Copied the list here, hopefully I didn't forget anything.: http://pastebin.com/VBjfZvi0

As for what I'd run, not knowing anything about the event, I'd probably run something with blue in it. At worst, you can splash for like, Tinker and Certarchs.

Just my two Sarpadian coppers!
Mindstab Thrull

I'd like to make one suggestion that I haven't seen made yet, though I don't know how feasible it is..

If you're getting a hotel room close to the venue, leave most of your stuff there. It'll be a lot safer in a locked area. At GP: Montreal last year, my hotel room was maybe five minutes by foot from the site. Ten minutes round trip to drop stuff off and bring other stuff is not a big deal. If you're driving, leaving it in the car is a good idea, but make it hidden from easy view. For example, in the trunk with the parcel shelf covering it will help. In short: If they can't see it, they can't steal it. If you're taking your Vintage deck with you to the event, take the deck, dice, pen, notepad.. and leave everything else somewhere safe.

(I do overnights at a gas station. It's pretty common knowledge that I don't keep much money in my till at night, and it helps immensely being a deterrent from being robbed. Other sites have more floating around, and as a result become much more attractive to being robbed. The last time I was robbed was about five years ago, and I think that was largely because the main entry door was wide open rather than being locked, because the AC was down and it was too warm in the store. Otherwise.. people see me watching and paying attention, and know I don't have much.)

Just my two Sarpadian coppers
Mindstab Thrull

I must admit, I like this list. However, I can't help but wonder if this was a simple matter of "Hey, Griselbrand looks cool. What's the best way to cheat him out? OK, he'll draw an assload of cards. What's the best way to make use of that?" I don't know if that's a good thing or not, but if memory serves me right, most Oathables were just good creatures, or fat creatures that played disruption as well.

Random commentary on some Oath creatures/lists..
Rune-Scarred Demon was cute but all it was was another Demonic Tutor for 1G plus a turn.
Sun Titan at least gave you the ability to assemble Vault/Key without needing Tinker or the like.
Still miss playing with something "fun" like Iona/Don/Emrakul.

Grizzled Oath is the first Oath list I've seen in forever that really doesn't need Tinker->Bot. I suppose if you want Tinker, you could go for the old-school Jar instead, which might help with the Storm plan as well. So glad to see a blue-based Vintage list that doesn't care about assembling Tinker-BSC, who pretty much was the go-to since he got printed (which I absolutely hate! No options anymore!).

Seriously though, if I could build this, I'd be all over it in a Heartbeat of Spring.

Mindstab Thrull
Nomming sanity since 1864 BSE (Before Sarpadian Empires)

OK.. maybe this will help a bit..

This weekend I played in my first Vintage event in a few years. It was a zero-proxy, sanctioned event held at Untouchables in Mississauga, Ontario. We only had a few players show up, so it was only three rounds, but:

* I played a substandard Oath list.
* Most of the players there were playing with black-bordered power, dual-lands, and the like.
* I faced Time Vault in two rounds that I recall.

There was no Flusterstorm being tossed around that I saw, but I *did* face Mental Misstep, Force of Will and Tinker into Blightsteel Colossus. And do you know what? The games were long. An Oath mirror in the third round me winning game 1, my opponent won a long, hard-fought battle on game 2, and then he beat me again in game 3. Even the "faster" games were still about the speed of Standard or Modern. I didn't see anyone win on turn 1 or 2, and in fact Landstill was being played.

Yes, this was a small event, but apparently Workshop players also show up with a fair amount of regularity. My very limited but very recent experience suggests that this is, as much as some might feel otherwise, not entirely a fast format, and it might really only be BSC that's speeding things up.



Just my two Sarpadian coppers

Mindstab Thrull

.. Which is basically what I said before, at least in the short term. However, this isn't a JMS-Cawblade-in-Standard situation. There, the problem was a matter of not having the proper tools to fight it in the format. Here, we have plenty of useful tools, including (but not limited to) "meh, just win first." If Gush gets too powerful for the meta, people will just simply build with that in mind.

Mindstab Thrull
Eater of sanities

Steve, I think bluemage's point is this:
 Gush T8'ed a Waterbury with unrestricted Shop, Drain, Ritual and Bazaar, and Vault was legal. With those four "Pillar cards" restricted, Gush will have a much freer reign.

However, I'm not sure I agree with that sentiment. If Gush becomes that powerful, people will just build with it in mind. Gaddock Teeg, for example, may see more play, and maindeck Pyroblast without Painters (which some players already do as is based on their local metagames). Dredge currently gets 6+ cards in the sideboard as is, and it's not even the most powerful deck out there. People will just find other ways to build their decks, and keep Gush specifically in mind when they put together their maindecks and sideboards. Then the meta will shift, or Gush will be also (re-)restricted, and things will balance out again.

---------------

Completely unrelated:
The other day I saw someone in one of the chat rooms asking for Vintage games on MWS with four Brainstorms. I'm curious how that would turn out, assuming (a) the current format and (b) the proposed format.

I'm not sure I agree with the sentiment that this is a bad idea. I'll put it this way..

Look at Legacy, previous versions of Extended, and Modern. They've all already given us ideas on what will happen to the format. Probably the biggest hit is going to be Storm, which will have to rely on red Rituals or High Tide in order to combo off - or Elves. Drain, Shop, and Bazaar don't exist in Legacy, and in the case of Drain, other cards can "relatively" easily take its place. Shop will probably add Mox Diamond, Cloudpost, or something - I could see Flagstones of Trokair + Ghost Quarter to fetch more lands. Dredge will find itself actually casting spells with mana (! sacrilege!) and play more cards like Careful Study and Breakthrough.

Will Gush take over? I don't know, but I really don't think so. There's enough ways in the format - even if you just look at the cards that actually do see play - that every deck can handle it. Gush Storm? There's still Stifle and Mindbreak Trap, or Spheres or whatever. Even just paying attention while they go off will tell you where their bottleneck is so you know what to stop. There's still a mess of cheap artifacts, tutors and Tinker, to be able to pull up BSC and win first. Sure, the format will juggle a bit, and in the short term Gush may prevail - but in the long term, I think people will just do whatever always happens: they'll build to handle it, or the format will change (unrestrict X, Y, Z, and restrict Gush).

OK, so lemme get this right:

Time Vault banned; Mana Drain, Dark Ritual, Mishra's Workshop and Bazaar of Baghdad all restricted.

Time Vault being banned, oddly, I don't find that big a deal. Just means Voltaic Key stays home and Tezzeret has less interesting things to do (although tutoring for artifacts and making them 5/5 beatsticks is still good). (Incidentally, I beat Marske in a game on MWS last year when he had Vault-Key going off - I was playing Oath and locked him out of blue with Oath, and his Tinkerbot was Sphinx of the Steel Wind.. which is blue.. he had no way to win. Point is, even if they have it, they still have to win.)
Mana Drain being restricted isn't that big an issue unless your deck actually needs the mana boost it provides. Draining a Force is always nice, but realistically, I think most decks can find an easy substitute for Drain - Spell Pierce and Negate come to mind. Many Oath lists, for example, don't even bother with Drain. Its big deal is to be able to hardcast your threats - but if you run Show and Tell instead, you can bypass that.
Dark Ritual will be interesting. It will shake up TPS lists, which will probably rely on Red for the Rituals - and Manamorphose - and then just splash Black for tutors, Will and Tendrils.
Workshop, people have been calling to be re-restricted on and off again for some time now. Even with it gone though, Shop decks will likely function well enough as is. A crossbreed of Legacy and Vintage Smokestack-based lists (maybe I should just say Lodestone Golem-based instead, which seems more realistic?) will get you through. You still have Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors, Tolarian Academy.. and I'm sure someone will come up with a Cloudpost-based list. Think how broken that got in Modern.
Bazaar being restricted will make Dredge a little more interesting, and I can somehow see it running Crop Rotation to tutor up the one Bazaar, maybe in combination with Vesuva. There's also other ways to start it off - look at all the draw spells in Vintage. Burning Inquiry could end up making an appearance to replace it (doubtful, but hey, what happens when there's only one now?).

It just means people that want to play these decks will find other ways to do the same broken things that are almost as efficient - or, in some cases, won't make a difference at all.

Mindstab Thrull

So Marske, when are you going to start organizing something in Toronto that's as awesome as this?

I still have to chuckle at "Prizes are GUARANTEED by Rudy’s Magic Backpack" - sounds like a Bag of Holding.. I hope 2nd place is at least worth a Drain. Do you have a likely estimated value for that one yet?

Marske

There is a lot to be said about what you bring up in this post. In fact, many sites have a general rule of posting that goes something like this:

Before you hit Submit/Post, stop and re-read what you wrote.

This one small piece of advice, posted on many sites and I believe even here on TMD, stops a person from making many of the mistakes often found in posts. This doesn't just count spelling and grammar, but also whether the information is logical, how the post flows (does it make sense to be in the order presented?), whether information is redundant or missing, and so forth.

Sadly, there is a large difference between information commonly disseminated, and information commonly read - or remembered. How many people look under a Forum's General Topics and read over the Stickies that explain what the administrators are looking for with respect to how to post - and of those that do, how many mentally respond (or even verbally, sometimes) with "Yeah, whatever" or laugh it off? It doesn't take much to actually start posting in an appropriate manner once you have a grasp of what the administrators want from a post.

One last thing about posting (and this is to the General Public, not Marske specifically): Don't try and use the question "Have you tried it?" or something similar in your post. If you have, give feedback on what you have determined. Let's say for the sake of argument, you have a Dredge list that kicks Storm combo decks in the keister left right and center, and it uses Kaervek the Merciless as a Dread Return target. (I'm not suggesting it does, by the way; if it did, why don't more people use it, at least in the sideboard?) Tell us what you've learned about Kaervek, give us a list, and it's possible that it might not be Kaervek himself but the interaction between him and other cards in the deck. What you've learned, however, is still valuable information. There's also a lot of people on here who have tried Kaervek, and found him not to be as good as other creatures, or other angles of attack, or whatnot, who have a lot of experience with Dredge. It's quite possible it was already tried Some Time Ago, dismissed, and with an explanation on what it did as well as what it didn't do. Then there's people who are able to identify how Dredge operates on a tactical level, and how it has to leverage that against other decks like TPS, and Kaervek just doesn't fit in its plan at all - and a remodel of Dredge to make it good makes it worse against everything else!

Just my two Sarpadian coppers,
Mindstab_Thrull

 OK, we'll try this again..


 OK. Please explain what you mean by 'on principle' here. Keep in mind that while Keeper/The Deck were designed on the concept of card advantage, Force of Will was proven to be so strong that it was actually necessary. Chapin suggests in his book Next Level Magic (p88 for those of you that have a copy) that Weissman originally thought the card advantage was too strong for a deck like The Deck, but eventually agreed that yes, four was the right number. To quote on page 89:


 Obviously this goes back quite a few years to when Mind Twist was banned and Amnesia was being run instead (and Counterspell was being used instead of Force of Will), but the point remains: If the card you're protecting (or stopping, as the case may be) is worth more than a card, Force of Will is worth casting.


 Spot removal is good when it's needed. Be careful, however, of Cunning Wish and their ilk - as I mentioned to Chapin myself in a thread last year (I'll have to find it if you're interested) discussing his build of The Deck at the time, Cunning Wish (and the other Wishes, by extension) is very much a trap. Make sure you're using is as a tool and not a crutch. What I mean is this:
 People that try building decks often have trouble cutting it down to 60 cards. Some people decide to put Wishes in the maindeck and then cards they want in the sideboard. Watch that you're not falling into this trap yourself. I'm not saying you are, but to be honest, when I saw Chapin's list last year, I felt that he had succumbed to the trap, and if a professional player can fall into it, anyone can.
 The Deck has a large number of tutors, card draw effects, and shuffle effects, as well as a good number of plays to give you time (counterspells, Strips, Shaman, and the like). Your chance of finding the necessary one-of in your deck is rather high. I prefer 'flexible' spot removal maindeck myself, such as Fire/Ice. At worst it pitches to Force. It also takes out Bobs and Welders, and taps Trinisphere, amongst other things. A Sword, Edict, or even Sower is good to have maindeck as well, as most decks run some sort of creature(s) maindeck, even if it's only a Tinkerbot - or Sun Titan. But I don't feel you really need more than one or two cards maindeck to deal with creatures, especially since so many decks (TPS and Oath come to mind) are rather creature light, and you're probably better with artifact bounce instead (see: Hurkyl's Recall, et al). This isn't to say Balance is bad, just that how you use it will be very matchup-dependent, and you don't really want to see yourself trying to use it as a Mind Twist.


 Agreed, assuming you mean as in containing so they don't explode.


 I would presume this means you play in a Workshop-heavy metagame. Against many decks - Oath and Dredge, for example - Shaman does little, and in fact you don't want to be dropping Shaman vs Oath. Against Shop decks, you often need a large amount of mana to start hitting the real threats. Against Crucible, for example, you're talking 7 mana, and Stax is essentially brown-based mana denial.
 Wasteland, on the other hand, I agree is fine to run as four of. Then again, I don't agree you *need* to run four Wastes if you run Crucible, my preferred method in The Deck.


 Please explain this. Brainstorm does a number of things. First, it draws you three cards, which is as much as Ancestral Recall. Then it takes two cards from your hand and puts them on top of your library. This is usually one of two things: cards you don't want at that point or soon (now think of all the shuffle effects - tutors, fetchlands, Timetwister and the like - to hide them again), or a card you want to protect from effects like Duress. Ponder, on the other hand, lets you draw any one of the top three cards and reorder the other two, or shuffle your library and draw a fresh random card - one that is likely to, at least, be a card that isn't one of the three you just saw. As a result, these two cards are actually pretty good at digging deeper into your deck to pull up a card you need at a very low investment. And as I mentioned before, between card drawing from cards like these and the amount of tutoring and shuffle effects, you have a pretty good chance of pulling up what you need when you actually need it, if not before then. (Mulligan skills also help, for that matter, as it's like 'free' tutoring for multiple cards.)


Erm..


This isn't remotely close to YawgWill's function. It's more like Braingeyser or Yawgmoth's Bargain than Will. There's no graveyard recursion here, and Wishes don't fetch exiled cards anymore (as of M10). Are you sure this is what you're looking for?

Just my two Sarpadian coppers
Mindstab Thrull

Let me interject a few quick words here:

Leyline of the Void is actually not horrible. Attacking the graveyard from turn 0 is actually pretty useful considering how many decks make use of the graveyard. A quick list of examples:

Shop decks - Goblin Welder
Storm decks* - Yawgmoth's Will
Dredge - Bloodghast, Dread Return, and others
Fish - Tarmogoyf's p/t
Oath - Sun Titan, Gaea's Blessing
Other random cards: Krosan Reclamation, Ancient Grudge, Life from the Loam.

These aren't necessarily the most representative cards in the decks listed with respect to the graveyard, but the point is they all rely on the graveyard to some extent. Dredge relies on it more heavily than others, of course, but the others don't require it to win. Hate on the graveyard, however, limits all decks to a degree, which makes Leyline not entirely unreasonable to maindeck, and Helm then becomes a one-activation win condition. In other words, Leyline by itself is actually better than it appears. If you don't wish to run Leyline and want a card that does something in and of itself other than GY hate, I suggest Relic of Progenitus (cantrips at worst), Bojuka Bog (mana), or Yixid Jailer (can beat down).

Just my two Sarpadian coppers

Mindstab Thrull

* Yes, I know lots of decks run Yawgmoth's Will. Most decks can get by without it fine; Storm combo actually really wants to be able to Will, replay its Rituals, draw spells, and whatnot to win. In the case of The Deck, it's nice - really nice - but it's not necessary at all.

A little over a year ago, Patrick Chapin posted on SCG a version of The Deck he'd been looking at. I posted a version Marske and I had discussed here http://forums.starcitygames.com//showthread.php?35727-Discuss-Innovations-The-Deck-2009-Bringing-Back-the-Glor&p=606663&viewfull=1#post606663 and got his feedback on it. There seems to be some varying opinions on what The Deck's role actually is. I'm not talking from the "control vs beatdown" angle but more like what actual deck style it is. Keep in mind that there is a lot of crossover in blue-based decklists, and this is also from 2009. Chapin (and Marske, both who have discussed The Deck with Weissman), as I understand things, both believe The Deck to be a five-colour mana denial deck. I disagree but I do admit that there is generally enough mana denial to make that route an option during play. It also, however, very much have a 'silver bullet' feel to it, unlike decks like Oath of Druids. There's also a lot of flexibility in exactly what cards you *can* run. I have a Relic of Progenitus main largely due to Dredge, Welder, and Yawgmoth's Will, for example. Running Crucible main lets me help against my Shop matchups as well as recur my Strip effects - which means I can actually run less Strips, since I can replay them from the Graveyard due to Crucible, giving me extra mana slots for other things. I don't suggest this is the optimal list - JMS hadn't come out yet, for example - but I would suggest from that list, the following slots are malleable:

 Misdirection
 Moat
 The Abyss
 Balance
 Pithing Needle
 Mind Twist
 Relic of Progenitus
 Swords to Plowshares
 Rebuild
 Sphinx of Steel Wind
 Sensei's Divining Top
 Crucible of Worlds
 Regrowth

.. as well as the relevant mana slots to support these cards. That brings you upwards of about 16 slots or so to fiddle with, allowing for quite a bit of customization. How do you figure out what to add? By figuring out what you need to beat and figuring out what the best tools for the job are. I was looking for tools that are useful in general but better against certain matchups for the maindeck. Balance is a good example here as I run only two creatures, making it Wrath of God against Fish, but if that's not a deck you expect to face, or you have a better tool for the job, by all means cut it for something else.

Most decks will have a Tinkerbot; I chose Sphinx because the lifelink is occasionally relevant, and the fact that he flies means if I drop Moat, he's the only Tinkerbot that can actually attack. He can also get me ahead against Dragon Oath between his combination of lifelink, vigilance, and protection from Green+Red. There's other reasons too, but that was enough against multiple matchups to make me want the Sphinx over anything else. (Titan supports the mana denial idea better, and if you play it that way, Titan's a better call. This then generally means adding City of Brass to the manabase so you don't lose all your lands. Be careful of the 'circular logic' trap - running one card because you're running another card, but running that second card because of the first one - when it comes to deckbuilding. Sometimes it's right, like the old Illusions of Grandeur/Donate lists, but don't get caught in "I play one so I have to play the other" without good reason.)

The thought process can be seen here: http://forums.starcitygames.com//showthread.php?35727-Discuss-Innovations-The-Deck-2009-Bringing-Back-the-Glor&p=607231&viewfull=1#post607231. Keep something like this in mind when you look at what to put in; this is very relevant to how it's built. This is why if you look at Deckcheck.net or tournament reports over the last few years, you'll see different builds championed by different people. I don't think there really is one right way to build it; mine was built when you're looking at a 'general' metagame and don't want to rule anything out. If you have a specific metagame in mind, like what Marske does, then you can build it a certain way instead. Note he has enough room to fit a combo kill in, because he knows what kind of threats to expect when he sits down, and what *won't* be played.

Also, keep one other thing in mind. Just because Weissman came up with a decklist doesn't mean his is the most optimal version anymore, even for his own metagame. You're looking at a list that goes back to 2006. That's four years ago. Since then, we've had Planar Chaos, Future Sight, Scars of Mirrodin, and the following blocks: Lorwyn, Shards of Alara, Zendikar. We've also had 10th Edition, M10, M11, and some major rules changes such as no more Damage on the Stack or Mana Burn. I suggest if you want to look at playing The Deck and see what an updated list looks like, you look at people like Chapin, Menendian, and Marske for your starting point. Look at what kind of metagames they expect. Feel free to use the thought process in the second link I posted as a first draft. If you don't know what to expect, think about what kind of players will be likely to show up and what this means for a metagame, and sketch out a rough draft accordingly. Playtest it (MWS or proxies, for example) and then you'll have an idea. Do I expect to hear about ideas from Weissman? Sure. Do I expect to hear "I have a great new version of The Deck now!" from him? To be honest, not really. Last I heard, he was effectively in retirement, playing only a couple times a year. Other players have taken up his cause since then. Look at what they do, look for the reasonings, and go from there.

Good luck!

Just like Tolarian Academy? Being Legendary isn't exactly a drawback, especially in a format where you can make a deck that's heavily singletons anyways. It just means you don't have more than one in play at a time. Planeswalkers have effectively the same rule, and Jace the Mind Sculptor and Tezzeret the Seeker have both been known to be played in multiples. It's a sixth Mox in a deck that wants more mana artifacts. I think it'll see play just about everywhere.

PS - DubDub: Saying 'Restricted Sept 20, 2010' is just silly since the PRERELEASE will be about five days after the B/R announcement. For reference, Chrome Mox was in Mirrodin, which stores could sell as of Oct 2, 2003. It didn't get restricted until Jan 1, 2004 - the first B/R after the card was released. (Ponder - the only Extended-legal card restricted in Vintage - was released to us in Lorwyn October 12, 2007, and was restricted June 20, 2008, about 3 B/R's after its introduction.) IOW they still give a couple months before they pull the trigger, barring highly unusual circumstances. I don't think this is unusual enough to qualify.

Warning: I have not yet downloaded Cockatrice as of this post.

My big question regarding Cockatrice is this: How hard is it to use decklists posted in other formats - .dec (Apprentice), .mwDeck (Magic Workstation), or .txt (from Magic Online)? I'd really rather not have to download another program and then find I have to enter all the decks I have manually. If it supports Apprentice and/or MWS formats it helps boost its usability immensely, even if it has its own native format.

Mindstab_Thrull
Im in ur brainz, nommin ur sanity

OK, let's throw some handy numbers into this conversation..

For any given set of four cards in your deck (whether Force of Will, one of each blue-based fetch, or whatever)
In a hand of 7 cards, you have a 33.6% chance of having one, 5.9% of having two, 0.4% of three, and less than 0.001% of having all four.
This nets roughly a 39.95% chance of having at least one.

If you have a set of *three* you're looking for - Oath creatures, or Power Blue, for example
28.2% for 1, 3.3% for 2, 0.001% for all three, total about 31.5%

In case you're wondering where these numbers come from, I used a function in Excel:


Where:

So, if you have, say, four Tarmogoyfs in your list and you want to know the odds of seeing exactly 3 in your opening 7 of your Eva Green deck:


"At least 1" is simply 1-of + 2-of + 3-of + 4-of, or alternatively 100% minus how many fail (plug in 0 for NumberInHand and subtract the difference).

What does this mean?

A typical Oath deck these days runs 3 creatures. For three completely different creatures, the suggestion has been put forth (I won't argue either side at this point) that the best mix is Iona, Terastodon, and something Tinkerable. Having three Oathable creatures means that you'll see at least one in your opening grip roughly 31.5% of the time; roughly two games in 7 you'll see one, and one in 30 games (for simplicity's sake, assume half your matches go 2 games and half go to 3) or 12 rounds - or about a tournament and a half - you'll see two. A fourth creature suddenly swings those numbers up this way: One in three games you'll have one, and one in fifteen - about one in six matches - you'll have 2. Your odds of having one have gone up about 5 percentage points (+19%), and you've now seen an almost 79% upswing in the number of times you'll see two. Here's the thing: Oath does *not* want to see creatures in it's starting hand. With Brainstorm restricted, you're then looking at cards like Jace the Mind Sculptor (four mana, twice as much as Oath) or See Beyond (same cost as Oath) to fix your hand more often than you do with three - and Jace still needs either a shuffle effect or a self-fatesealing.

I had started writing an article about reviewing cards from new sets for another site, hopefully due this week, and the question of Emrakul in Oath came up. This is what I see with Emrakul with respect to Oath:

1. You deal 15 damage, but have to wait until next turn.
2. Annihilator 6 means they sacrifice six permanents of their own choice, also next turn.

Compare this to Terastodon:

1. It deals 9 damage, but it has to wait until next turn.
2. It destroys three *noncreature* permanents of *your* choice - now.

Oath has been tested for years with varying numbers of creatures. One seems rather light, as a single Swords to Plowshares kills the deck. From what I have seen, 2-3 seem optimal; four is bad because you have a 40% chance of having one in your starting hand. A 40% chance of having Oath in your grip is good; 40% of having an Oath *creature* is bad because they're outside reasonable casting range. Emrakul's best fit in my opinion is either as a replacement for Terastodon - and I feel the Terastodon is better - or for Gaea's Blessing.. but you have no way to ditch it. Perhaps in a more aggressive form that runs Bazaar of Baghdad, but that's a completely different style, and I don't think it would turn out as well.

Hope this is useful!

Mindstab Thrull
Sanity eater extraordinaire

Sorry for the thread necromancy.. but I just noticed there's a problem with the first place deck list, quoted in part:

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt

Mistyped, or is that on the actual list?

[EDIT]: Think I found it - there's no Pearl on the list. If you still have the lists, might be good to check.

Steve:
At least you realize it. I've been on IRC for at least a dozen years and operate two channels on an admittedly rather small Network, and it surprises me sometimes how some people act and think there's nothing wrong with it, and suddenly get upset when you mention that their approach is.. not quite optimal. Today I had one of my channel staff told to expect to be banned from the Network because my op banned him for breaking a very common and well-posted basic rule, and apparently this user is a neighbour of one of the admins on the Network. The short version is, he was unwilling to back down even though he was wrong, and even though I myself as owner of the channel have already had to deal with him in the past. You, on the other hand, at least admit to not dealing with an issue well, which makes a big difference - you're aware of an error, and thus are able to watch for that in the future.

Agreed. However, I believe you are in a unique position in that you can decide on clear, defined criteria, and then decide whether the cards you apply them to meet them, fall just short, or don't come close. You collate tournament data on a regular basis, and thus are able to use that as a guide. While many of us have access to the same information, you actually do something with it. You're able to determine which tournaments don't meet your criteria and create a list accordingly.

I am curious about one thing, however. It's not anything I have a problem with, just more idle curiosity. Was the idea for creating a list based on another list you had seen posted elsewhere, or just something that you felt you wanted to do? I only ask simply because I had created a rather large list some time ago and in July had posted one on vintage-sideboard.com as a starting point - a list for players who aren't accustomed to the format to look over and be familiar with as, shall we say, standards in the format by which other cards will be judged. (Granted, by now, it will need some updating, and I would recommend players look over your list instead; it's more thorough and by someone who has a better grip on the format than I do.) Again, I don't actually care, just curious.

*gets dragged in by Marske kicking and screaming, then sees the audience, blushes and settles down*

Well, from my own point of view, the first thing you have to learn is how to identify what decks. Seeing a player start off with Swamp, Dark Ritual tells you the opponent is likely playing some kind of Storm combo deck, a turn 1 Cursecatcher is from Fish, and so forth. But before you can do that, you have to have an idea what the decks are and what they do - and how they aim to win. It's not always right to fight over Ancestral Recall, for example, and sometimes it's right to counter a turn 1 Lotus or Mox and sometimes it's not.

Granted, I'm sure all this obvious for people who have been playing a long time, but if you're not used to a format, you'd likely recognize cards but not be able to puzzle out the deck from it. To get to the point where I expect the Adepts to be, you have to be able to handle the game like a Sudoku puzzle - how much information are you given, and can you come up with the right answer? Of course, this also assumes the opponent is playing 'correctly', which you can't always assume.

So then, for an experienced player to help a less-experienced player make a correct decision, we need as much relevant information as possible. Out of the 'survey', I suggest the biggest questions from the point of view of someone trying to help are time and format - everything else carries with it certain default or generic assumptions. But from the point of view of the person trying to put it together, that might not necessarily be true. For myself, for example, I know I'm not a good player, but here's my answers for myself:

1. Variable, haven't got a specific one in mind, but I'm going to try to plan for the end of January; 2. Vintage, assuming ten-proxy; 3. Unknown at this point, but I assume something similar to the NE USA; 4. Probably more like Aggro-control or Control in general; 5. Oath seems to be my best bet at this point - I've unloaded too much decent basic stuff of anything else to go with; 6. Win more rounds than I lose and (c); 7. Reasonable though I don't call myself 'good' - but I think that's mostly due to lack of hardcore experience.

Feedback is welcome here or at http://forum.vintage-sideboard.com/index.php?topic=447.0.

Steve, let me suggest this to you:

 If there's been this much debate over having a definition, I feel it means that a definition is needed. Apparently you play heedance to "large-scale tournament" data without giving an idea what you consider large scale, and the issue is then muddied further when the suggestion of your tournament data - which consists of tournaments that have 32+ players - is brought into the conversation. This seems to be where this whole mess started.

 A writer needs to be clear. "Large" and "small" are relative, ambiguous terms. Waterbury, for example, is small compared to Pro Tours but large compared to FNM's. This thread has thus gone on for three pages as of this writing, and no simple definition was given. That definition could be anything from number of players required to a simple list of what tournaments or tournament series were being used.
 You're writing for a broad crowd, some of whom may never have heard of some of these tournaments, and some of whom may be new enough to Vintage in general to not even know what a Waterbury or Bazaar of Moxen is. A definition of *some* description seems necessary for the uninitiated.

I'll say this now - doing such a list wouldn't be a single article, it would be a series of articles. I'd created a list of roughly 200 cards pre-Conflux (I think) that Vintage players - especially new ones - should be aware of, and had been writing a series of articles, breaking them into categories for easier analysis. Were Steve to attempt this feat, I would expect two things:

1. There'd be a lot of overlap, which may require its own section. The Jewelry, for example, see play in almost every serious deck. Any deck that tries a control role will run generally either Cabal Therapy or Force of Will. Demonic Tutor is everywhere, and so forth. "Generics." Even creatures aren't immune - look at Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant.

2. Each following article in the series would cover a different major 'pillar', such as Mana Drain or Null Rod. The problem here is that, as Brass Man pointed out to me due to a posting I made in one of Chapin's article threads (http://forums.starcitygames.com/viewtopic.php?p=1063876&sid=650d7cea22dd45e908c84b567554abd0#1063876), Fish (as an example) isn't just one deck - there's multiple 'breeds' which play differently, and so why do I only list Fish once but split up Shop the way I do? My answer, I'm afraid, comes from lack of experience. Steve on the other hand has a plethora of experience and data, which mean that one of two things would happen:

 (a) Each pillar gets an article ignoring subtypes (thus Workshop could have Magus of the Moon and Sphere of Resistance in the same list - possible but unlikely), or
 (b) Each pillar gets broken down into subtypes - the smartest way to handle that, of course, being listing commonalities at the beginning (Mishra's Workshop, Chalice of the Void) and then cards you find in the subtypes below.

Either way, I'd expect it to become no less than five articles, and likely six to cover all the major players. I guess the question is, is there enough call for it, and is Steve willing to put that much effort into expanding it? Twelve hours "just" to make a circa 400-card list, and then 5-6 articles after that based on the list probably realistically wants another 30 hours at least. Any player worth a set of Underground Seas should be able to look at the list and figure out what goes in what kind of deck, but the rest of us would really benefit from a breakdown.

Just my two Sarpadian coppers.

OK, I'm going to take a stab at a definition here..


That being said, I suggest the approximate definition:
 A large-scale event is a full-day event with one full-day Vintage tournament as the main event. I would then suggest that full-day be at least seven if not eight rounds of Swiss before top 8, thus requiring 65 (for 7) or 129 (for 8).

Waterbury, to my understanding, usually generates over 100 people. Large-scale European events can generate 200-300. 100 people would be 7 rounds, and assuming an hour per round (including time to enter results, pair, etc), this would be 7 hours plus a cut to top 8 - meaning the finalists (barring ID's and such) are playing for 10 hours.

I don't know if this is what he was looking for, but I suggest it's not unreasonable considering what's been said here.

Also, thanks for the list, Steve.. makes what I was trying to come up with on the Vintage Sideboard look anemic!

Current decklist:

4 Duress
4 Gerrard's Verdict
4 Dark Confidant
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Vindicate
3 Mortify
4 Braids, Cabal Minion
4 Trinisphere
2 Tombstalker
2 Crucible of Worlds
4 Chrome Mox
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Godless Shrine
4 Tainted Field
3 Ghost Quarter
2 Flagstones of Trokair
3 Snow-Covered Swamps
2 Snow-Covered Plains

Mostly, pulled Hyppies for a pair of Crucibles and the other two Trinis. That should make it more consistent, I think. Do you think it's good enough to try it out?

botb and ZS: Have reshuffled the land slots somewhat, and am now looking at:
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Godless Shrine
4 Tainted Field
3 Ghost Quarter
2 Flagstones of Trokair (with only seven lands maindeck they can fetch, and four fetches already, more seems overkill; at most, I'd add a third)
3 Snow-Covered Swamps
2 Snow-Covered Plains
... and a playset of Chrome Mox for mana as well.

I had a Crucible or two in my original decklist that I showed to BrassMan, and they got cut to be able to bring some of these up to 4-ofs. (Bob, for example, was a 3-of -- until, amongst other things, I found I actually *do* own a fourth.) I do agree it needs to find a way back in to pull this off right; the question is, what do I cut for Crux?

Curse of the Cabal is cute, and a Braids that isn't Legendary would be a nice fit. The problem is simply that the mana cost is insane when you're running Bob - 10 to the dome is bad times, unless I run Death Grasp instead of Tombstalkers.. which is something I've considered, too.

As for protecting Braids - I should fit a third Trini in at least. If I can knock out enough mana sources with Trini + Braids + Vindicate + Ghost Quarter + Crucible + discard, Braids should be able to handle herself well enough. After the first run-through that I had with this deck before I showed it to BrassMan, it came out fairly decently against a few different casualish Legacy decks, including one based around Lich + Words of Worship + Words of War, and another on Ball Lightning + Unearth. Yes, it's Extended vs Legacy, and you have just about all the tools Extended has and then some to play with.. And I was holding my own pretty well, usually beating him. But he wasn't running much burn in any of the decks apart from Words of War, and I nuked that before he got it active, which meant Braids lived to see another upkeep. So I'll have to get him to throw something together and see what happens from there.

So, I'm looking to start playing Extended over the next while to prepare for next spring. I've decided I want a black-white Stax-ish kinda deck. So, at this point, this is my current list, with help from BrassMan:

4 Duress
4 Gerrard's Verdict
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Dark Confidant
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Vindicate
3 Mortify
4 Braids, Cabal Minion
2 Trinisphere
2 Tombstalker
4 Chrome Mox
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Godless Shrine
3 Tainted Field
3 Caves of Koilos
2 Ghost Quarter
4 Snow-Covered Swamp
2 Snow-Covered Plains

I'd like to wiggle in another Trinisphere, and I agree with an IRC discussion I had with Anusien - the Caves and Fields seem a lil overkill.  I figure I'll bring the Fields back to 4 and the other two slots can either be more GQ's or basic lands - or maybe Cabal Coffers.

Any suggestions on how to get this deck to do what I want from it?

WARNING: Quite long

So this is the build I ended up playing this weekend:

4 Dreadship Reef
4 Terramorphic Expanse
8 Island
4 Swamp
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Urza's Factory

4 Prismatic Lens
4 Cancel
2 Delay
2 Spell Burst
3 Think Twice
2 Aeon Chronicler
4 Fathom Seer

4 Tendrils of Corruption
2 Damnation
2 Magus of the Abyss
2 Tombstalker
2 Augur of Skulls
1 Darkness

1 Dralnu, Lich Lord
1 Akroma's Memorial

Sideboard:
2 Calciform Pools
2 Plains
1 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Urza's Factory
1 Vesuva
1 Teferi's Moat
2 Pull from Eternity
2 Disenchant
1 Vesuvan Shapeshifter
2 Psionic Blast

First things first: This is a slow deck. As such, anything that gets out of the gates fast will likely trounce this. The longer a game goes on, the more time you have to stablize and turn things around. I did *very* badly - worse than I expected, actually - but I learned a few things.

1. This deck would *love* to be more colours. I'm actually considering switching this deck around to be more in Vorosh's colours: GUB. It can make great use of Green's walls (Wall of Roots and Thallid Shell-Dweller) in the early few turns, as well as deck thinning (Search for Tomorrow, etc) and Harmonize. Black would be fairly easy to support with a couple Urborgs to support Tendrils or, barring that, something a la Terror/Dark Banishing. Magus of the Abyss, incidentally, turned out quite well, and IMO worth a second look. Blue would be relegated to a minor role, and might even be able to be taken out altogether if I'm willing to forgo countering. I also have the option (which might be more feasible) of taking the Teneb route (GWB), which gives me access to Disenchant and Pull from Eternity, as well as having a couple counters of its own to deal with. Augur il-Vec would be able to handle any small quick shadow creatures like Looter il-Kor or Nether Shadow. In fact, Red's case seems to be the weakest, with only AEtherflame Wall and Goblin Skycutter really looking for a home, possibly to be joined by (of all things) Browbeat.

2. This deck severely needs a way to survive the first few turns. Fathom Seer got Morphed exactly *once* in the 8 games I played, and that was only because I was swinging with it and an AEon Chronicler and the morph was going to die anyways, so it let me get an extra four damage in with the Chronicler (from 6 straight to 10). Another turn and I would have won that game *frownage*. The Seer's main job in this deck is simply to be a wall, and *occasionally* be able to draw cards. But it seems I'd have better luck with Dream Stalker which, although I lose out on tempo by a turn, can make up for it by having a body that's tough to take out without requiring at least two cards (five toughness is a *lot* in this format, surviving even Sudden Death). As for Augur of Skulls.. well let's just say Drudge Skeletons would have been more effective. I never managed to sacrifice him once. Again, I primarily needed him as a blocker (cue UR's 'double Stone Rain' comments). Again, Green seems to have the best ways to do this, although AEtherflame Wall is also very good at taking out opposing creatures.

3. This deck also needs some way of getting what you need sooner - either card drawing (Harmonize, Careful Considerations), tutoring (Demonic Collusion, Mystical Teachings), or library manipulation (Sage of Epityr, scry spells). At this point, the only reliable cards I have for 'digging' are the Think Twices and the pair of AEon Chroniclers - definitely not enough. Sage of Epityr seems like it would be useful, as it's at least a 1/1 for U, and you get to rearrange the top four cards of your library. Even later in the game, Sage + Terramorphic is somewhat analogous to Brainstorm + Fetch, allowing you more selection.

4. The singleton Darkness did as well as anticipated, buying me an extra turn of survival here and there, and even helped swing a game for me. (Note, for those that might still misunderstand: Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir's ability of "Each opponent can play spells only any time he or she could play a sorcery" does *not* counter a spell that's already on the stack, as the spell is *already* played by then. This is a similar case as Orim's Chant and Abeyance before it. This came up because my opponent was under the impression that playing Teferi mid-combat would counter the Darkness that I'd played to counteract the dozen or so damage I would have taken from his attack.) Dralnu never saw play once, largely due to the amount of burn available. He was sided out every game. Akroma's Memorial play was the other card that swung the same game I just mentioned, as having Magus of the Abyss + Akroma's Memorial in play together means you'll never sacrifice a creature so long as the artifact is in play. That being said, if I had a less expensive way of giving all my creatures protection from black that was in colour, or a good UBw way of making tokens (a la Sprout Swarm - damn those green cards wanting in!!), I'd likely consider it.

5. Half my sideboard was boarded in vs every matchup. Teferi's Moat and the white mana sources were always going in, and Disenchant usually was as well. Pull from Eternity wasn't a worry since the biggest Suspends were either WW creatures or cards like Search for Tomorrow. But Teferi's Moat was the biggest reason to go into the sideboard most of the time, and that tells me it should at least be maindecked. Perhaps pull two Islands for Plains, an Urborg and Urza's Factory for Calciform Pools, and Teferi's Moat can replace Dralnu, possibly a second one replacing a Fathom Seer. Urza's Factory, in this deck, was close to useless as anything more than another land, and three Urborgs actually seem too many for this deck.

So, that being said, at this point I'm considering switching over to this:

4 Dreadship Reef
2 Calciform Pools
4 Terramorphic Expanse
6 Island
4 Swamp
2 Plains
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

4 Prismatic Lens
4 Cancel
2 Delay
2 Spell Burst
3 Think Twice
2 Aeon Chronicler
4 Sage of Epityr

4 Tendrils of Corruption
2 Damnation
3 Magus of the Abyss
2 Tombstalker
1 Darkness

1 Akroma's Memorial
2 Teferi's Moat

Sideboard TBA.

Realistically, once the Sage hits play, he's already done his job by letting me semi-Scry for 4. The Akroma's Memorial is staying in for now, as I've found it's very much like a (more expensive) colourless Moat - once it hits play, your opponent is pretty unwilling to try and attack into whatever you have. I am, however, considering putting Lotus Bloom back in the deck as a result.

Mantis:
 * SMI did cross my mind, actually, though only very recently. A three-point body doesn't hurt, and being unblockable against likely more than half the decks is nice (out of GP Strasbourg T8, only three could block it; PT Yokohoma T8, only two would be able to block it), thus you could probably assume on average being able to net two cards before it died.
 * Agreed the sideboard is *very* bad; something concepted together *very* quickly. Detritivore is, of course, the biggest concern, but if I can handle that I should be fine. I do notice, however, that with the Strasbourg T8 lists, only one deck didn't run green or be essentially monocoloured, and that was UBw, splashing for a maindeck Pull, with a second Pull and a Disenchant in the side - the maindeck Dralnu helps here, obviously. Agreed about the 4th TE, of course; it's always a question of what to take out. The deck seems to want a little more land, so what spell comes out?
 * Yeah.. the more I look at this deck, the more it wants some kind of search - Mystical Teachings or Tolaria West or something - or at least multicard drawing, like Careful Considerations at least. And Green keeps sticking its nose in, saying, "Can you find a home for me? Somewhere? Huh? Maybe? Pleeeeeeeeeeeease??" mostly due to cards like Wall of Roots, Thallid Shell-Dweller, and Harmonize. Would Dreamscape Artist be *that* bad of an idea?

I've not done much in the way of playtesting; the first *real* test will be this weekend at the GPT for Montreal. There's another one a couple weeks later, and then GP Montreal I think a week after that. Hopefully by the time the GP rolls around I will have this in useable shape.. but I can use the GPTs to help me figure out what's really wrong with this. Magikarp has been good enough to help me with playtesting, which I very much appreciate, and once his input gets past my denseness, I'm usually in better shape

At this point, this is my current decklist:

4 Think Twice
2 Aeon Chronicler
4 Cancel
4 Delay
3 Fathom Seer
4 Augur of Skulls
3 Magus of the Abyss
3 Damnation
4 Tendrils of Corruption
2 Tombstalker
1 Akroma's Memorial
4 Prismatic Lens
3 River of Tears
4 Dreadship Reef
3 Terramorphic Expanse
4 Island
4 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Urza's Factory
Sideboard:
4 Extirpate
4 Pull from Eternity
4 Plains
2 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Terramorphic Expanse

The sideboard is mostly aimed at:

Detritivore
2RR
Creature -- Lhurgoyf
*/*
Detritivore's power and toughness are each equal to the number of nonbasic land cards in your opponents' graveyards.
Suspend X-X3R. X can't be 0.
Whenever a time counter is removed from Detritivore while it's removed from the game, destroy target nonbasic land.

since uncounterable (effectively) LD is always a concern in any deck that runs more than one colour and even some monocoloured decks. The Extirpates I think are good in general but don't really need to be maindecked, as any reanimation deck or something I have to fight to get rid of should find a way to disappear. [Case in point: Draft yesterday, opponent built a quite decent Sliver deck including Pulmonic. An inability to be able to shut down a Pulmonic Sliver means game loss basically, as all Slivers are suddenly all but Indestructible. Said player came in first place in our draft.]

Personally, if this block had the mana flexibility that Ravnica block does, I'd be going for three colours easily, maybe even four, as only Red seems to not have enough of *anything* for this style of deck. But it doesn't, so two, maybe three.

UR:
 Took me a moment to figure out what you meant by 'double Stone Raining yourself', till I realized you were referring to setting aside regeneration mana. I guess what I see in it is a 2-for-1 deal: the ability to gum up the ground (from anything nonevasive, obviously) and the ability to make the opponent discard cards. I think what this deck probably needs more though is a way to shut down creatures. I'm looking through what might help in that respect:

Snapback
Wipe Away
Assassinate
Big Game Hunter
Second Wind

Frozen AEther helps somewhat, and if this deck was more like the first one I'd suggest Pongify (as a 3/3 token vs Moat is essentially useless). Reality Strobe could help too, and somewhat feasibly come down on turn 4 (storage land + Prismatic Lens). But realistically I think I'm probably looking at either Assassinate or Second Wind as creature control. As for discard, I agree, Stupor is better than an Augur of Skulls. Instead of Akroma's Memorial, perhaps Haunting Hymn or some such would be better. Alternatively.. what about maindecking Extripate instead of Augurs?

Extirpate
B
Instant
Split second (As long as this spell is on the stack, players can't play spells or activated abilities that aren't mana abilities.)
Choose target card in a graveyard other than a basic land. Search its owner's graveyard, hand, and library for all cards with the same name as that card and remove them from the game. Then that player shuffles his or her library.

It can have the same effect as what I'm looking for with the additional bonus that it removes *all* copies of that card from the game. The only concern is shutting down something Suspended first. And it seems like White has the best way to handle that - which brings me to either splashing or trying something more like the first deck, as many of Black's tools are covered in Blue as well now.

UR:
 *  Well, here's the thing. When I was at the FS prerelease, I went UG. It basically boiled down to gumming up the ground well enough to stop any ground attacks (much like how Moat operates) so my flyers could get in and hit, countering any real threats. That 0/5 wall that spits out Saprolings every three turns for 1G is *really* good for that. Surely UW (or UWg) has a similar idea available?
 * I understand why Haunting Hymn sees play; I guess what I'm thinking of is an analogue to Mind Twist. This brings me back to Augur of Skulls. With four in a deck, you have access to a blocker plus Mind Rot with Suspend 1, essentially. (Of course, *if* this deck ran Teferi, you could drop the Augur on your upkeep and sac it right away. But I digress..) They can stop anything without evasion and live, with 1B open. Mr Gargadon comes to mind, as do most of the big boys in this format. Thus part of why I'm considering Augurs instead of Pacts. Running the 8 counters seems to be enough in this deck, what with Tendrils and Damnation playing too.
   I don't disagree Spell Burst is good, I'm just wondering what should go in that slot, and how much juggling needs to be done. Ideally I'd like to be able to run a full set of each of Augurs, Delays, Cancels, and a pair of Spell Burst (since, if you buyback them, you don't need more than one). Hmmm..