@Kix 

On the way back I thought about th gamestate where i told you to go for bargain i was actaully just dead on the spot if you would have got a demonic tutor. knowing that you had a dark rit in hand and a cabal rit plus 4 mana ataleast worth of lands all you needed to do was vamp eot like you did get demonic. so basically if you didnt play like a kid with special needs we would have never drawn the game you woul dhave won with the following series of plays

4 lands = 4 mana
d rit = 6 mana
c rit = 7 mana
demonic = 5 mana
will = 2 mana
d rit = 4 mana
cabal rit = 5 mana
demonic for lotus = 3 mana
lotus = 6 mana
vamp= 5 mana
brainstorm whihc is one card i know you had in gy = 4 mana
draw tendrils win

Hey Ben just wanted some clarification on something after Dan or I win does that mean we get two buys for the double P9?

Spooky is shitfaced already and im going to play some pile and i nearly gaurantee that one of us will win... And james your special deck??? better not be some oath variant

What Planet do you live on?

If  anything sphere by itself without thorn does promote the playing of creatures. I don't know if you have ever played stax (which is usually and sphere based deck) but seeing tarmogoyfs and dark confidants are really not good, God forbid you see a turn one goblin lackey.

Being able to play one Tezz would actually just change nothing, sure majority of the lists play 2 but there are a lot that only play one as well. Tezz is actually the weakest card (as far a being susceptible to hate) in the combo series with vault and key.

I have no idea where you are going with this financial gain issue. I would say the majority of people that play vintage play because they enjoy it. sure you can have some financial gain but in the long run winning a mox hear and there is little to no reason to play for only profit.

So yeah you are still just speaking gibberish and the second part of that sentence is most certainly true as well.

I'm not sure why you think sphere of resistance is some kind of problem. I don't think Ive actually heard anyone call for its restriction ever or at east in my time. If sphere is such a problem why don"t you add thorn of amethyst to your list of what should also get restricted.

Sphere in my opinion is a card that helps keep the format somewhat stable. sphere has been used by stax and a variety of other decks to combat combo. sphere along with chalice and null rod are some of the only really good tools non blue decks have against combo with sphere being the best option.

With sphere out of the meta there would be less diversity and combo would be much stronger. combo even now has been doing fine against the tezz decks its not the best match up but rituals have always been pretty good against drains.

Tezzeret may be the best deck right now but I don't think its anywere near being a problem.  I do think that time vault/voltaic key combo is petty stupid but its not that hard to stop. If you aren't playing tezzeret when you go to build whatever deck you want to play ask yourself whats my plan to beat tezz. If you cant figure out a legitimate strategy to do that go ahead and pick a different deck.

As long as nothing changes to the b&r list tezz probably will continue to put up the best results but that's mainly because the better players will continue to run it.

As far as the B&R talks have been going Ill through in my two cents.

Balance - is still to broken to take off the list. like many have said stax decks would run 4 immediately

Crop rotation - can defiantly come off

gifts and fact - should both stay on. Gifts would allow the tezz decks to operate similar to the flame/vault gifts decks of old and fact is still just to good.

enlightened tutor - can come off someone said earlier this would be played in combo to get bargain or necro but that seems really terrible

Channel - far to good yet belcher would run 4 with 4 belcher and 4 lichs mirror between those effects and the easiness of casting channel with esg and manamorphose the turn one possibilities would be to great.

Burning wish - can probably come off its not as broken without LED

Grim Monolith - not even that good belcher would possibly run 4 I don't know if that would even be good. and it would make power artfact combo almost playable

Strip mine - can definitely not come off its just to good

Library of Alexandria - this one I'm not sure about, I don't see running 4 in a drain deck but i definitely see a deck with negate, mana leak, rune snag etc running 4 of these with ease, so its probably safer to just leave this one on the list.

Mana drain - I don't think restricting drain, shop, bazaar, or ritual is ever the right choice because they make up the main vintage archtypes and are the reason many people like vintage over say legacy.

The format kinda sucks right now but as long as you design a deck properly you can still win with anything.

Kinda like owens idea

Just play stax its the fastest deck ever.

Best thing to do is just badger your opponent to play faster which usually cuses them to mess up., then if needed call a judge. being an asshole is usually needed at times to avoid having slow and drawn out rounds.

well every single matchup all day I sided out 2 crucible and dupicant for the 3 rebs and in most of my matches other than against long i borded out 4 chalice or 4 wire for grudge depending if i was on the draw or not. that may not be exactly correct but i decided to board like that rather than just take one out of several cards.

The green for the ancient grudges can barely even be called a splash since the usual land in that spot would be basic mountains. The grudges were pretty amazing i boared in all four several times throughout the day. If you wanted to play actual green cards you would have to change the mana base by cutting the barb rings which probably are better than whatever your adding. If i was going to play green it wouldn't be for goyf but for choke. I very nearly played 2 choke main and 2 board but there just to hard to cast with sphere and null rod.

the deck was pretty sick all day but i petty much got the matchups i expected all day long.

round 1 long 2-0 on draw both games
round 2 long 2-0 on draw both games
round 3 tezz 1-2 lost die roll and had petty mediocre draws
round 4 painter 2-1
round 5 draw

top 8 tezz 2-0
top 4 long 2-0
finals probably would have been 30-0

This format has basically degenerated to play tezz or play something that beats it and Ive chosen the latter for basically every tourney

what owen said was pretty correct i hadnt played vintage in a month and just through together that list without testing it. i was relitively happy with most of my card choices. the worst card in my deck was deffinately canonist and got boarded out most of the day. i almost played sculler but expected more bug fish and didnt like the prospect of having to cast a dude off 2 dual lands. also by not playing sculler i felt more comfortable putting a basic plains in my deck.

Stormscape apprentice was pretty unreal all day as i thiought he would be. The deck was good and ill probably run it again with a few changes after seeing what people are playing.

im not sure why soly decided to list owen as the winner when I clearly won the die roll, and skulled his shitty 5 color deck in the swiss

Nice article Steve, I tend to agree with you assessment of the majority of the cards mentioned, but I think you greatly underestimate the playability of Relic of Progenitus. Sure this card is not an auto replacement for tormods crypt in some decks, but i believe that it should replace tormods in many fish, shop, and non will based control decks. In a few months when the set has seen a decent amount of tournament play i expect Relic of Progenitus  to see play in very high numbers.

Congrats Jimmy on the finish. I just wish we could have had a good match up, i was a little disappointed after reading the coverage of our match since it was really off.

Game 1 jimmy leads with academy and petal, i play sea and imp seal, jimmy plays a and and tries to tinker realizing he cant and passes, i play a fetch and pass. jimmy plays land and tinkers i recall in response jimmy lays mis-d and kills my land with titan. i then fetch and vamp. i draw my dark ritual and have the play of rit, grim for lotus, play cabal with thresh then another grim for will with tendrils already in hand jimmy has another force and counters my dark ritual.

Game 2 o play jet ritual jimmy plays force i play land and pass. land lotus from jimmy. i draw a blue card for force and play land grim for lotus and pass. jimmy play land shaman and eats my jet. i play lotus into twister with two lands open. twister hand is terrible only having a recall with resolves. i then play land and a mox into tinker which gets forced i pass turn with my hand being 3 seas, lotus, hurkyls and a mox. jimmy tutors for tinker and gets titan. i have one land to Jimmy's 2 land and sol ring. i draw dark rit and decide to play hurkys which will kill both Jimmy's lands and leave with with  sol ring and titan in hand and only a shaman in play with me having the mana sources in hand to recover. jimmy has yet another force. i have a turn to draw out of it with having to lands in play rit and lotus in hand. i draw time walk witch gives me another land drop and anther chance i then draw ritual and my day is over.

I guess ill just ha to try and win next year again, overall the weekend was a blast with the highlight probably being playing in the saga block sealed and taking second on breakers always like drafting the old cards.

Yeah my sleeves were pretty terrible. they dont sell dragon shields so i just buy the worst sleeves they have every time. the deck was solid all day the only match i lost i may have one if it wasnt for a slight mistake I probably should have lost a few games during the day to but bad play is easy to capitalize on with combo. no report this time cant give out to much info before nats just have to say winner winner chiken dinner.

yeah even if the event was small its still saying something that the deck has been played twice and won twice. The tourney i won was 42 players.

In my experience with this deck there is no way you can cut the angel from the main. it is literally one of the strongest cards in the deck in my opinion. It is just to versatile to cut. I also agree with the need of two cephalid sage. if you ever dread return one the game will immediately end. If your going to run 3 dread return there is no reason to not run 2 sage it just speeds your clock by a turn in most cases.

This is basically my list i won the ICBM open with a Month or so ago within like 3 cards main and side. Its a sick deck!

I have a couple of things to say about some of the topics brought up in this thread.

First of all at meadbert.

I just played and won with ichorid at a 40+ man event and i can deffinately say its probably one of the easiest decks ive ever jsut picked up and played. yes there are decisions that need to be made thoughout the game but most of them are only a little more than common sense.

As far as boarding with the deck goes ill admit its somewhat tricky to find a balance of what to board in and board out to not completely ruin how your deck opperates but once you find that balance you can basically just rinse and repeat and use that same board plan over and over.

As far as vintage being a love/ hate format. Ill agree i get a little frustrated with the format here and there, but im going to have to agree with steve and say this is a golden age for vintage. I could go to my next tourney with probably 5 different decks if not more that would all give me a good chance to win.

Nice win paul...... going to have to say that your lucky the ICBM guys were all busy supporting one of are own at the first ICBM open held by ben carp. Nice win regaurdless and your deck looks pretty interesting.

If your looking for the i jsut win facto the deck had with 4 naughts i would jsut make the following changes.

-3 trinets
-1 tormods

+3 naughts
+1 echoing truth

With those changes you pretty much have the deck i won with a few weeks ago.


Yawgwill in the sdeboard seems to be one of those card choices that people seem to shake there head at.

It first made its way into the sdeboard of sullivan solution after sometime. If i remember correctly it was a conversation that I@N and Rich shay had that ended up with will being placed in the sideboard.

Will is in the sideboard of this deck for very much the same reason. You really want the will in 2 machups that ive seen and those are aggro mirrors and control matchups. The reason for this is that these matchups tend to be very long wars where you need to take every advntage you can get. The problem ss had ocasionsly was that if it went to a vry late game with control your strongest play may have been tutor for a creature seeing as your recall was probably already spent at this point, where as they often still had access to will which gve them a huge edge in the late game. By adding will it gives you the late game bomb you need to sure up those matches.

The reason its not maindeck is that its never good in the early game unless you had a ridiculous hand already, and its usually terrible vs decks like flash, combo, ichorid, and only mediocre vs stax really depending on if there are spheres inplay or not.

travis advocating for you to run tinker dsc............not very shocked by that one

Yeah it was nice to finally get a chance to play you... althugh i wasnt looking foward to playing a combo mirror where you had the only forces. it ended up being a fun match though.

Nice job on top 8 wish i could have got another crack at you there but for now i guess ill have to live with the colorado guys being 2-0-0 vs me.

Im happy to see that many of you that have seen the newest version of the deck like it. I cant take all the credit for it though after i had won a local tourney with the goyf version running 4 naughts owen and jeff rabowski did some work on it and they came up with the trinket mage plan which i also liked. The change gave the deck the higher blue card count it needed and made for less dead draws. the only thing that it did negatively was it slightly weekens the stax, gat, and goblins matchups. the quick clock was always a nice threat to rely on. To be honest though the stax and gat matchups are still heavily in your favor you just have to be well versed with the deck.

The strongest concept of this deck is simply having tarmogoyf and dark confidant in the same deck together. these two creatures both offer raw power and work amazing well together.

As far as bad matchups the only mathup i would really not want to sit across from is one of the carps with oath. If they resolve oath its basically game yo have to either race them while they look for oath or jsut effectively use duress/thoughtseize and fow to keep oath off the table, even stifeling oath can by enough time to win a game. other than oath i think the deck has a relatively favorable matchup against everything.

The only real problem is although its great in the current field its not an overly powerful deck. sure it has some broken draws that result in relatively quick wins, but it cant compare to the raw power of something like gat or long combo.

If you are looking for a consistant deck to perform well in this field i would suggest sleaving this up for your next tourney.

In response to what steve asked....

Same as owens response basically. We got to our hotel room and were trying to figure out what to play for day 2. Several people stuck with there deck from the day before with some slight changes, but a lot of us decided to just play something we enjoyed. So i decided to sleve up a ritual based deck becuase i find combo more calenging and fun to play then any other archtype.

Gush is deffinately still king in this format. I saw plenty of gush and empty gifts floating around but just lower numbers of it in the hands of good players.

yeah the matchup is actually pretty close. I would have liked to see you gusy play it out but oh well. The deck has changed a ton form what it was at gencon.

In any case congratz on your finish as well. Ill haev to introduce myself next time i see you playing some vintage.

Meloku was presented as an idea a while ago but i was pretty against it. Then at the last min we decided to fit it in the open slot. Its also really good in a field of gat. I didnt myself but nighbor and owen won several games against oposing gat decks because they were able to block huge dryads while getting there in the air. Nighbor would have actually won game 3 against duog this way but doug was able to draw the scroll for cwish and berserk

So I was a little leery of going back to indi after how things went at Gen Con (see Gen Con report for story of trip home) but that wasn’t going to stop me form attending a SCG in such close proximately. Friday night I got off work and met up with the others who were heading down with me, Owen, neighbor, and spooky. We began the trip down at about 1 am and got to indi with tons of time to spare. We ended up going to steak and shake for breakfast which was definitely a mistake.... breakfast is not there strong suit.

So as many people know I have been one of many people advocating how good gush decks are at the moment, so there was no way I wasn’t going to play one. The list I played I call Empty gifts, and no its not gush tendrils seeing as there is no tendrils in the deck even, and I don’t even consider it gush storm for the most part seeing as there is only one storm card in the deck, which makes up only 1/3 of the win conditions. When I play the deck it feels a lot like flame vault gifts did. I consider it the most powerful deck in the format by far and the decks record shows it.

Empty Gifts

4 mox
1 black lotus
1 sol ring
4 polluted delta
2 flooded strand
1 tropical island
2 volcanic island
2 underground sea
2 island
1 library of Alexandria
4 gush
4 merchant scroll
4 force of will
4 brainstorm
4 duress
2 mana drain
1 misdirection
1 red elemental blast
1 pyroblast
1 ancestral recall
1 vampiric tutor
1 demonic tutor
1 yawgmoths will
1 mystical tutor
1 fastbond
1 regrowth
1 gifts ungiven
1 fire/ice
1 empty the warrens
1 meloku the clouded mirror
1 tinker
1 darksteel colossus
1 echoing truth
1 time walk

Sideboard

2 pyrocalsm
2 pithing needle
4 leyline of the void
1 ancient grudge
1 rebuild
1 rack and ruin
2 trickbind
1 pyroblast
1 red elemental blast

Round 1 (Mike 3c gat)

Game 1 – I have a turn 1 library on the play he beats me down to 3 with a dryad. I bounce the dryad with truth and then fire it when it gets replayed. Im pretty sure I win wit empty off will this game.

Game 2- I have library in the opener again and he scoops after my 3rd or 4th gush during a will.

1-0-0

Round 2 (Owen with ICBM the 75 card mirror)

Game 1 – I have library on the play. He gets an active library on turn 2 or 3. im able to put him off his library eventually with a few duress and him having to cast some stuff. He scoops to a will.

Game 2 – I don’t remember this game very much but I win

2-0-0

Round 3 (seth with r/g/b beats)

Game 1 – he blows me out with a gorilla shaman after my turn one was mox, sol ring, land. A river boa with rancor and the shaman go the distance.

Game 2 – I get a turn 3 tinker for dsc that goes the distance for me.

Game 3 – he goes bayou pass. My turn one was a little better. I play fastbond gush gush then walk and mystical for will. My next turn I drop lotus will and proceed to get out 20 some goblins and walk again.

3-0-0

Round 4 (Jake ICBM with gat)

Game 1 - I go sea pass. He goes turn one fastbond then recall and maybe a gush before passing the turn. My turn I play gush and 2 moxes before dripping empty for 10 gobbos. Jake scrolls on his next turn I expect him to get truth but he just grabs a gush. He manages to tendrils me for 8 this turn. The gobos go the distance he didn’t have a echoing in the main.

Game 2 – I don’t remember at all but I get the win

4-0-0

Round 5 (Nighbor ICBM with the 74 card mirror)

Game 1 – it was a long game and neighbor has meloku go the distance for him.

Game 2 - I have meloku and am in a good spot for the win but get timed out.

4-1-0

Round 6 (Ichorid)

Game 1 – comes down to a turn where I have fastbond in play a gush and vamp in hand. I decide to vamp for will and gush praying to hit any mana source. I don’t and he kills me the next turn.

Game 2 - a First turn needle slows him down enough for me to get out 30 gobos

Game 3 – leyline starts in play and I scroll up a fow on my first turn. I eventually play a gifts setting up walk will walk tinker for dsc to end the game. Could have just used warrens here as well but time had just been called and I felt like taking the easier way.

5-1-0

Round 7 (matt with goblins)

Game 1 - I think hes playing ichorid but am not positive. He mulls to six and starts with leyline in play. Im on the play and my hand is jet duress volcanic pyro scroll misdirection brainstorm. After he puts the leyline in play I assume its ichorid so I just scroll up recall and pass. On his turn he wastes my land hmmmmmmmm. My turn I don’t draw a land so I just duress and see warchief leyline mana crypt mountain simian. His hand is slow and once I hit my land I am able to get ahead enough. I end up tinkering out dsc for the win.

Game 2 – He plays a turn 1 lackey that I force. He follows that up with a turn to lackey. I ice the lackey for a turn and he just plays a fanatic. The next turn he gets in with lackey and whiffs on a ringleader. The next turn he beats and matrons up a seige-gang and then passes. I play the one duress I still had in and take his lotus. I then tinker for my ruby so I can play the pyroclasm in hand. His next turn he draws simian and with his land in hand is able to play seige-gang. My turn I needle it and play meloku. Meloku gets reb’d eventually but dsc gets there.

6-1-0

Round 8 (Jim team ogre ichorid)

We draw

6-1-1

Top 8 (Nighbor ICBM 74 card mirror)

Close three game match that he gets. Sucks to lose but either way it just means one of us in top 4.


In the top 8 there were three ICBM. All of which were playing identical deck lists. Owen takes first this based on him already sweeping Lynn in round 7 of swiss. Neighbor takes 3rd and I take 8th because I was 4th going in and the top 4 seeds all lost round one shitty.

So ive said it for a while but this deck is the BEST deck in the format. Combined record in games for Owen, Nighbor, and I not counting playing each other was an AMAZING 39-4

Your reasoning for excluding chalice from your maindeck is deffinately flawed. You say that everyone has answers/hate for chalice such as rack and ruin, ancient grudge, oxidize, ect, but name how many deck in the format play those in there main.

If your so worried about these hate cards your strategy shouldnt be to sideboard chalice, but to maindeck it and board it out in every matchup. The idea of bringing it in after you are so worried about those select silver bullet answers to stax seems kinda ridiculous.

Trinket mage is a definate consideration for the deck, but i dont think they fit in this version very well. sure they can fetch the noughts but thats all they can really do. i think if you were to maybe play a more controling/drain version where you could maybe fit in a few other utility cards to grab with the mage it would be more useful. the cutpurse is really jsut used a a draw engine in the deck. i just didnt feel that the 4 bobs were enough.

I think one reason that this deck hasnt got that much attention yet is because of just how good gat is. Gat is by far the more powerful deck at the moment. This deck in my opinion atleast is a lot harder to play then gat.

actually i dont think that chalice is that great against the gush decks in the format at the moment. Most only run 4-6 0 drops artifacts and can usually play around chalice. Game 2 when you lead with turn one chalice and confidant on the mull to 5 it did happen to hurt though considering i had to moxes in my opener.

response to dante

You could consider both those control decks but i would also add slaver to the list for sure. I also was bringing the will in against gat most of the time. Ive tried maindecking it several times in the list and have never been happy with it.