This deck has been the bane of my tournament existence since inception. The amount of permanents this deck can power out is just incredible, and you don't lose options if they blow stuff up because of Bazaar/Mask. Once everything is on the board, its just up to the player how to finish the opponent off, whether by Slaver lock, Stax lock, Strip/Cruci, Uba/Welder, whatever. Does anyone have silver bullets for this deck? In tourneys i've found all my solutions (R+R, Lava Dart, Hurkyls) to be subpar. It busts every control deck I run, outdrawing decks like Goth Slaver while systematically removing counterspells. I just don't know what front to attack this deck on.

I don't think 99% of the vintage useful cards have been 'found', as you say, it all depends on the subtle shifts in metagame...The cards Steve mentioned like In The Eye Of Chaos and Old Man Of The Sea are good examples of how the right situation can give certain cards ascendancy over the metagame...There's plenty of old stupid cards in the early sets that just need the right circumstances to make them worth packing in a deck. Oftentimes i reckon people just forget about these sorts of silver bullets until they flip through an old folder...it's kind of hard to keep 36+ sets of cards up in your head, along with the creativity to apply them to a particular situation.  :shock:

4 Underground Sea
4 Tundra
4 Volcanic Island
4 Tropical Island

I had a bunch of the others including 4 Bayous and Scrublands, but i traded them all off in a deal for a Mox Jet...good deal for me.  All revised, pimping land is too expensive for me right now.

I'd be interested to ask Kevin and Steve whether In The Eye Of Chaos worked out for them in Stax on the day. What were they expecting to see that prompted its inclusion?

I suspect it's to keep a uniform casting cost of 2 for Aether Vial.

I'm also wondering why no Cloud Of Fairies...granted, you can't vial them out, but the 2 mana benefit you get can pay for a Jitte/equip cost/mongrel/standstill/etc.

Good point Hanno, but will forking a Tinker/Will during their turn actually make a difference? If you fork Will, you lose the ability to play sorceries/permanents...at best you get another A.Call (if you're lucky) and maybe a couple of counterspells to stop their Will from going broken. If you fork tinker, what are you gonna go for, Isochron Scepter? I'd hesitate to say it actually 'circumvents' Boseiju, since they get the effect they want from it - forcing through their spell. Also, playing Mis-D on an A.Call nets you 3 cards while denying them 3, whereas Twincast gives you both the effect.

Personally i think you Keeper players have better things to spend UU on. Come back to Melbourne, i look forward to Manadraining your Cranial, having your Twincast fizzle for lack of target, then spending the 4 on a Slaver activation!

I think he's referring to the fact that Kiki-Jiki can only target creatures you control, not those controlled by another player.

good tr mate, well done on 2nd place!

that was supremely dodgy with the kikijiki stuff...maybe thats what Zvi meant on scg.com when he said that we shouldn't let the pros into our format :shock:

It's a real dilemma...the needle has focused applications against a wide variety of individual threats, which works both in its favour and against it. On one hand it can hit a whole bunch of things, from bazaar to trike to welder, just to name the big guns. On the other hand, it can only hit one of these things at any one time, and any serious deck will have more than one escape route.

If you consider the only comparable card, Meddling Mage, costs UW to cast for an effect that can be subsumed under Pithing Needle's ability, 1 colourless for a relatively massive roadblock to someone's gameplan seems like a bargain. Unlike Meddling Mage, the Needle's ability doesnt depend on you playing it before the cards hit the table, meaning you can wait for an opponent to drop his stuff before you choose what to shut down.

yeah, those guys are insane. Jaco Pastorius is god damn hot too. another good bassist is Alex Webster from Cannibal Corpse.

Nicholas Barker gets my vote for best drummer, that man is a beast on the double kick.

here's as good as any other place to get into tmd.com i guess...

Name: Giles Emery
Age: 21
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Started 'playing' in Ice Age when i bought a single starter deck and just read the gametext to myself (Scaled Wurm? OMG!). Just played stupid casual decks in highschool with sengir vamp beatdown. Sold up around Torment to a uni friend. About a year or so ago i decided to start up competitive Type 1...since then i've met some cool people locally, and made some friends from overseas (Hi Dozer! ) while being able to finish in the money for my past couple of tournaments. I'm always interested in broadening the T1 scene here in Melbourne, and i'm always interested in becoming a better player so i can pay off my Power 9 debts with tournament proceeds! Outside of MtG, i play bass and electric guitar, i study law, i pretend to go to the gym, and collect various sorts of mindblowing chilli products. I started my competitive career with Trinistax, and i am currently playing Gothslaver.