Did anyone else hear about this great new card called sylvan library? it's supposedly only 2 mana, digs 3 deep, lets you rearrange OR DRAW all these cards. ancestral recall every turn!

More importantly, we can now have 7th foil llanowar elves and m14 foil elvish mystic. A great day for the elvish pimp.

stasis.. untap guy + island. pay for upkeep, rinse repeat

I can see a tier 3 rogue soldier deck with Preeminent Captain + this + Karakas. We're almost reaching a critical point for soldiers imo.

Very worst case this is a Diabolic Edict that pitches to force of will.

I don't see why people complain.

Delver is already being played, so a condition-less delver would see play too. 3/3 blocks lodestone golem dead

There is actually already a 'combo' in standard with Goliath.


Hey look, it's a 3/3 for 1 mana

To echo previous statements about dredge and workshop, in my opinion, vintage boils down to this:

Big blue is the amalgamation of raw power in vintage. These are the best cards and they will over-power anything and everything that tries to play magic against it. So, all competitive decks are going to be some variant of blue lists.

Blue is a control color and there are several ways to combat the raw power of cards that type of strategy:
A) play a better control deck

B) make sure the player cannot cast spells
Workshop denies playing cards at all. Workshop just became too consistent when Lodestone Golem was printed. Too many spheres, combined with pressure at the same time. The new mirrodin block sure didn't help. So, when your opponent can't play spells at all, that's a pretty efficient counter to something like a control deck.

Legacy version: I played my legacy MUD deck against ANT the other day, and I did not lose a single game on the play with Chalice of the Void and Lodestone Golem as the only resistors in the deck. Dark Ritual decks are dead in vintage, but even in Legacy the strategy is just incredibly prone to being hated out by sphere. With the printing of Thalia, Dark Rituals are having a hard time casting anything. Even though Legacy storm and MUD are laughable compared to vintage, I see them as baby cousins of the same strategy. What can legacy learn from vintage, and what can vintage learn from legacy?

C) make sure that the player doesn't have any relevant cards to cast
So, What do you do if you don't run blue and can't play with shops? Well, your deck must be designed in a way that: ignores blue control cards AND a deck that ignores sphere effects (i.e, just don't cast a single spell in the first place! This is why Dredge is such an important piece of the vintage puzzle. It's the only non-blue deck sans workshops that can stand the brokenness of big blue while still being able to execute its game plan under sphere effects. Dredge just doesn't give a crap about what you play, as long as it doesn't win the game on the spot, or its graveyard hate.

Legacy version: I played legacy manaless dredge against Stoneblade in a tournament back when Nicolas Rausch first released his list. Well, my opponent simply scooped turn 2 twice, vintage style, because non of his cards could actually do anything. Reference: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/22324_Deck_Tech_NotQuiteManaless_Dredge_With_Nicholas_Rausch.html)

So, I am curious if you guys agree with this statement. It would seem to me that big blue could really use Gemstone Caverns even if it's card disadvantage or otherwise wasted slots. Starting out with a Gemstone Caverns holding up something like stifle and spell pierce is going to give you a window to execute your game plan before you're tangled by spheres or overrun by bazaar activations. Stifle against wasteland or bazaar is a time walk that let's you get to 2 mana and lets you untap with an unmolested turn. That may just be enough to ride out the initial flurry of resistors and zombies. If the die roll in vintage is a very important factor, especially against shops and dredge, I think it just makes sense to play with Gemstone Caverns to counter those strategies. I mean, it's the same strategy as bazaar decks and even though you don't have serum powder to enable more consistency, I think this could be looked into a lot more. I would guess that Gemstone Caverns is the equivalent of Bazaar and Workshop for Control strategies. Control generally needs live-counters to play control, which is why Mental Misstep and Force of Will are played. Force of Will is a 2 for 1, the same way Caverns is a 2 for 1, but Caverns allows you to play a much more diverse range of cards (like Spell Pierce, Steel Sabotage, Stifle, Vampiric Tutor or Ancestral Recall on the draw). Control has the added benefit of having the best draw spells in the game (Not counting dredge abuse), so they can sort of make up for the card disadvantage of Gemstone Caverns. The big problem ofcourse, is running Gemstone Caverns in multiples, as it is legendary. Still however, I would guess that with effects such as Brainstorm and Jace the Mindsculptor, the raw power of always being on the play with a gemstone caverns hand in a control deck seems big.

I'm glad people have used and are using Ancient Tomb as a way to counter spheres. It would seem that it works for some people and I am curious to learn more about your experiences with the card.

First of all, let me make a big disclaimer here by saying I haven't touch vintage in over a year. I was wondering though, with the recent top 8 of gencon consisting of 4 shop decks, why non-shop decks don't utilize ancient tomb or city of traitors themselves?

I know this isn't legacy where combo decks use ancient tomb / city of traitors to power out a show and tell, but it seems surprisingly strange to me that non-shop decks aren't utilizing these type of lands. Fear of colorscrew is all fine, but if you can't get out of a sphere lock, all the colors in the world aren't going to matter any way.

There is also Gemstone Caverns, which reallly doesn't want to catch a wasteland, but at least you have spell pierce or steel sabotage mana up on the first turn.

What are the currently most played ways to fight through workshop? Lotus Cobra/H. Recall/Rebuild?

Would love to get a heads up on the format and discuss sol lands here.

Scavenge seems interesting. I'm sure there will be something broken. Ravnica was one of the most popular blocks ever and they will not make this a worst experience.

Also, I could see some utility creatures that use counters as a resource, think Spike Feeder and Wickerbough Elder. Perhaps there will be a Graveshell Scarab like card, which will return to play if there is a creature with a +1/+1 counter on it. Then, we could also get a creature that can put counters on any permanent (not just +1/+1 but any counters).

There are quiet a few options for this mechanic to be useful. Also, scavenge G +20/+20 would see play.

and quickly looks away. what a fucking disgrace of a set :/


Bruizar, what does this thread offer to TMD?  Furthermore, how does the use of expletives make your point any better?  

This thread violates section II, subsection I of the TMD site rules.  Additionally, I'd remind you that we expect proper punctuation and grammar.  This means capitalization, proper spelling, etc. 

Full warning for lack of content and your thread has been locked - Prospero

The thing about lodestone golem is that it is a tempo card. I'd compare it to something like tempo thresh in legacy. It's a card that gives you a window of opportunity that you have to use to get your 20 points of damage through. The reason why the opener of this thread doesn't likelodestone golem, is because he doesn't want to take advantage of that window of opportunity by sealing the game through damage. He wants to have 'fun' locking someone out instead of winning. It's like playing Delver of Secrets a hand full of Daze/counter backup, and then forgetting to attack 3 times. By the that time, you've essentially lost the game.

Magic is very much a 'timeline game', the way RTS games such as age of empires and starcraft are timeline games. Failing to take advantage of momentum (for example: because you want to build up your base and make it cute) will lead to failure.

Also, demonic tutor and vampiric tutor are bad. They take away a lot of mana and set you back too much to warrant a silverbullet package. You don't run these kinds of cards in a deck that can't properly use its entire mana base to cast them in the first place. The only reason why I would want to play a colored version of stax is because of Balance, Bob and Welder. I don't even like tinker, because if you have a blue source, a wasteland and a workshop, you have 5 mana at your disposal but you still can't play the tinker. If you have any sphere effect in play, you're making life even harder for yourself. That said, if you are running 5 color lands, you are likely going to play tinker, but tinker is really only useful if you have a broken silverbullet like Sundering Titan in your deck, which I don't like because it makes the deck less consistent.

All in all, if I were to play a colored workshop list, I would play something with welders and barbarian rings. I would probably cut black unless I could take advantage of Urborg (which makes yourmana base much more consistent due to workshops/bazaar). I would also include lodestone golem and start pulling in wins where I have created a window of opportunity through tempo plays. I would not play Wurmcoil Engine, but would trade it for Precursor golem because its cheaper and puts more power on the table, while also working better with cards such as goblin welder and tangle wire. 9 power is about the same you would get if you would cast tinker, but now you can reliably cast it for 5 colorless mana, without the pains of sorcery+blue, and you can play more of them. I would drop smokestack all together or atleast reduce the number of smokestacks, because its not a tempo play, but a slow inevitibility play. Inevitibility plays generally cost a lot of time and time is not a resource you want to spoil. I would run Null Rod as well, since you won't need so much artifact hate, and it helps protect it self from hurkylls recall/rebuild because it shuts down moxen. Your moxen are better anyway, because you have goblin welder to trade them for real cards.

City in a bottle also has implications against workshop builds running welder/bazaar engine, and worldgorger dragon, should some brave soul try to pilot those decks.

Pithing Needle may do the same in those cases, but I like to diversify hate.  Especially if you want to play chalice for 1, city in a bottle is a good alternative to pithing needle. The biggest problem imo is that city in a bottle doesn't stop time vault.

QFT, Crucible makes this card a lot better.

Also needs more Serum Powder

I know I've recommended Sculpting Steel a ton in the past, but I personally didn't like Phyrexian Metamorph at all. I had 3 in the sideboard and it was just never relevant. In theory, the card should be great, but it was disappointing to me. Perhaps I need to test it more

The card is even a 0/0 artifact creature so it's not affected by Thorn of Amethyst and Lodestone Golem. Not sure why this card was so unimpressive.

I played this to a top 8 finish last weekend. I'm not sold on Null Rod. I had no troubles beating Oath. Goblin Welder was an all star all day long and I wouldn't have won without Welder. Tangle Wire was sweet as well.

3 Tangle Wire
3 Smokestack
4 Thorn of Amethyst
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Lodestone Golem
4 Goblin Welder
1 Kuldotha Phoenix
2 Karn, Silver Golem
2 Crucible of Worlds
3 Null Rod
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Barbarian Ring
3 Mountain
3 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Ancient Tomb

I would replace the Null Rods for Revokers and make room for a Keldon Megaliths to deal with Goblin Welder/Dark Confidant/Phyrexian Revoker/Fish. I really want to play with Chalice of the Void but it interferes with my own deck and makes me more reliant on the diceroll. Phoenix was a tool with smokestack that I could mill into with bazaar and to speed up the clock a bit. (9 damage with golem and phoenix per turn)

Because it's inaccurate as hell

Too dangerous... No real drawback. Since Workshop was already broken in half, it would be broken in a quarter with this land. This land upgrades City of Traitors and Ancient Tomb by a large margin, because they would now function similarly as workshops. Also, play this AND a wasteland is just nasty

Gitaxian Probe says: +2 storm, +2 cards, -4 life in your Yawgmoth´s will turn. It makes going off with Tendrils a lot easier. 2 probes and 8 life further, you are 4 storm and 4 cards richer and you still have all your mana sources untapped..

I pulled a sword of war and Peace today, sold it for 20 euros. One of my games went first turn skirge third turn sword into nuts.

Btw rage extractor was fucking awesome for me all day long. That thing is so great. Turns anything into value amd its good in multiples. Im not sure how fast standard is but damn rage extractor was so nice. It dealt 10-13 damage per game i saw it in.

Yeah, Arcbound Ravager is gonna love this too!

I think this is my favorite card of the set.

Surely, this is not an eternal staple but it´s such a powerful and undercosted card in the common slot. For 1 colorless mana you can have a flying/lifelink creature. It even gets back your phyrexian mana cost. Vampire nighthawk has deathtouch and +1/+2 for 2 mana extra and that was a card that was played a lot.

Flying and lifelink just begs for equipment. I think it would go great together with Stoneforge Mystic (What doesn´t)

I think blade splicer is an incredible equipment carrier. You can equip a 3/3 first strike (first strike on an equipped creature is already powerful), and when it dies, equip the 1/1. Squadron Hawk costs 1W per flying body though.

I expect it to be pretty strong in standard and definitely worth more than 2$

I think Blade Splicer is incredibly underpriced at the moment. its at 2 bucks but i think 6 at least should be more fair.

Sword of War and Peace at 25$ is a rip off
Phyrexian Obliterator at 25$ is even worse
Karn at 50$ is too much too

The presale for this set is too expensive. The set can't carry as much value as SCG is rating the cards at. Birthing Pod is still underpriced at SCG.

Watch out for Andy's article next week. I preordered my foil pods and I suggest you do the same..

A quick rundown of my first picks of the set.

Mental Misstep - Card is good Get foils because they will be worth 40 euros each

Birthing Pod - card is good

Phyrexian Metamorph - Great card in a lot of formats. Super versatile, nice cost

Batterskull - One of the best cards of the set. This thing is gonna push Stoneforge Mystic over the top in standard and I can also see this being played in legacy. You can't remove it and the life gain is tremendous. Its mythic so i think this is going to be more expensive than that shitty Karn we got.

Gitaxian Probe - This card is good


Less interesting:

Sword of War and Peace - the colors make it decent. I'm sure this thing will prove its worth, its not what we hoped but its probably good enough

Dismember - 1 colorless mana answer to big creatures. Could see some play in colors that are lacking removal.

Surge Node - Best proliferate card yet. Not sure where this goes but it has potential

Torpor Orb - Not too exciting, but hunted horror/dreadnaught/stifle will like this in legacy.

Puresteel Paladin - I can't help but like this card. Drawing cards for equipments and being able to equip for free is great. Will probably not see tons of play but the powerlevel is great.

Hex Parasite - Utility creature like last set's 2CC needle-on-a-stick

Surgical Extraction - We already have Extirpate so the effect is nothing new, but phyrexian mana is better than split second

Moltensteel Dragon - It's not really an elegant card, but I like it nonetheless. The thing has a lot of reach for cheap. Perhaps in life.dec or some soulsisters build in non-vintage formats

Beast Within - Not the set's greatest card, but still a solid removal spell, especially for oath.

Hate to be negative, but I didn´t like the article. A lot of words for a simple list that was already on the forums. This article could be boiled down to

2 dragon breath
1 emrakul
1 BSC

Instead, you opted to write a 4551 word article about those 4 cards. Uninspiring, and time consuming.

Edit: the subtle attack against Smemmen´s $4 article displays a lack of character. If there is one thing you should learn, it is not to bash others, but to produce great articles yourself (something you clearly didn´t do this time.)

Edit 2: Every time a new card is introduced into an existing archetype, I don´t feel like having to reread several years of historical decklists. It is irrelevant.

Green Sun Zenith already jumped up from $6 to around $10.

I think either, or both Mirran and Phyrexian Crusader deserve a mention.

These cards can see play in legacy and younger formats.

Phyrexian Crusader, has Protection from White and Red. This means it has protection from everything in zoo except for Tarmogoyf (Firststrike + infect means it takes cares of Wild Nacatls too). Phyrexian Crusader looks like a great fit for Dead Guy Ale where you can complement the infect strategy with Stoneforge Mystic and Grafted Exoskeleton. Dark Ritual can power Phyrexian Crusader out on the first turn and it can't be plowed or bolted.

Mirran Crusader is another fantastic equipment carrier, but I believe Phyrexian Crusader is better, at least in Dead Guy Ale.

They are both cheap at the moment, so if you can pick these up, I'd gamble in favor of them.

Of course I can attack you, actually, the first thing I'm going to do with my copy IS attack you! I will force you to block it and remove your BSC from play. I don't need to come through with an 11/11 because I have a deck with Golems that provide enough of a clock to win the game. Also another minor point, if you shuffle your BSC back, you have a chance to top deck a BSC, while I have a chance to top deck my Sculpting Steel again.

Sculpting Steel answers BSC at half the prize of Duplicant. Duplicant turns BSC against its opponent by becoming an 11/11. While getting free 11/11's is certainly good, it's not when you are paying 6 mana (or more) in the early game! Duplicant is useless if you can't cast it, and Sculpting Steel is a perfect answer to an early BSC. Sure it doesn't give you an 11/11, but the benefits outweigh the cons. Both Tangle Wire and an extra Sculpting Steel win you the game, whereas a single Sculpting Steel saves your ass turn 1/2. You are comparing  Counterspell to Spelljack, no doubt Spelljack is stronger, its just that it costs 3 times the mana Counterspell requires.

The difference is this:
*Duplicant requires your opponent to play threats
*Sculpting Steel requires you to play threats.

Workshop decks are not reactive, they are proactive, so you should lead with threats. Duplicant does nothing to avoid a H.Recall/Rebuild. Sculpting Steel will since it can copy Thorn of Amethyst, Phyrexian Revoker naming another mana source, Sphere of Resistence or Lodestone golem. Duplicant will do nothing against a player that decides not to tinker for BSC but mass bounce / tendrils you, or mass bounce, tutor vault key.

Duplicant is good against goyfs, but you should already be good against those kinds of decks.

Another point is that you want to have several (3) Sculpting Steels so you have a reliable chance of drawing one in your first 10 cards so you are fast enough to answer BSC (Workshop doesn't have good draw engines).

If you would have to prepare against BSC with Duplicants, this means every time your opponent doesn't tinker for Duplicant, you will be sitting with a dead Duplicant in your hand. A 6 mana 2/4 is simply not good. You can play it as a sideboard card, but dedicating 3 slots or more in the main is downright inappropriate, whereas less than that won't save your ass against BSC on a regular basis.