of having to wait a turn. In a race situation, an 11/11 trampler seems to be the best idea (and really, I wouldn't cut DSC from the deck. The worst platz can do is pitch to bazaar if not needed) but since you are racing, you really need things to come out at instant speed, or do something when they hit the table. Titan/platz are good for this spot because of it. I really would keep her in the side though, the main seems to be streamlined enough.

Unless someone can think up some ubertech that this list is missing that is.

I've been playing bazaar madness as a side project for a few years now, and it has taken many different forms. My favorite times to play it are when people pick up the flag and run here in the forums (ZVI, JOrlov, glenchuy) and instead of posting concepts, post tournament results.

The truth is aggro will always be aggro, and the madness mechanic will always be solid.

I like this list, because it cuts down on BS cards that don't focus on winning the game. Stripping away a ton of disruption IS how you speed aggro up enough to compete. The draw7's have always been used, and I'm glad that they are still in. The only thing I could really see as a possibility to improve things would be platinum angel as a tinker target (SB). Well, that and keeping extra copies of roar handy, I still like those guys.

So the point of this thread is that the best choices for card selecton are the ones that will be most optimal.

Isn't that obvious?

Being that this is a hypothetical thread, I can see why people who put up arguments about what should be banned or restricted.

What I want people to answer right now is what is wrong with the format? If I missed it somewhere between pages 3 and 5 I apologize. At the end of page 2 everything was geared toward the banning of will and we have already made those arguments before.

So, what is so wrong with the format that the B/R list needs to change? And if the format is so sqewed, why don't you get your local TO's to run modded rules formats with things like banned will etc.?

It would at least make for interesting results, instead of a bunch of hypothetical hot air.

*edit* - I see glix's response on this page, and don't know how I missed it, but I did. Either way, my opinion stays the same.

I was talking about the drainslaver esq version, not the stax`ish version. My main point was that HIS deck, with win denial being the main focus, should drop the workshops and pick up mana drains.

YOUR deck on the other hand is much better suited toward actually winning, with caps helping along the way.

I guess the difference is having a winning move over having a plan for submission.

I dunno, I see this thing as more of a EBA'ish tempo'd deck choice. Something that woule traditionally be negators and counters and the likes.

I just don't see how these things are going to be any better than psychatog.

This deck runs better as modified drainslaver instead of modified workshop slaver. I can post a list an old team (now defunct, like this idea) developed in late 2k4, before 3sphere was restricted that actually could play in that high powered resource denial meta if you want it. Jester's cap is a great card for tendrils, oath, gifts and, uh, psychatog? matchups. For everything else, its just kinda meh (especially d4rg0n, which I expect to come back to life in a few short months)

*edit* - and evenpence, your "Unrestrict Trinisphere" tag is right on the money. I am still requesting people take another look at that terrible decision.

Have you tried a D4rg0n alternate win instead of priest of gix? I don't see how the priests will be helping much in the long run over, say, night's whisper or dark confidant or just about anything? Free mana is nice though, so I understand what you are doing. The card is just a cantrip though, which makes it meh. I can't think of anything better to suggest at the moment. When I find something, I'll let you know.

The same goes for blood pet. Actually, I think blood pet is kinda fun, but ultimately a waste of space in your hand.

Darkblast is kinda cute. Cabal therapy would be better. I have never been let down by having creatures in my deck and therapy as duress number 5 and 6. However, if you are listening to everything I say, then you might be questioning creatures. Don't question cabal therapy. It wins games that have no business being won.

All that being said, I'm going to sleeve this up and see how it runs.

Then send him 10 dense meat stacks....Or was there not a prize?

First off, it just doesn't seem right for someone to sell their cards in another person's store, even if the owner doesn't have the cards unless the store owner would rather people not be restricted at all. Some owners will let anyone do anything they want with their cards, as long as they are not directly competing with what the owners have in stock. I have been to shops that do not even allow player to player trading (findmagiccards.com's Strike Zone Online), as they feel it is competition to themselves, and I have been to other shops, such as Pasttimes, that let entire vendors set up shop and host events. I guess its all in the idea of the owner, and how much they perceive they will make of their own philosophy.

Personally, I don't want to compete with dealers inside the havens that they spend rent on to make a living with magic. Why? Because dealers with shops are making a living off Magic: The Gathering! Its the same principle as premium articles on Starcity. People are being paid to write about Magic. How cool is that?

So how does Eater of Days work? Or has it been erratad as well?

Thanks Wizards, my investment in a mint Vault two years ago was finally going to pay off. Yeah, that doesn't seem like much compared to other people on this forum with "crimped" A/B vaults. But it means a lot to a player like me who can only scrape $100 for the game every few months.

http://search.ebay.com/mtg-time-vault_W0QQfkrZ1QQfromZR8

Exactly how far do I have to bend over to play this game?