So, Snapcaster Mage does seem like an awesome choice. Does Flashback not exile the card cast with it upon resolution?

Echoing Truth was chosen against because it cannot target lands. Echoing Truth is an awesome bouncer, and may be worth running a couple just for anti-aggro with a bit of nonland bouncing. Not being able to bounce a land really hurts though.

My first Blue Bouncy deck was actually the Tradewind Rider and Man-o'-War with Capsize from back in the 90's. I have tried to figure out a good way to reuse Tradewind Rider, and Snapcaster Mage may be a good solution for that. Man-o'-War is just too weak for the cost these days.

If I am not mistaken, Riftwing Cloudskate is counterable once the last suspend counter is removed and the card is put onto the stack. The suspend itself is not counterable by anything other than a Stifle type effect.

I was not aware of Arcane Laboratory or Riptide Laboratory. Arcane Lab does seem pretty awesome. I thought there were some other cards which had a similar effect as well. I will have to do some digging though. Riptide Laboratory with Snapcaster Mage would be awesome. Still, the Flashback versus Buyback may be a problem. Also, would Riftwing Cloudskate also get around the one spell restriction form Arcane Laboratory when the last suspend counter is removed?

Personally, I like that the Riftwing Cloudskate can keep bouncing lands over and over, but the three turns to have to wait for that bounce can be annoying (and sometimes critical). I do agree, that if the Flashback can be made to work well enough, that Ninja of the Deep Hours would work much better with Snapcaster Mage.

My main problem with Recoil is, as you said, it's not mono blue. I am really wanting to keep the focus on mono blue, as it is naturally resilient to many common Vintage tactics targeted at cards heavily played in multicolour decks.

I really do like the Mikokoro, Center of the Sea. It's like a Howling Mine that I can choose when to use it. I believe tying up three lands for this, since it's my decision of when I want it, is very doable as well.

I have tried to figure out how to fit in a Temporal Adept as well. He is like a cheap Capsize on a stick.

As for Hoodwink, in mono blue, it seems Hoodwink is worse than Boomerang and comparable to Eye of Nowhere.

I do agree with the suggestion concerning Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and though I may consider putting up to three in the deck, I am trying to avoid making the standard Jace.dec that everyone runs.

It seems many of the games last fairly long too. If everything is working out as planned, an average game is about an hour for a single game. This is definitely not a viable tournament deck, unless you were just looking for a Shahrazad approach. So, having a fourth Jace, you may end up with too many of them. I would rather have a Capsize at that point, or a Temporal Adept.

I am going to test out the Snapcaster Mage in place of Riftwing Cloudskate. I feel like they are comparable cards, but that one may be slightly better than the other, with some minor modifications to the rest of the deck. If Snapcaster does prove to be a better choice, I would much prefer it.

Thanks for all of the suggestions! It would be great to see some of the decklists you guys come up with. =)

The game today fellas, is called 60 Card Pickup. When I let you play a card, you pick it back up.

So the basis of the deck is to do one of three things: Dig/Draw, Counter, Bounce
I understand this is definitely not a new concept. Blue bounce decks have been around since 1993, and then they kinda faded off. Perhaps because land bouncing is so expensive compared to just killing your opponent. (Note: Do not take this deck to a serious tournament unless you plan to likely lose.) This is a Vintage remake of the old Blue Bouncy shell, for current day card selections. I would love constructive feedback, but seeing as this is the Internet, I will likely have 20+ troll replies to this post. Now for some card choices and explanations...

Card Selections:

Capsize
I know you're like "wtf thats 6 mana! ur so bad trolelolol!", but hear me out. It's a 1-of, designed for late game usage, and if you draw it mid or early game, then you can just hold it, or Brainstorm/Jace it back into your deck, or pitch it to a critical Force or whatever. It's not a big deal. It's just one card, which if drawn at the right time, will win your game.

Boomerang
There are numerous 2cmc bounce-any cards to choose from, but Boomerang is an Instant and it's pretty straight forward. The goal is to try and save it to force your opponent to pick up a land, to buff your bouncing speed. In a pinch, you can make them pick up anything you need at the time, or pitch it. As a matter of fact, about 60% of the deck can be used as a FoW pitch.

Steel Sabotage
Probably one of the best Vintage bounce/counter for 1cmc. With artifacts galore, having a 1cmc option to counter or bounce, gives you a great advantage over your opponent in many cases.

Riftwing Cloudskate
This guy has a horrible mana cost, and the amount of suspend counter can be annoying, but he does suspend (allowing you to bypass counterspells), and he only costs 1U to do so. Then you just pick him up after a swing or two, and start the counters over.

Ninja of the Deep Hours
In conjunction with the Riftwing Cloudskate, this guy is part of your draw engine, part of your bounce engine, and a bit of damage pressure to your opponent.

Jace, the Mind Sculptor
This guy is in like every deck these days. Almost to the point of annoyance. He does provide a nice creature bounce (Riftwing Cloudskate), a Brainstorm on a stick, and he helps to buff that little bit of control against what your opponent has in their hand to get you over the hump.

Black Vise
This is your main source of damage. With your opponent ending up, mid to late game, with 8+ cards in their hand each turn, the Black Vise hurts bad and fast. It's a great turn 1 opener as well, if you are on the play. Having four of them in this deck is rarely a bad thing.

The rest of the deck is basically your standard collection of Vintage blue staples. I am running nearly full Islands, but you could run fetches if you like. Keep in mind, fetches hurt your max land count, and as such, hurt your Capsize. I chose a minimal set of jewelry for space purposes. Also, non-blue mana kinda screws you in this deck, so I would suggest staying away from as many non-blue sources as possible.

Here is the listing I have been testing with for people to get an idea of the concept and application:

60 Card Pickup

    16 Island
    1 Library of Alexandria
    1 Black Lotus
    1 Mox Sapphire
    1 Mana Vault
    1 Sol Ring
    1 Mana Crypt

    4 Force of Will
    2 Mana Drain
    2 Mental Misstep
    2 Steel Sabotage
    1 Flusterstorm
    1 Misdirection

    4 Black Vise

    3 Riftwing Cloudskate
    2 Ninja of the Deep Hours

    2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

    4 Boomerang
    1 Capsize

    4 Preordain
    1 Time Walk
    1 Merchant Scroll
    1 Ancestral Recall
    1 Brainstorm
    1 Ponder
    1 Mystical Tutor

There is no sideboard, currently, but it would likely include some grave hate, Stifle, Hurkyl's Recall/Rebuild, and some archetype specific choices for when I begin to run into troublesome decks.

I do like both Garruk Wildspeaker and Jace Beleren in Stasis decks. For Garruk, I would take a more Quirion Dryad style route, with Root Maze. Mainly because of the heavier focus on green. I would consider dropping the Gush package. Jace can work as a better Howling Mine in most cases. The cost difference may be worth it, though he would be easier to cast if there were maybe some Lotus Cobras. The problem I had with Cobra though, was he typically produces mana tricks in my main phase, when ideally I would like it during my upkeep.

Okay, so I don't know if anyone has posted a deck like this recently or not, but here it is anyways.

Stasis decks have always been a favourite of mine. Ever since the Time Elemental and Kismet, and the later Tradewind Rider/Boomerang decks, I have loved Stasis decks. As the years progressed, one specific Stasis deck performed fairly well in a tournament setting... Turbo Stasis. The concept was simple, just pay for the Stasis. No cheats, no bouncing, no crying (at least not for the Stasis player), just pay the each turn for as long as you can (of course, there's always a contingency).

The concept of this Stasis deck is very similar, while making some new card choices based on current day Vintage standards. This has only been run in casual games and online, this deck has yet to be tested in a real world tournament environment. The whole concept of how a Stasis deck wins is generally unfavourable in tournaments (ref. Shahrazad). I feel this is still a pretty competitive deck considering its target environment. So, here is the listing...

Turbo Stasis Redux [Vintage]
Mana Sources:
4x Tropical Island
4x Forsaken City
4x Island
3x Misty Rainforest
2x Scalding Tarn
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Opal
4x Noble Hierarch

Bounce/Control:
4x Force of Will
4x Chain of Vapor
2x Nature's Claim
4x Regrowth

Draw/Dig:
4x Howling Mine
4x Gush
1x Fastbond
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Brainstorm
1x Ponder
1x Merchant Scroll

Lock/Kill:
4x Stasis
4x Black Vise


Sideboard:
2x Nature's Claim
2x Mindbreak Trap
4x Tormod's Crypt
3x Grafdigger's Cage



Mana Sources:
So, in light of Regrowth being unrestricted, I chose to go with a Gush package for drawing. This forces me to focus the mana base towards Islands. I have tried to mix non-Island, non-Land, mana in as well whilst still maintaining the focus on Islands. Forsaken City, in conjunction with Howling Mine, provides a permanent way of paying for the Stasis. A slim jewelry package was chosen due to the Island restriction. The power seems weak here actually, and I had considered stripping them in favour of Null Rod. The Noble Hierarchs simply provide an alternate source of and a little bit of damage to get you over the hump.


Bounce/Control:
Force of Will is an obvious choice, and Regrowth is such a strong utility. The Regrowth is for use with pretty much anything you need again like Chain of Vapor, Gush, Force of Will, Black Vise, etc. The Chain of Vapor and Nature's Claim are in the deck primarily to provide a method of 'resetting' your Stasis by destroying or bouncing it at the end of your opponent's turn. Part of the key here is the 0/1 cmc.


Draw/Dig:
Okay, so I know Howling Mine is like, 'You idiot, what are you doing?', but in this shell it actually becomes a Force of Will target. It does four main things all in one. It helps to add to your artifact count for Mox Opal, it permits you to find your critical cards faster, it also helps to keep your opponent's hand full while you have them tapped down and a Black Vise is on them, as well as providing a way for you to pay for the Stasis with Forsaken City. It really is a pretty critical card, however laughable it may be. The Gushbond, Recall, Scroll of BrainPonder, package is pretty standard.


Lock/Kill:
This particular Stasis deck revolves around Black Vise damage. There are numerous methods of killing an opponent, but in light of tournament time limits, a damage route was chosen. (...and what's more old school than Howling Mine + Black Vise)


Sideboard:
Uhm... well it's meta dependent. I have provided an example sideboard, but really the choices should essentially conform to the following rules:
- 0 or 1 Converted Mana Cost
- Blue, Green, or Artifact
- Answer

So you get there how you like...

rmn, I do aggressive mulligan this deck a lot looking for turn 1 sphere effects. An opening of Thalia+Void does give you 5 turns before your opponent can do anything in most cases, that's at least 8-10 damage from just the Thalia, assuming you draw nothing else relevant. I try to combat this issue with Bob though.

Guli, no the human deck does not *need* to stick a Void to win. The deck's purpose is to play Void though. It may fit better in a stax shell though that does run Wires and the such. We have been trying to get it to work in that shell.

Prkchp, this isn't Wish and isn't going to open with a 7 card God hand most games, you have to treat it more like Dredge when looking at your opening hand. Ctrl+M is your friend.

Knight is a pretty good suggestion. I did not realize he was a human. I will probably try him out. The 4th Cavern is sometimes detrimental to a turn 1 Void because it doesn't produce black for it. Also with Vials in the deck you don't need a 4th Cavern. If you drop the Vials then you would probably need a 4th Cavern though. I like the Sentinel mainly because even if I am playing against blue and cannot get any other effects into play, the Sentinel gives me a guaranteed creature. That ability alone cannot simply be discarded, but there are some alternate options definitely.

As stated twice earlier, the Vault of Whispers is 1.) it produces black mana for casting Void, and 2.) it adds to the artifact count of the deck to bring a Mox Opal online.

Glowrider is pretty good, the only thing I don't like is the 3cmc, but considering the effect it's worth it a lot of times.

rmn, I chose against tutors because they cost +3/4 mana after a resolved Void and because most don't fetch me an opening hand Void. If I took the focus off sticking a sphere turn 1 then I would probably run less Voids and more control. I'm not really sure what you mean by 'too vanilla' though. Mayor provides the much needed reach the deck is lacking otherwise, and the Sentinel can be swapped out but he's a 3cmc 4/4 that no one can stop from coming into play, in a deck where the concept is to increase costs or counter them. He directly cheats the lock innately.

I would like to run Rod, this is a great option. I would have to drop AEther Vial though. As mentioned in Guli's thread, he has no answer for Moon effects, I do by way of AEther Vial. Is that even relevant though? I don't even know, because I haven't played against a Moon deck yet. At this point I see some suggestions for changes, most seem very valid for different reasons. The deck is proving itself as-is so far, so I am unlikely to change it much (if at all) until I see a problem I cannot handle at all or find a card that is an obvious 'why are you NOT running this?'

Thanks! I always loved Nether Void too. I used to watch people play decks with Hypnotic Spectre and Juzam Djinn as their win con for the deck. When I went to do research on it more recently, the newest information on a decent build was dated 2002. I'm running the Vault of Whispers because it helps the artifact count for Mox Opal.

Yes, the goal of the deck is to stick a sphere effect turn 1, mainly Nether Void, then aggro them out with tech creatures. So far people have been dying to their own Bob because they can't cast the cards and eventually flip too much damage. There is a very good chance their Bob could out run mine depending on the rest of their build. I have an answer for him in the way of Abrupt Decay, though. I do not have an answer for Blightsteel or Lodestone. I haven't had someone get a Blightsteel out against me yet, but I would like to have a cheatable answer for handling the high cmc creatures like him, Emrakul, Tidespout, Griselbrand, etc. I don't know of a card that does this though.

The vial is not really required. It helps sometimes with playing a Spirit Guide or Sentinel because they aren't humans, but the Sentinel is uncounterable and you generally end up using the Spirit Guide as mana anyways. So that would free up 3 slots for me and maybe I could run Null Rod there then?? I really need the mox mana though for mid to late game. I chose against the Exalted creatures because I didn't want to focus on an 'all eggs in one basket' approach which seems to be a weakness of the exalted decks. Noble Hierarch also is bant colours, which I am not running. The black is required for the Nether Void. I would like a 1cmc Human though, I just hope Hierarch isn't the best fit. Though, she does directly assist with mid/late game mana problems so I could run Null Rod effects.

Is the turn 1 Nether Void worth it? Well if it sticks, they scoop. It's basically reads 'I win' versus most decks. It directly attacks the 3 most heavily relied upon mana bases used in Vintage currently. Null Rod effects provide a better hate towards the artifact mana base though. Especially if you are on the draw. With Wish on the rise, and all its ritual mana and desire to storm out, it is a direct counter to their goal. Shop crumbles if they rely on the Shop alone. So both of those decks turn into a coin flip match because its whether or not you stick a Thalia or Nether Void turn 1 or not. I have seen a Human deck running this same sort of shell that runs Ethersworn Cannonist as an alternative soft lock. It works well too, and is much easier to get out. It might be a better option, I have not tested it much yet.

We tried non-black mana and it made the opening hands very inconsistent. If you notice, the majority of the mana base produces 1 or more black as a minimum requirement. This is due to the cost of Nether Void and Dark Ritual. If Nether Void is swapped out for Cannonist, then I would not focus the mana base so heavily towards black. So Mishra's Factory would fit well in that probably. I do not count the Wastelands and Strip Mine towards the deck's mana base. I like the idea of black 1cmc discard. Possibly even Unmask since it turns a dead Nether Void or Dark Ritual into a live card mid to late game, I would have to play around with some hands to see if it disrupts the turn 1 Nether Void plays too much.

Ultimately this was a goal of making a deck around Nether Void and cheating the effect. I think the shell that's running it has even more potential just as a prison aggro deck in general. The human tribal has some very strong options and the 5 colours of the Cavern open up a lot of options most aggro decks don't get otherwise. I noticed Guli has a post on here about his human tribal deck and it's a great base for something more like a Cannonist approach. I took much of the idea of this deck from that base.

Edit: It may be worth looking at Braids, Cabal Minion to dump my own Bob when he becomes detrimental and set my opponent up for a hard lock.

I decided I wanted to run Nether Void mainly because it is the most detrimental sphere type effect I can think of. So, Shax and I sat down and played with some lists trying to figure out ways to abuse the card with newer cards that have been printed. Using some of the concepts from Guli's human deck on Cockatrice, we came up with this list:

Deck List:

4 Nether Void
1 Trinisphere

4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Dark Confidant
3 Mayor of Avabruck
3 Loxodon Smiter

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual

3 AEther Vial

1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
2 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Opal
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire

3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Scrubland
2 Bayou
3 Cavern of Souls
3 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Tomb of Urami
1 Vault of Whispers


Deck design philosophy and selections explanation:

Basically the goal is to stick a sphere effect turn 1, much like shop decks do. The sphere effects we use are Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Nether Void, and Trinisphere though. Shop decks cheat their sphere effects with the Mishra's Workshop, but the mana for it cannot pay to play Nether Void or its sphere cost, so we had to take a different approach. Looking at the effect it produces, we noticed that anything that defeats the counter effect that people use Chalice of the Void for, also works against Nether Void. Guli had been playing around with a multi-coloured Human tribal deck running on Cavern of Souls. A modification of this shell has shown to be quite useful. Slotting in some AEther Vials and "can't be countered" effects as a backup to the Cavern, we created a fairly stable base for cheating the Void.

Both the Mayor and Smiter give the deck much needed reach since a 2/1 doesn't always cut it. The token generation from the flipped Mayor helps fight other aggro decks. Innately, the deck is resistant to counter based control decks and performs well versus many combo decks, especially storm based combo. Many shop decks also seem to be hit hard by the Void if they aren't running double tap lands. The deck performs poorly against other Cavern decks and heavy aggro.

Running the deck for about 6 hours on Cockatrice it beat a Menendian style Wish deck 2-1-0, 2x Shop decks 2-1-0 (with double tap lands) and 2-0-0 (without double tap lands), Mana Ichorid 2-1-0, Affinity 2-0-0, Mono-Black Affinity 2-1-0, Battle Cry Aggro 2-1-0, and Tidespout Oath 2-0-0. The deck did not lose a full match during this time but there is not enough data yet to determine proper ratios. From what I can tell, the deck should have lost to the Oath deck, and Mono-Black Affinity (he was cheating the Void with massive mana production like Lake of the Dead and Priest of Gix).

Some cards we have been playing around with are Abrupt Decay, Devout Chaplain, Rest in Peace, and Null Rod. The Chaplain seems to be too slow and require too many resources to get him online but the effect is what we are looking for. Something that cheats the Void and pops artifacts and enchantments. Abrupt Decay is a great removal card, I would like to have another option as well though. Rest in Peace is great and generally worth paying the 5/6 mana for when playing Dredge or grave based decks. Null Rod hurts the mana base we are running but the effects of turning off the opponent's jewelry is the desired result. We considered Chalice for this but the fact that if they can cheat the Void they can cheat the Chalice most likely and it turns off our moxen, makes it not favourable either.

With the Dark Ritual, Nether Void, and Thalia being dead cards in multiples or under Void effects, we added some Chrome Mox to help fix some of the mana problem and make those dead draws useful. I found that it is frequently worth paying 4 mana for a Chrome Mox, as mid to late game every mana counts and it helps the deck more consistently place a Void turn 1/2.

I would love to hear some ideas on more ways to cheat the void effect and/or pay into it better.

I played the demo and liked it. Has anyone played the full version? Is it worth the money and why?

What is the official ruling on coin flips? When I flip the coin into the air and I call heads or tails, upon catching it do I have to put it on the table palm down, or is it simply caught in my hand palm up, or can I choose which way I prefer to do it? With Krark's Thumb on the table am I allowed to flip both coins simultaneously? If me and my opponent both are required to flip with me having a thumb out, do we both flip once, then I flip again, then I choose which I want to keep? What are the rules concerning excessive coin flips with the intention of running down the game clock?