Occasionally I load up CA to play against friends on MWS with mixed results. I've been testing Urborg, Tomb of Yawghmoth. It takes the strain of Gemstone Mine's, makes Bazaar tap for B, which is nice, and your Titan has an extra swamp to target

I'm no big fan of Reanimate. Taking 8 life usually means your opponent only needs to storm for 5 and you cant go for the dragon (combo) kill.

I cut down to 2 squee's myself because I still play Portal maindeck. Without Portal I would cut them entirely.

Why was Balance in the sideboard if you expected alot of fish and random decks ? Even against gifts or long, Balance becomes a Mind Twist or an out vs Goblin tokens.

Now that you have added red, have you considered Recoup ?

Is Chains that good against blue decks ? Apart from 4 Brainstorms and Ancestrall Recall most combo and combo-control decks use tutors to get the job done. Bazaar seems to do more for you then Chains does to your opponent.

Optional !? It's the best card in your deck IMO. If you want to be sure to get rid of their artifact mana you should run more Mox Monkeys. Blastminer is too slow and mana intensive, I would play Crucible of Worlds over him and add a couple of black tutors to find Strip Mine.

How is Portal working out without the Squee's ? Portal works at every turn's EOT step/phase so Bob wont deliver enough cards I think. With enough Squee's you can Tinker for it early game without a win condition and make them start the game again with no permanents or cards. Should be game right there 

Archeological Dig, Strip Mine and Factory seems alot of colorless mana for a deck that needs alot of different colors. Where is Lotus btw ?

I would rather drop a Null Rod than any other 2 drop against Tier 1 decks. If you still want to go the Chalice route you might want to play 4 ? Unlike Null Rod, Chalice is most effective on turn 1.

I thought the whole reason to add B to UW Fish was Extirpate ? Yet you only briefly discuss them. Also I think Duress is missing in your last list (or I might need some sleep).

ETW forces fish to run a "bad" card like Echoing Thruth. I personally love E. thruth in control and combo/control decks but in Fish it has a pretty limited use ? Isn't Stifle/Meddling Mage backed up with counters enough ?

I really love CA, it's one of the most fun decks I've played with. Occasionally I load up Steffen van der Veen's old list on MWS. It is the last list, that I know off, that has made a couple of top 8's in the first part of 2006. You should look it up on Morphling.de if you haven't allready.

I dont agree with some of your choices/thoughts:

Possesed Portal is the ultimate lockcard. It's the card I tutor for the most. It has won me so many matches. Offcourse it doesnt work without a Squee or two. I agree that on its own Squee doesnt do alot but Portal imo is just too good. Squee can still generate cardadvantage, yet it is slow. I also use it alot to force my opponent's to break their Tormod's Crypt when I intuition for Squee's.

You state that you are so dependent on Bazaar. Well I think the solution is dredge cards. I love it when my opponents set their Pithing Needle on Bazaar. Darkblast and Life from the Loam are a big upgrade imo. Espacially Life from the Loam, it gives you alot of different Intuition piles to work with. It protects your Bazaar against Wastelands, it gives you 3 land cards to discard, it can get cards in the yard.  Darkblast is crucial to win the Welder war and again it can get cards in the yard.

Entomb is too good not to play in this deck. Really I wish I could play 4. I would cut the Mystical for it or atleast play Imperial Seal over Mystical.

I'm not sure if the Tendo Ice Bridges will give you enough colored mana. Steffen used Tarnished Citadel and Undiscovered Paradise. Both have their drawbacks but they will give colored mana multiple times. Undiscovered Paradise drawback can sometimes be used as an extra card to discard to Bazaar and clearly playing Bob's you dont really care about your life totals so Citadel's drawback isnt that big.
I dont understand why you cut Sol Ring, Crypt and Vault. Bazaar allready sets you back a landdrop and these cards can power out turn 1 Intuitions or Tinkers all the time. Also where is Tolarian Academy ?

I dont get the chants, if they end up in the yard, there is nothing you can do with them. Why dont you play True Believer. It gives you an edge versus combo and gits/intuitions and when it ends up in the yard you can still Animate it.

What is your kill once the dragoncombo is out ? You want to get Triskelion into play but how can you make sure it will always get into play ? Isnt it safer to include Eternal Witness ?

Also have you considered Balance for the maindeck or sideboard ?

I do like your inclusion of Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. It's something I'll have to try out. I like the idea of Bob in the deck although I'm not certain how they will work out.

Have you ever considered Meddling Mage ? If one stax deck can support it, it might be this one It has some anti-synergy with Balance and Equipose though ...

A fun read as allways.

In one of your latests post about Fish you were considering using Old Man over Threads. Do you now feel that Threads is superior or was it a metagame decision because of all the Grunts running around (TMWA, Fish mirror) ?

I'm no Landstill expert but ...

I would definitely play White:
It gives you Balance, Swords to Plowshares, Disenchant. Maybe Meddling Mage, Enlightened Tutor.

You might be able to splash a bit of Red it gives you some nice sb cards:
REB, Rack and Ruin, Fire/Ice, Pyroclasm


I would play something like this:

4 island
2 plains
4 flooded strand
4 tundra
1 library of Alexandria
4 wasteland
1 strip mine
4 mishra factory ( i would stay away from Faerie Conclave)
1 lotus petal
1 sol ring

+2 more manasources

4 drain
4 fow
3 swords
1 balance
1 disenchant
2 Nev Disc
3 Crucible

4 brainstorm
4 standstill
1 mystical tutor
1 Fact or Fiction

1 decree of justice
1 eternal dragon

+4 other cards

Something to fetch strip mine would be nice but all I can think of is Intuition in UW.

Have you considered 3cc ? You can drop the Standstills for some real carddraw (TFK, AK) and add black for tutors (to get strip mine) & duress. Switch the win condition to Tinker + Colossus and maybe a few Vedalken Shackles that can steal about anything.

Why aren't there any proxie tournaments in Belgium ? I'm not sure but I don't think there has ever been one ? I can assure you that there would have been 4 to 5 players more in this event that I know off alone. With GP Lille more people own duals & fows at my local shop and the only thing that stops them from playing Vintage is the price of power cards.
Is it because of the support you get from Wizards if its sanctioned or the fact that most vintage players (who own power) don't like proxies or is their Eternal rating so important to them ?

Another thing the dutchies might want to answer: why did the tournaments in Eindhoven stopped being proxy events ? I looked around on the boards at that time but no reason was given.

I apologize up front because it's not my intention to hijack your thread and start a discussion about proxies but I've been wanting to ask this question for a while now and I'm getting tired of playing Fish, TMWA & other budget decks in the few Vintage events there are in our little country ...

1. This won't work because of the same reason CS didn't work out.
2. I tried this one myself (owning a playset of drains and a library) but your opponent has the mana advantage (moxen) and can cast their draw spells/tutors faster than you with drain backup. Also Intuition/AK isn't as good as it was a couple of months ago when nobody played it but now there are a lot of Drain TPS decks around. And their Yawgmoth's Will will always be better than yours ie. yours will not always win you the game.
3. Landstill is your best shot (altough the deck itself is hideous) because a powered version only plays 5 power cards (Lotus, 2x Mox, Time Walk, AR).

I tried a deck like this a couple of months ago. Here are some thoughts:

As said before your fetchlands have terrible synergy with Root Maze and Suppression Field. Did you try out Land Grant? It basically has the same function, the only downside is that they can be countered. If you add them it might be a good idea to add a couple of Temple Gardens so you always have access to white mana. The lifeloss doesn't matter and most of the time you will have a Root Maze on the board anyway.

Please cut the Wayfarers. It cost too much mana with Suppression Field and it only beats for 1. Try to have a minimum of activated abilities in your deck. The only ones that I would include are the Wastelands and Strip Mine.

You also need something to speed up your clock. I'm no big fan of creature enchantments (or Auras like they are called nowadays, God knows why) but Rancor might be good. Wild Mongrel may be good as well especially when you have dead lock parts in your hand (Null Rod #2, Root Maze #2).
With the amount of fetches run in most decks you could try out Ankh of Mishra. With Kataki's & Null Rod you pretty much take out their artifact mana so they have to keep dropping land and take 2 damage a turn (or 5 in case of a fetch). This might help killing them in time before they can recover because they will.

Enlightened Tutor may be nice to tutor up any of your lock parts. But I don't know if its really worth it. It may just be better to just draw another threat instead.

81 people according to theabyss.biz (29 Maggio Risultati torneo Milano 81 partecipanti)


The decklist aren't up for this tournament at theabyss and it looks like they wont post it there any time soon. Maybe MaxxxMatt can get a hold on them. But they will probably be very close to this list:

3 Island
4 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 Library Of Alexandria
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring

3 Duress
1 Mind Twist
4 Mana Drain
4 Force Of Will

4 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Accumulated Knowledge
2 Deep Analysis

3 Intuition
4 Cunning Wish
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Tinker
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth's Will

1 Engineered Explosives

1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Psychatog


Sideboard:
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Fact Or Fiction
1 Firestorm
1 Fling
1 Gush
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Chain Of Vapor
1 Misdirection
1 Pyroblast
1 Rack And Ruin
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Rushing River
1 Shattering Pulse
1 Snuff Out
1 Stifle

@ Luiggi & Zeke

I thought I was clear in my previous posts but the changes I would make:

- 1x B2B
- 4x Impulse
- 1x Morphling
- 1x Firewalker

+ 1x CotV
+ 4x Thirst
+ 1x DSC
+ 1x Tinker

and possibly:

-2 Firewalker
+1 Fact or Fiction

to get down to 60 cards.

@ Zeke

Well I don't know if you need  the Mystical Tutor. I always played without it because of Chalice for 1. But it might be good as you can get other bombs too like Ancestral Recall and Time Walk. But what to cut ? The 3 cards I would cut first are the Firewalkers but I understand that you need them in your metagame.

@ Rancor1


I understand your reasoning and you do have a point but I would still rather outdraw my opponent as "cardadvantage wins games".
I run 14 artifacts, most CS decks run less artifacts than that, and you also have lands to discard. There's allways a chance you have to discard 2 blue spells but it hasn't happen often.


True, you don't have the tutors for Tinker but you don't need it asap and with so much draw you'll get it in time. It will end the game faster than Morphling can and an early Tinker can win games on itself.
When you draw the Colossus you have Thirst for Knowledge to get rid of it. Without TFK I wouldn't play it.

@ Zeke

The reason I play the 4th Chalice of the Void is because I allways want to see it on turn 1-2 (to set them at 0 or 1). Back to Basics strong as it is, doesn't change the game dramatically in the first turns. When playing 3 copies of them I will probably have drawn one of them when I need it.
But if it works for you don't change it

@ Luiggi

Yes. Thirst for Knowledge works perfect in Mono-U. It has been done in the past. If my memory is correct the first to get results with those builds were rvs and a German player both winning a tournament. I'm sure you can find those list on TMD somewhere.

@ Zeke

I would cut one Back to Basics (and move it to the sideboard) because four was too much for me when I played with Mono-U. Sometimes it will be a dead card with its only use to pitch to FOW. In its place I would add a 4th Chalice which in today's metagame is really strong.

I'm not a big fan of Impulses, they were great back in the days but now I would rather play with Thirst for Knowledge.

What about your manabase, ever thought about running more fetches and cutting some islands ? It might be good ...

Finally I would cut a Firewalker and Morphling for Darksteel Colossus and Tinker. Also isn't there any room for Fact or Fiction ?

Have fun countering everything 

First of all this isn’t my list. It’s the exact same list (except for the 5 Moxen, Black Lotus and 4 Workshops) as the one that won a high profile tournament in Italy so I don’t think you can call this list horrible.



This deck doesn’t run any draw outside of Memory Jar instead it runs more lock components and Uba mask. Uba Mask is to this deck what Chains of Mephistopheles was to The Man Show (WS-Aggro). It forces a deck in a topdecking-mode where you have the advantage. This also explains the (odd) high numbers of Triskelion and Karn. Having multiple Triskelions isn’t that bad either in a metagame full of welders  

I’m not saying that this version is the best one to play but I rather draw answers/locking parts than multiple Staff of Domination’s or Well of Knowledge’s. The latter of whom your opponent can also use (granted with Tangle Wire and Smokestack he won't be able to use it that much).



These are "mana producers" I hadn't thought of and could work well in a budget version of MUD/Stacker.

(As English isn’t my native language my apologies for poorly structured sentences or spelling mistakes   )

I would choose City of Traitors without a doubt, not only because you play Crucible but also getting to 5 lands with smokestacks and wasteland is difficult to nearly impossible and you want your mana ASAP before the game is over.

If you want to cut the blue and red from your deck and go mono-brown (the ugly grey nowadays) there’s another great (inexpensive) mana accelerant for you namely Metalworker. Playing with Metalworker gives you an explosive start. The midgame isn’t in your favour but with this deck (more so for the powered version) there normally wont be much of a midgame, a two sided that is  

The list for the powered version can be found here:
http://www.theabyss.biz/2004/winners/winnersmilano10.htm

Here’s a “budgetized“ version at the top of my head that might stand a chance against the tier 1 decks  

Main Deck

// Mana (26)

    4  City of Traitors
    4  Ancient Tomb
    3  Crystal Vein
    4  Wasteland
    1  Strip Mine
    1  Tolarian Academy

    1  Mana Crypt
    1  Mox Diamond
    1  Lotus Petal
    1  Sol Ring
    1  Mana Vault
    1  Grim Monolith
    3  Mind Stone / 3  Basalt Monolith

// Creatures (11)

    4  Metalworker
    3  Karn, Silver Golem
    3  Triskelion
    1  Sundering Titan

// Locking Parts (20)
 
    4  Trinisphere
    3  Sphere of Resistance
    4  Chalice of the Void    
    4  Smokestack
    3  Tangle Wire
    2  Uba Mask

// Other (3)

    2  Crucible of Worlds
    1  Memory Jar

Sideboard

    1  Triskelion
    2  Duplicant
    1  Tangle Wire
    3  Damping Matrix
    2  Defense Grid
    2  Uba Mask
    2  Kill Switch
    2  Tormod’s Crypt


I don’t know what to play in the Mind Stone/Basalt Monolith slot. Although Basalt Monolith gives you more mana, you can play the Mind Stone’s turn 1 as they cost 2 and have the ability to draw you an extra card later in the game. Maybe there are even better choices but this is the best I can come up with now.

With 11 lands that give you 2 mana and 6 artifacts costing 0-2 mana that together can give you 3 mana turn 1 a first turn Metalworker or Trinisphere isn’t a rare thing. If you want to you can add Serum Powder (in the Mind Stone/Basalt Monolith slot perhaps) to increase your chances for such a turn 1 play.
 
Playing without Goblin Welder and only a few 2CC artefacts, you can easily set a Chalice for 1 or 2. Chalice for 0 will obviously help you against the expensive jewellery    and the now popular Engineered Explosives.

Uba Mask is great and a must counter for many decks as IMO it totally wrecks Control, Tog, CS (especially Toadi Slaver), … only against Workshop decks they are mostly a dead card but against those matchups you have Kill Switch in the SB.

Playing without Welder and Metalworker being a mana ability, you have the additional advantage to run Damping Matrix in the side. It “only” hurts your Karn, Triskelion and Memory Jar. I usually, though I could be wrong about the Jar, side out 1 of each for the 3 matrixes. When your opponent is in a lock you can sac the matrix to Smokestack and swing for the win with Karn and his friends.

The rest of the deck and SB are your basic stax parts and are self-explanatory.  

If you are keen on playing Mr. Welder you can add 4 mountains and some fetchlands but IMHO you don’t need it and it would only ruin a faster mana base (even more).

Good luck with your deck.