Like I said, I came to the conclusion that this probably just wasn't going to get there.  But if it is ever going to be good, it needs to get more blue mana on t1/2.

Also, every reason you listed for why draw 7s are unplayable apply to Mind's Desire as well.  But mind's desire costs 8 vs 5.  But Reforge the soul gives you a second shot if you do run a mind's desire into a mind break trap, et al.

Also, you need to have actual bombs availible to cast off mind's desire.  Mind's desire was starting to get cut from many storm lists that were slowing down for disruption like TPS.  If you mind's desire for 6 and flip a couple lands a ritual and a gitaxian probe your going to fizzle.

I was reading this the other day, and was thinking about it for a while, when I decided that I thought it might just be better to burning wish for Tinker and take a control route.

But I did come up with a few thoughts on this deck that I realize might still help you guys out if you want to take this further.

Reforge the soul would be very strong off a mind's desire, and if you are running the red ritual version, is far from being uncastable.

I think if you were going to be trying to go off on turn 1-2 you are going to bottleneck at blue mana. Chrome Mox might be an option?  I think this is probably the biggest bottleneck is most storm based decks right now.

I really like the Show and Tell Option in the SB.

Time Vault and Academy should definately be in there, that was a mistake to forget them.  Mana Vault should also be in.

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of FoF.  Something like this:

4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
2 Flusterstorm/Spell Pierce/Steel Sabotage/Duress
2 Mental Misstep
1 Hurkyl's Recall

4 Burning Wish
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll

3 Fact or Fiction
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Time Walk

1 Blightsteel Collosus
1 Vault
1 Key
1 Tezzeret

8 Solocrypt Moxen
1 Mana Vault
1 Tolarian Academy
5 Island
3 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Polluted Delta

Sideboard
1 Tinker
1 Yawg's Will
1 Show and Tell
12 other slots

I'm surprised there is not already a thread brainstorming about this, but I thought I would give it a shot.

One of my favorite decks of all time was Meandeck Gifts, the way that it would  aggressively mana drain for an accelerant always just seemed so blanantly broken (the fact that it ran 4 Merchant scroll, brainstorm, and gifts probably helped)

With Burning Wish>Tinker we once again can aggressively drain into a 5 mana win condition.  Or else we can just burning wish turn 1 off a mox, tinker turn 2.

It seems like there are many lines of play that end with a very quick tinker.

4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
2 Flusterstorm/Spell Pierce/Steel Sabotage
2 Mental Misstep
1 Hurkyl's Recall

4 Burning Wish
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll

4 Impulse/Preordain/See Beyond/Careful Study/Faithless Looting
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Thirst for Knowledge

1 Blightsteel Collosus
1 Vault
1 Key
2 Tezzeret

8 Solocrypt Moxen
5 Island
3 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta

Sideboard
1 Tinker
1 Yawg's Will
13 other slots

The deck gets to play a ton of blue sources/fetchlands for Shops, several targets to sink a mana drain into, a very powerful/customizable control package.

I am not sure what the best card to run in the 4x search slot.  I like the idea of a cheap way to dig/shuffle away blightsteel in See beyond/careful study/looking, but they all seem very slow at sorc speed, and the CA disadvantage on study/looting sucks.

I also wonder about 3-4 duress to be more proactive in protecting Blightsteel.

I also wonder if this could be a home for Fact or Fiction again as a 2-3 of?  Then it would really be starting to follow the old Gifts shell of 4 2cc tutors for a broken spell. 4 4cc spells that provide a ton of CA and potentially set up the win.  All off an aggressive shell to abuse mana drain.

It seems to me like you bottleneck very easily at blue if you want to go off on turn 1/2, making it really only a consistent turn 3 deck.  The routes to UUR5 on turn 1 seem almost non existant, and on turn 2, very difficult.

You need need either an on color mox, Academy, lotus or LED to pull it off, and LED shoves you all in.  I almost question the inclusion of LED without some type of proactive disruption.

You also appear to rely heavily on both seething song and Manamorphose, if either spell is spell pierced/Flusterstorm/FoW that right there can end a storm run, and they are almost required targets.

Also, the deck seems a bit threat light post desire.  I think Reforge the Soul x3 should replace intuition.  Then you can reload off a Mystical/personal tutor as well.

If you are going to run counterspells as disruption, I think Flusterstorm is the way to go.  Mind's desire isn't really worried about force of will, but it is worried about Flusterstorm.  I almost think the only way you can safely pull this off though is through something like defense grid.  It seems like your route to victory will often involve at least 1-2 draw 7s, and that is very easy to disrupt.

Another thing to consider would be Chrome Mox to get the 2nd blue mana for desire earlier more consistently, potentially cutting off color moxen for them.

It looks crazy fun to play, I just have my doubts about the viability through all the cheap countermagic that has been printed since.

I almost wonder if a better use for burning with would just be to wish up Tinker, backed up by a bunch of countermagic.

Is dreadnaught even that good anymore?  Artifact creatures are pretty easy to deal with.

Also is Topor Orb that much better than Stifle?  Both are 2 card combos, but stifle + Naught is 2 mana where Orb + Naught is 3.

People weren't stifling Naught into play before, does Orb really make the deck playable?

I think the main problem here is just that Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur just isn't good.

Why play a combo deck that when it gets the combo in play doesn't win on the spot.  Especially when one of the combo pieces opens you up to having the opponent play mana drain/spell pierce as a pitch spell.

If your going to play Dream Halls, a conflux kill is probably going to be the best path to victory - preferably one that doesn't take up too many slots with dead cards.  Personally I like 4 Confux 1 Progenitus 1 Time Stretch 1 Time Walk as the kill.

Intuition could be nice since it finds Dream Halls, but to find Conflux with Intuition, you would need to run more multicolor or Hybrid spells to pitch to play Progenitus.  (Maybe just 2 Progenitus?)

I think the new 2/1 is HUGE for this deck.

Turn 1: Land Excel 2/1
Turn 2: Land "+4/+4 spell" "+4/+4 spell" leads to 10 poison counters - without berserk.

Where as before the 1 power creatures required 3 pump spells or 3 turns to win.  

The new 1 drop poison guy helps a lot too, since you don't need to open yourself up to as much of an all in tactic with 2 pumps on the same creature into removal.  And also facilitates the turn 1 guy turn 2 +4/+4 Berserk option without needing any fast mana - Just the combo.

An older creature that I never really saw get discussed was Rot Wolf (or any 2/x for 3 - but rot wolf can be powered out on off color moxen or colorless sources).  He can also lead to turn 2 attacks for the win if you can get him out on the first turn.  Although Dark Ritual into one of the 3 mana 2/2s might be easier to pull off than Rot Wolf?

Also as far as vintage vs legacy goes - I think this could be a lot stronger in vintage than legacy.  In legacy, it seems like there is more maindeck creature removal to 2 or 3 for 1 you.

To throw out a decklist:

4 Glistner Elf
4 Lost Leonin
3 Blighted Agent

4 Invigorate
4 Groundswell
4 Might of Old Krosa
4 Berserk

4 Daze
4 Pact of Negation
4 Force of Will
3 Mental Mistep

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
5 Mox
1 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
1 Savanah
6 Fetch

My idea behind this deck is that there is really a 3 card combo here that we want to assemble - Creature + 2 Pump Spells.  Preferably the creature is the Leonin or one of the pump spells is Berserk.  Then we hope that the redundancy of the pieces will give consistent fast wins (turn 2-3).  With counterspell back up with 15 "free" counterspells, 16 pump spells, and 11 Creatures.  I am wondering if one of the counterspells should be cut for Ichorclaw Myr for more creatures.

Unfortunately for the deck - I think the biggest hurdle currently will be workshop decks packing chalice or sphere effects.  So its probably not going to do great right now with MUD running around.

I feel like this deck likely has a pretty solid clock though.  Maybe they will give us more 2/x for 1-2 mana in the future that could give the deck a bit more consistency (and preferably on color consistency).  I haven't really proxied it up or anything to give it a shot yet though (since I don't have any cards here).

I think it needed to cost less to be playable.

In combo - I feel like you really need to play it the turn before you go off - otherwise it is just a risky version of grim tutor.  If you plan on winning the next turn - it doesn't matter if your opponent is denied the use of his Will - you winning the game will deny him the use of his Will while its still in his deck.  If your going for ancestral - thats 4 mana for 3 cards - and Concentrate isn't played.  Black Lotus doesn't generate mana since your paying 3 to get 3 - and you won't be able to replay it off will.  If you are trying to play it defensively - why not just play duress and deal with a card that is much more threatening.

3 Mana to steal your opponents academy doesn't seem that great against shop - since you need to play 3-5 mana to play it in the first place, for it to likely eat a wasteland.

Stealing time vault in the mirror seems like the most interesting thing to do - and is that really worth 1-2 slots over something that will work all the time?

If you are going to dump your entire library into the graveyeard why wouldn't you just use dread return and narcomebas?  Why pay mana to do something when you can do it for free.  Also if you are filling your deck up with big giant creatures you are going to have tons of dead draws.

As far as the legacy enchantress deck goes - You can only use the ability once per turn so I don't think you would want to spend 4 mana to get maybe 4-5 mana.  It would only ever be decent if you are not going off by turn 3-4 which why would you be playing a combo deck that can't do that?

nice report.  I also could not make it since I was out of town

That was a crazy amount of combo for one tournement.  How often are you guys going to be comming back?  I will have to be sure to make those tournements.

Chris

Nope, tendrils of agony is a much better kill condition now.  Although Tolaria West could possibly have people considering to try to rebuild it, I think tolaria west, will end up being too slow, and tendrils will still be better.

Academy is still used in several decks though.

Well dread returning sundering titan isn't an option without something like krosan reclaimation, which I don't think is worth it.

I really like the mask idea here is a list that I just threw togather that I plan on testing when I get the chance:

4 narcomeba
4 Hermit Druid
1 Dread Return
1 Sutured Ghoul
1 Dragon Breath
4 Illusionary Mask
4 Phryxian dreadnaught

1 Iseal
1 vamp
1 demonic

4 D Conf
4 Street Wraith

4 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy

4 ESG
6 mox (chrome)
1 lotus
1 petal
4 Bayou
3 polluted delta
3 Bloodstained mire

I think that 22 mana source might be a bit low, but I am not sure what else to cut.  I really like the fact that illusionary mask forces your opponent to attempt to kill any 2CC+ guy that you throw down under the mask since in the event that it is a hermit, they have probably lost.  Doing this you can easily bluff with a dark confidant to get them to waste, what will probably be limited creature removal/bounce spells.

Would you board in silver knight against thresh though?  It seems like you could easily get blow out by swords to plowshares.  I did forget about the synergy with jitte though and jotun grunt though.  Silver knight probably is better vs thresh, but against goblins attacking your mana base, it could be difficult to make it to double white. while blue white is much easier to cast.

Ive played against UWb and UWr fish and they seem to have a pretty good matchup against fish already, so Im not sure you need to side it against them.  So I think that galina's knight is probably better as a board choice, even if silver knight is stronger if it resolves.

How often is the first strike actually realavent?  Because Galina's Knight seems so much better if its only against goblins.  (knight lives and kills every goblin I can think of thats is not pumped by a goblin king)

It would be interesting to see what would happen without brainstorm/fetches.  Also if Gifts/GT were restricted and CS/bomberman became the new best deck I think extripate/welder hate would start to show up a lot more and possibly keep those decks down.  Although through my expeiriences with bomberman I beatdown with the creatures almost as much as I combo out.

I am also farily confidant that gush needs to stay where it is.  a deck using cretures could kill on turn 2 with several counterspells, just think if it had tendrils or empty the warrens. 

I was a little surprised to see this artical as premium as well.  I thought that SCG said that articals adressing the comunity would be open to everyone, which is why steve's "A Closer look at the Restricted List (2005-02-18 )" was published as an open artical.

I also like the Anceint tombs over wastelands.  The format is a lot faster now than when the top decks were 4cc, UR Fish, and control slaver.  Your disruption is not going to end up doing much you really do need the speed.

and I think that Stingscourger is a much better answer to Tinker > DSC than welder since it works even after they Yawg will, it works the same turn as you play it, and is much more realavent against fish.

Another card that would be interesting to include here would be empty the warrens.  It makes insane mana food chain/prospector and could probably lead to some very fast wins.

Mogg War Marshal also nets 3 mana with a food chain and 1 mana with a prospector, and should probably be considered.

However im still not sure that this build addresses the problems that killed FCG in the first place:  Its not fast enough to race control sometimes, let alone combo.  I think that it is this reason that goblins is not going to be a upper teir deck anytime in the future.

Also a freind of mine was goofing around and made counterjoblins, which was bassically mono red goblins splashing for time walk ancestral and 3 daze and ended up splitting a mox a couple months ago.  Maby that could help improve the combo match up?

I must say that constant mists is pretty techy while playing green and crucible against creatures.

Do you really need to devote your entire SB to a wish board?  Wouldn't it be better to leave some slots open to SB better things in problem matchups?

Here is what I would do:
1 STP - creture removal
1 Extripate - random bomb in ceratin situations/GY removal
1 Fact or Fiction - card drawing for when you have no other needs
1 Misdiretion - counterspell/ancestral #2
1 Rack and Ruin - Artifat removal
1 Echoing Truth - EtW
1 Wipe Away - Collosus
1 Krosan Grip - random enchantment/artifact hate
7 Meta cards sucha s REB or aditional rack and ruins for the stax matchup

This configureation gives you answers to the most common problems you will see, while leaving you with real sidboard slots

I thought so.  But it would have been amazing if it did work like that for ichorid 

My best guess is because it really should be called tefari.dec and tefari costs UUU.  Playing the deck I often found that dralnu was really just a win more card for once your opponnet is down on cards and you an tutor for him and make sure your opponnet never resolves another spell while tefari or skeletal vampire beatdown ftw.

Can I fetch Urborg with a polluted delta/bloodstained mire?

If Urborg is out can I fetch any land from my deck similar to the way that tefari lets you find any creture with mystical teachings?

If you are all starting again im not sure vial goblins is the right way to go.  If your freinds don't also dump a bunch of money into the game again you will crush them every time.  In legacy goblins is probably the best deck by a good margin.  Against CAsual decks I fail to see how it looses, unless you cut something like ringleader lackey or warcheif.

Goblins is also pretty bad in multiplayer in my experience.  Removal spells go to lakeys and piledrivers fast, not to mention the odds of playing a boared learing deck is a lot higher in multiplayer

It is possible that belcher could move to a more red/black engine and run either EtW or ToA as backup kills in the event of pithing needle.  But I think that these kind of decks seem to go "all in" too much and are not as stable as more recent builds of combo, if not a little faster.

Also RFGing the spirit guide does not add storm, which seemed to be a problem in other storm based decks.

In Grim Long it is probably better than ESG just slightly since you can use the mana to play Burning wish or Wheel of fortune, but aside from that there is not much advantage

The point that I was trying to make with the seal of cleansing, was that both of the deck X options, and the Oath Sideboard, are effected by the seal of cleansing equally.  It seems to me that most UW fish decks run seal of cleansing.  Although, If the meta does not have a lot of oath or stax to begin with, you might get lucky.  And like I said as long as its not the only thing they bring in, the other cards that they bring in will probably still be dead.

What if you mill Yawg will with the mental note.  Can you win?  to me it seems like you are cutting a bunch of bombs from a tendrils deck that gives you redundancy, to play fun little games with Yawg will.  Also while Yawg will its nuts its often not a great idea to aim for playing Yawg will and only playing yawg will to end the game.  I almost want to suggest rebuild splashing a single volcanic island to get around the metal not problem, but that still seems really bad.  Also the fact that a lot of peoples game plans against gifts or control slaver include hating on either the graveyard or even Yawg will specifically, seems to suggest that useing it as your only win condition is not the safest idea.  Also are 3 tendrils nessecary?

Adding tinker>DSC would at least help with this problem, and would make the odds of a single mental not killing you far less signifiant.

Cabal>Elvish spirit guide in this deck.  You do not have much use for colorless mana to the point the point that drain could often cause mana burn if not cast the turn before going off.  Also Elvish spirt guide does nothing in the graveyard, and doesn't add storm.  Cabal adds storm can be played from the GY, and is likley to add 5 considering that your only goal is to fill the GY and will.  My next question is if frantic search is really that great.  It sucks up a lot of mana for card DA.  It also can't cantrip earier.  I think it would be better as a carful study.

The problem with a mask/drednoughts, Shop Aggro, and dragon as deck X is that a common card that UW fis will likley side is seal of cleansing.  They may dodge some of the hate like with dragon their GY hate will be almost dead (unless you have to go animate SSS plan).  And Eflux will be dead against the other 2, but they will still most likley have the seals.  If possible I would atempt to find a deck that also plays around this constraint, although its getting pretty difficult, pretty fast.

While 1 of each sliver is pretty cool, wouldn't it probably work better if you could have some form of tutor engine because you need some slivers sooner than others, and some slivers are really not good.  The 5 worst probably being armour, venser, barber, plague, and basal (assuming that you are not running a heartstone to combo with queen).

I would cut those 5 and use these as my 6 open slots:
Demonic tutor
Vampiric Tutor
Wordly tutor
Imperial seal/Eladamri's Call (if you don't have a seal)
Patriarchs Bidding
Aether Vial

If overlord is cut for EDH Id go with Coat of Arms

Wow and I thought the homelands set was bad.  I hope whoever made those videos was fired.