Wouldn't shadowmage infiltrator be better than the heretic in this deck? It has evasion and is on color so you don't need to fetch a bayou.

Adding black also lets you run Hide/Seek, which could help you out in a lot of match ups.

I understand everything you're both saying, even if I don't agree with all of it.

I do hope that next time both Alan and the people attending his event can work out something that pleases everyone.

I'm thinking of attending one of these weeks coming up.

What time do you guys start, is it 7pm?

I'm still confused as to why he did a poor job? Is it just because of the 5-8 prizes? Are we really labeling the tournament as poorly run because there weren't enough prizes for your liking?

I don't want to put words in your mouth, since I'm not sure what past statements you do and don't agree with, but if we are OK with this simply being a service/business then shouldn't we also be OK with attending the event without prizes? Isn't our attendance in the event taking part in his service and thus worth the price of entry alone?

Yet we've come to the point where not only do we expect prizes, but we expect an abundance of them, and we complain and throw racial and personal insults when we don't get enough of them. Isn't that a childish way to look at things?

They are absolutely doing us a favor. A lot of time and effort goes into running a big tournament. All you have to do is show up and play and have fun. And if you do well, you'll be rewarded.

Although I totally agree with you, that if people have a problem with the way he runs events, they should run their own.

You should be thankful that people are running vintage events, yes. And you should be extra thankful that a mox and grim tutor were put up as prizes.

If you have a problem with the 5-8 prizes, Alan said he wouldn't mind listening to people's opinions on what could have been better options. That seems pretty fair to me.

I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion, based on anything I said.

I applaud Alan for taking the time to explain his position on this message board, as it seems like people sometimes forgot that stores stay open and stay successful because the owner treats it like a business.

If this guy only pays out 10% of the door, but it keeps his store open and keeps running events, we should be more than happy. He should take as much money off the top as he needs to keep his store running and to live a comfortable life and support his family. Who are we to criticize him for that?

The deck does run 4 Chalice, 4 Force of Will/2 Misdirection,  and 1 Trinisphere. Those cards immediately interact with your opponent.

On top of that, both Crucible and Mindlock have the potential to immediately interact.

I get what you're saying that maybe those cards aren't enough, but it also depends on what deck you're playing against and if you can consistently drop threats that actively disrupt your opponent.

What matchups do you feel Tanglewire is more important?

What about trinket mage? He fetches Top, Mana, or Relic. And eventhough he isn't an artifact himself, since he fetches one, he will make Master bigger.

What if you used life from the loam instead of squee? For two mana you get 3 cards, and you only need one of them to do what 3 squees would do. And you don't really have to worry about fish or stax messing with your mana base.

This also opens up a stronger reason to be running intuition over thirst, as an intuition for loam, stripmine, bazaar could be pretty intense. And you can intuition for 3 deep analysis as well, which would be in you a pretty strong position to be drawing a lot of cards. Or you can get Ancient Grudges. Intuition could even put memory jar in your grave for welder, on demand. You don't need to hope your thirst into it.

I think Goblin Vandals would work better than Welders. The only thing welder can do that Vandal can't is deal with Darksteel Colossus, but anyone seeing a welder on the board is just going to wait until they can timewalk past your welder or kill it first, or simply not use black lotus or lotus petal, leaving you without the option to weld in the first place.

If you're really worried about artifacts, vandal lets you be more proactive, and lets you kill artifacts that gorilla shamen can't.

The problem with U/R fish is that your creatures offer no disruption and they are all tiny. But if you're playing in a field of Fish, it does give you access to direct damage AND you could bring in Flametongue Kavu from the sideboard (which slaver often uses to wreck fish).

You and your testing partner could grab a different deck before each time you play a game, allowing for some level of randomness. Although, I guess you should also sleeve them all in the same color to eliminate subconscious advantages that you might gain from associating decks to certain color sleeves.

This obviously only gives a limited amount of randomness, depending on how many decks you have sleeved up, but it is a start.

My point is that Gifts serves both purposes. Winning the game and setting up the win. It is a tutor for four cards for four mana. It is absurd no matter when you cast it, but most especially if you can cast it early and get a bunch of mana.

Meandeck gifts, gold fishes ridiculously fast, and because of merchant scroll, has a great game vs. combo. This deck seems like it is trying to do what Control Slaver does and win later.

But for just one more mana than thirst, you can cast gifts. So why would you ever want to cast thirst unless you didn't have a gifts in your hand, and in that case, wouldn't you rather have merchant scroll, which is cheaper. So you can go get a gifts or ancestral or force or drain?

And I think when you have 4 Gifts, you can afford to use Gifts AS a draw spell, much like you would use Thirst. So not only is it your game winner, but it should be your draw spell after you ancestral

I'm wondering if anyone has an opinion on U/W Fish vs. chalice @ 2.

I decided to run true believers maindeck, which pretty much means almost all of my threats are @ 2. And I paid for it, as the first two matches I played against decks who promptly set chalice @ 2.

Obviously seal of cleansing is an answer, but only if it comes down before chalice. Should there be a solution for chalice in the sideboard?

I played a U/W fish deck, but ended up going 0 - 2 Drop, after my first two match ups had me getting owned by chalice for 2. First from a stax player and second from a bomberman player.

With the build you ran, adding the true believers makes chalice for 2 hurt you even more, than if you were running lions. I'm wondering if that is something to be fearful of? From your report it seems like you didn't run into chalice?

Is it worth having a sideboard answer besides hoping seal of cleansing can come down first, or was I just unlucky to run into two decks in a row playing chalice?

In the fish matchup, they also have swords to plowshares, which makes Old Man less appealing. And as far as control magic, what would you take against a fish deck, that you can't take with threads of disloyalty? The fish creature curve stops at 2.

The only other creature you're going to worry about is Darksteel which is in Mana Drain decks and do you really want to be casting a 4cc spell at a Drain deck? Especially when you have swords.

You probably want jitte or sword of fire and ice in your sideboard for the aggro match. Some combination of three should be plenty. And Dave Feinstein seems to think Threads of Disloyalty is great against aggro decks, and I tend to agree with him.

Also, are the energy fluxes necessary in your sideboard if you're not going to play stax?

Dave,

If you're going to maindeck root maze, do you want 6 fetchlands in your deck? Could it be beneficial to use 3 fetches and 3 stomping ground instead?

If you drop root maze turn one, and then it takes you until turn 3 to do anything else, then haven't you stalled yourself as much as you have your opponent? Or do you feel thinning your deck trumps possibly stalling yourself?

if you're running tinker, you're going to want crypt as another artifact to tinker out, and if tinker is your kill, your games should be a lot shorter and the damage from it wont matter. Also, if you're not running drains, you're going to want as much acceleration as you can get to help make sure you can get Lab out as fast as possible.

You should be running lotus petal to increase your chance of counterspell first turn. You should also be running Mana Drain instead of counter spell.

The ideal position with your deck, and with any deck having Mana drain is to have 2 blue up by turn 2, 1 if possible, and then drain into a threat. Your deck's key spell has 2 colorless mana, and Draining a spell on turn two, means you can tap 1 island to play Lab on turn 3, while still having Drain/Leak Mana open in case they have a bounce spell and win next turn.

Not to mention, Drain Mana can be used with the following cards in your deck, besides arcane lab.

4   dark confidant
3   phyrexian negator
2   waterfront bouncer
1   Demonic Tutor       
1   Echoing Decay
1   Rushing River
4   Mishra's Factory   

And drain mana is essential to making these cards worthwhile,

2 Skeletal Scrying
1 Fact or Fiction

And the other cards that are missing from your build, which I think are essential:

Mana Crypt
Sol Ring
Mystical Tutor
Tinker
Darksteel Collosus
Timewalk

Tinker is too good not to run, in a build that has blue. It wins games all by itself.

And Mana Crypt and Sol Ring help power out Lab faster.

I've been wondering about True Believer lately. Isn't it about time he sees play, at least in the sideboard, and probably in the maindeck. especially when Gifts and Tendrils decks are starting to be some of the most popular decks out there.

There aren't too many matches where he is useless except maybe the mirror, and if you're really afraid of that he could be swapped for something else from the side, whether it be something like jitte or sword, or maybe another creature like eight and a half tails?

The threat of drain is obviously an issue, but with xantid swarm and duress, isn't siding out bargain (your next best win condition after will), a bad idea? Especially knowing that some of the most common anti combo hate, is that which limits the effectiveness of Will.

I don't think you can make the assumption that a combo player will side out one of their win conditions for fear of drain.

How is this better than meandeck gifts?

The entire purpose of meandeck gifts is to tinker for darksteel and then cast timewalk twice. The deck can do this by 3rd or 4th turn.

It seems like it would take this deck a lot longer to set up its win than that and it doesn't have the "oops, I won" factor that a slaver activation has against some decks.

I think you're underestimating how easy it is to setup and win with Bargain. Most players go for yawgmouths will first, because it is a no brainer win. Play some disposable mana, play a tutor, replay mana, replay tutor, and tendrils.

But a Bargain win is just as easy when you throw it down and draw 10-15 cards. And all you need is 3 extra mana than you normally would if you were tutoring up will.

Don't forget, the old rector tendrils decks used Bargain as their primary fuel for setting up a tendrils. Will was often secondary for that deck, simply because once bargain hits, you're going to win anyway, unless you've lost too much life.

And if the entire purpose of Crypt is to just shutdown will, why not just run extract and shut it down totally?

In order for this to work, you basically need a turn one welder and a turn two way to discard jester's cap into your graveyard, with still 2 extra mana to be able to activate it. That requires quite a few cards to all work correctly together. I think that is a bit slow and unreliable.

It's not my deck, so I wouldn't take offense.

I think it is definitely worth taking a look at and perhaps using as a base, since it is one of the few mono black decks I've seen place well in big tournaments.

Perhaps the discard route is worth exploring further.