Does Serra Ascendant feel like an auto-include in any white EDH deck ? It seems like a retarded card in the early turns. While it is not a Rebel, it pretty much guarantees nutty things will happen when it is in your opening hand.

E.S.: "Very handsome armor. Not a scratch on it."

J.L.: "I know. People have been swinging at me for years and they always seem to miss."

E.S.: "You've chosen your opponents wisely then."

/topic

Game of Thrones is ridiculously good and I would recommend it to anyone (older than 16 probably).

I was playing a game against MUD tonight and my opponent contended that he could add the first counter to his Smokestack on his upkeep, then immediately sacrifice a permanent to that counter. This mattered because I had Oath out and he wanted to sacrifice an Orchard token. It naturally felt a bit wrong to me, but I couldn't exactly explain why. Can anyone here tell me why that move is/isn't allowed ?

Thanks !

It seems like the42up's list could really benefit from 1 or 2 copies of Thousand-Year Elixir :

Thousand-Year Elixir
[Artifact]
You may play the activated abilities of creatures you control as though those creatures had haste.
1, : Untap target creature.

This is obviously nuts with Metalworker but also allows you to activate Forgemaster the turn it comes into play. Just a thought.

So after some more playtesting, here is my new and improved decklist (mind you, the budget required to build this deck has gone through the roof):

Mana : 17
6 Mountain
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Taiga
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
Creatures : 10
4 Kiln Fiend
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Varchild's War-Riders
Burn : 10
2 Chain Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lava Dart
Cheating combat : 15
3 Invigorate
4 Reckless Charge
4 Berserk
4 Assault Strobe
Support : 8
4 Manamorphose
4 Rite of Flame

As it turns out, some of hyst's suggestions were on the spot. Increasingly, I was finding Fury of the Horde difficult to wield. I cut it altogether and went for a different creature base. Tarmogoyf is amazing and can really shine with an Assault Strobe or Berserk behind it (or both). The Varchild's War-Riders, which may at first sight come off as incredibly bad, are actually a pretty powerful finisher that easily go all the way with all this pump. Their built-in Trample and Rampage are very helpful and negate the disadvantage of providing your opponent with ample blockers. Aside from being awesome anti-Oath tech (I concede that against Stax, it's a different story) they are a pretty solid beatstick by themselves. With the double strikers gone, Invigorate lost some of its prowess and is now primarily killer in combination with Berserk and/or Assault Strobe, hence the 3-off. It seems like this deck is turning into R/G Beats but the clock is a lot faster so the strategy behind it is entirely different. What do you think ?

Thanks for your input ! I really like Berserk in this deck, I can't believe I hadn't thought of that. It's amazing with Kiln Fiend and actually makes Double Striking creatures all the more dangerous. The thing about a regular attacker, such as Goblin Guide, is that they make Invigorate far less threatening. The card is so good that I believe it warrants running seemingly inferior creatures with Double Strike. I don't believe giving creatures Double Strike through cards like Double Cleave is the way to go because they are bad cards on their own that increase interdependency and use up deck space and mana that can be put to better use. Indeed, the same can be said for Fury of the Horde, but that card's effect is so powerful that it makes up for the card disadvantage and hand clutter. There's just something to be said about using it to untap your 15 power attacker for free and flat out win the game from there. In any case, Scars of Mirrodin introduces Assault Strobe as a cheaper alternative to Double Cleave at sorcery speed, just something to consider if you're going down that road.

I think when you playtest this deck, you'll find the current creatures worthy of inclusion. I'm not saying there aren't any better alternatives out there, because there probably are and I'm still looking around for them, but they definitely do a good job of quickly killing the opponent. Let me know how your playtesting works out !

I love this new deck idea ! It's things like this that make it seem like the game has a lot more to offer to Vintage than what is currently accepted. We need innovators like you . That said, has anyone considered Colfenor's Plans ?

Colfenor's Plans [2BB]
Enchantment
When Colfenor's Plans comes into play, remove the top seven cards of your library from the game face down.
You may look at and play cards removed from the game with Colfenor's Plans.
Skip your draw step.
You can't play more than one spell each turn.

Under Blood Funnel, this is a one-sided draw 7 for BB. It finds you Donate and can be Donated itself for shits and giggles. Just make sure you don't leave any playable/powerful spells for your opponent (he will have access to the removed cards).

Hello TMD community.

Since the printing of Kiln Fiend, I've been toying around with ideas trying to make the most out of the creature. It seems really powerful in combination with loads of free spells that do something to advance the goal of your deck, right ? So, after playtesting a rough draft and finetuning it some more, I present to you a novel take on Vintage Burn (as if that ever really existed). The goal of this deck is to toast your opponent by turn three, and it does that rather convincingly.

Mana : 16
6 Mountain
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Taiga
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
Creatures : 10
4 Kiln Fiend
4 Warren Instigator
2 Viashino Slaughtermaster
Burn : 14
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lava Dart
2 Fireblast
Cheating combat : 12
4 Invigorate
4 Reckless Charge
4 Fury of the Horde
Support : 8
4 Manamorphose
4 Rite of Flame
Sideboard : 15
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Pyroblast
4 Mindbreak Trap
3 Nature's Claim

This deck is tons of fun to play and can be very quick. It is capable of turn 1 kills and usually kills on turn 3/4. The creature base seems odd, but it includes 6 double strikers that are very dangerous with Invigorate and Reckless Charge. I include 4 Warren Instigator and 2 Viashino Slaughtermaster because the Instigator can put other copies of itself into play in case you hold more. Viashino's ability is rarely used (it's possible with Manamorphose though). A first turn creature (with Rites, Mox or Lotus) guarantees that some nutty stuff will ensue. If all else fails, there is a viable aggro strategy available to you.

Notable inclusions :

Invigorate is amazing in this deck and is definitely worth playing green for. No matter which creature you pump, it's gonna get at least 4 extra damage in (for free !). If you pump a double striker, it deals at least 5 for free. This is assuming your creatures are unblocked, but there's enough creature removal here to ensure just that.

Fury of the Horde is downright broken in this pile. You should always keep in mind to hold on to redundant cards if you're holding this, because pitching them to FotH will win you the game. Pump a creature once or twice with Invigorate, Reckless Assault or just lots of spells in the case of Kiln Fiend and a single FotH seals the deal more often than not.

Manamorphose has great synergy with Kiln Fiend. You lose no resources and you add to the Fiend's power.

By now you will probably be thinking "Turn 1 kills, really ?" but just consider this opening draw : Land, Lotus, Kiln Fiend, 2x Reckless Charge, 2x Invigorate. Swing with a 27/10 hasted creature to hit an opponent with 26 life. I concede that this is a little farfetched but it is just an illustration of some of the mechanics of the deck. Or, if you’re on the draw : Lotus, Rite of Flame, 2x Reckless Abandon, Warren Instigator, Fury of the Horde and two random red cards. That’s 28 damage on the first turn. Scenarios without Black Lotus are also genuinely possible, but you will require some luck with Manamorphose. I’ve done it before, amusing both myself and my opponent. Turn two kills are far more likely, turn three kills are rather common.

So, any thoughts ? Questions ? Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it ! If anything, this deck is a lot of fun to pilot.

Thank you for clearing this up LotusHead !

When a card like Dragon Fangs comes back from the graveyard, does it actually target the creature you just played ? For example, can it be attached to a creature with protection from green in that situation ? The relevant rules text has been boldfaced.

Dragon Fangs [1G]
Enchantment - Aura
Enchant Creature.
Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 and has trample.
When a creature with converted mana cost 6 or more comes into play, you may return Dragon Fangs from your graveyard to play attached to that creature.

I ask because it doesn't specifically mention the word 'target'.

Thanks !

This is great Harlequin, many thanks !  I'm off to playtest that pile.

I too forgot about the Fire Marshal, it's a very nice source of damage.

@ Godder : by consistent, what I mean is as close to a 100 % kill ratio as humanly possible I guess.  This probably just translates into showing my brother 10 consecutive turn 1 kills.  Shouldn't be too hard with a little luck here and there.  If anyone is interested, I'll let you know how this turned out.

Thanks for your support !

Definitely not.  The opponent simply cannot have had a single turn.  I thought about Trinisphere and other things, but it's still not a direct kill, so to speak.  However, if anyone is genius enough to come up with some sort of infinite recurring Time Walk kill, that would count because the opponent didn't get to playing a turn.  It's just an example though.

One other thing : can you stack Lackey triggers so that you can put a Goblin Matron into play when the first trigger resolves, search your library for a goblin with the Matron trigger, then use the following Lackey trigger to put that goblin into play ?  If so, there's some serious Goblin Matron/Goblin Ringleader/Goblin Recruiter potential out there, but I'm not quite seeing it right now.  I guess Gaea's Cradle and Brightstone Ritual would both be pretty broken in combination with stuff like Slate of Ancestry and Collective Unconscious, but I get the feeling I'm overlooking something blatantly obvious.

So here's the story.

Last night me and my brother were talking Magic things, about what tournament we could be attending next, what decks to play, and so forth.  We are avid Vintage fans by the way.  Out of the blue I ask him this absurd question : "do you think I could win every single tournament if I'd be privileged to always win the die roll, and start with 4 Hasted Goblin Lackeys in play ?".  Those Lackeys would be entirely independent to the decklist I'd play, and general Vintage rules would apply (so no more Goblin Lackeys in the actual deck as well). 
Now I know this sounds really strange, but it's brainteasers like these that keep me and my brother attached to the game we so love.  Needless to say, my brother brings up the whole statistics-argument and tells me I would probably lose 1 tournament out of a hundred, so no bananas.  Of course I have to concede the argument because the power of mathematics force me to. 

But then he crossed the line. 

After a short moment of silence, in which I was brainstorming and thinking really hard of an unbeatable decklist with which to abuse these Lackeys, he goes and adds "you probably couldn't even build a consistent first turn goldfish-kill-deck with that advantage".  I call shenanigans, we go on for a few more minutes arguing, and I then decide I would build him such a deck by the time he came back from school the day after (that is today).  Now I come to you, fellow TMD'ers, to help me out here.  I know that it might not be too hard, I actually have a few ideas myself, but seeing as there's little time left I thought I'd put the idea out there to get a better result faster.

The way I see it, there are a couple of approaches to this :

1) You just ignore the Lackeys and build Meandeck Tendrils (which would then only need a consistent storm count of 7 to win, because the Lackeys attack for four anyway).  I don't know this deck well enough to guarantee that this would kill on the first turn consistently though.
2) You abuse the Lackeys by getting tons of Goblins into play (Siege-Gang Commander, Goblin Marshal, Kiki-jiki, etc.) and pull some sort of combo win from there.
3) You build a very consistent Tendrils combo deck and abuse the hell out of your 4 creatures by running then-broken cards like Culling the Weak, Diabolic Intent, etc.
4) You put as much mana acceleration in a deck as possible, add 4 Serum Powder, and 4 Hatreds.  Hatred would be like Tendrils of Agony for 1 mana more, except you don't need a storm count to go with that.

So I was wondering if you guys had anything to add.  I really want my competitive nature towards my brother to triumph here, and of course I think it's possible to break the game beyond repair in this situation, I guess I just need to see what you people can come up with.  Keep in mind that all you need is a first turn kill in goldfishing, so no disruption is really needed since Force of Will is not a factor.

Thanks for reading this !

Let's try to stay on topic though guys.

I concur with what has already been pointed out above, Empty the Warrens may justify its very own deck built around it, to fully take advantage of the card's power.  This got me thinking :

There is a plethora of red rituals available to us, some perhaps stronger than others.  The list includes but is not limited to Desperate Ritual, Seething Song, Rite of Flame, Brightstone Ritual.  Maybe this allows for a very consistent Red/Black combo deck with enough disruption elements and shitloads of acceleration to pull off an early EtW.

I don't have the answer yet, but I know I'll be trying a few concoctions and see how it works out.  Ideas are what keep the engine running, right ?

Heh, congratulations on the good job.

I went 4-1-1 yesterday (53 people attended, so there were 6 Swiss rounds) and ended up in 5th place.  I had a G/W control deck with a splash of Red for removal.  Two Weatherseed Totems, Pentarch Paladin and Craw Giant (!) were undoubtedly the highlights of my deck.

I don't know why you should run this over Seize the Day for example, which you can Mystical Tutor for and flashback from the graveyard after you Oath it away.  That additional combat phase also wins you the game on the spot.

It's blue and pitches to FoW, but that's about all I can come up with.  It's liable in terms of its card type, it's a juicy drain target and it's all around terrible unless you're Oathing, which generally means you're winning.  This makes the card a tad bit too situational for my taste.

Additionally, it's a card you simply can't afford to play against Stax.  Suppose you drop this first turn off two Moxen, and suddenly when you pass the turn you face a first turn Smokestack or Tangle Wire.  The card is just inferior to other more focused cards you can use.

There's no set deck archetype on this card, but already it's "performing very badly against random T1 decks" ?  How ?  This card's ability is broken, and subsequently a broken deck will be built around it.  Check the Vintage Improvement forum for an example decklist.  How does Sligh come close to defeating that deck ?  Lightning Bolt ?  You animate the MAGUS with Haste so I don't see that as a possible solution.  Combo trumps random crappy aggro decks, I don't see any reason why this deck shouldn't.  You don't even have to take this into account in a competitive environment so I don't see this as a decisive argument against Magus of the Jar.

Megrim is plain bad, for reasons pointed out above.  There's no reason to include it in any deck because it sucks and it's not going to win you games you don't win otherwise.

I'd like to point out a few things here, mostly that your point was actually very clear to me.  We seem to be on the same level about the goal of Oath : it needs "an instance each of 2 different four-of's in the deck to function".  I already said earlier that you don't "want to draw cards rather than see a lot of cards and pick the right ones".  This means we agree on the fact that raw draw spells aren't the way to go.  I never questioned the inclusion of Intuition in Oath, I only pointed out after reading your post that Intuition for three Brainstorms isn't the gamebreaking play most of the time.  To suggest that I wouldn't be able to think of a single situation where this play could save you is a bit out of place here, let alone the fact that you would judge me on my experience with Oath when you don't know the first thing about that.  I think any competent player would agree with me that this is generally an inferior play to what you should be doing. 

I also think your earlier representation of the Impulse vs. Intuition situation is very black/white, where all the bad things happen to the player playing Impulse but the Intuition player has all the answers and none of the bad luck.  Of course you can create a situation in a snap where your idea looks better.  I can also advocate playing Shock in Oath to get through those last 2 points of life, and that would sound pretty ridiculous and perhaps even offending to you because it would seem like I were questioning your ability to pilot the deck (which I don't).

You make it sound like it's impossible to run Impulse in addition to Intuition in the same deck (because you compared them), which seems perfectly doable to me.  Impulse is what I call a 'soft tutor', and believe me when I tell you I've never experienced difficulties to find Oath after Impulse resolves.

Also, are you questioning Vampiric Tutor in Oath ?  Because if I can tell you one thing, it's a million times better than Intuition.
"If you would prefer to Vampiric Tutor for the Oath, skip your next draw, lose 2 life, and risk having an Underground or Orchard wasted, well, so be it."  That's awkward, it suddenly seems like I've been winning all those games the wrong way then.  Can you explain to me how VT for Oath is a bad play ?  You talk about "skipping your next draw" when really it's not about card advantage in Oath (I thought we had that covered by now).

In any case I think it should be noted that this discussion wasn't meant to be about Intuition, it should be about Impulse and Thirst for Knowledge.  If you wish to continue this particular debate, let's not deviate from the essence of this thread and instead further talk about this somewhere else.

Impulse is insane and indispensable in Oath, simply because Oath doesn't want to draw cards rather than see a lot of cards and pick the right ones.  You don't want to draw your fatties and you don't want to draw Gaea's Blessing.  Yes, Brainstorm helps here, but in the end it's only a 4-of just like the next one and you won't see it every game (unless you're tutoring for them, but from where I'm standing it seems those generally have better uses.  Oath of Druids comes to mind).

@ brianpk80 : Are you seriously considering to Intuition for three Brainstorms ?  I would love to see my opponent make this play, if only for the sheer card disadvantage and the wasted opportunity of a broken play.
Intuition for three Oath of Druids ?  Mediocre at best when compared to what other tutors do.  Doesn't sound like a foolproof plan to me, especially after boarding when a single Seal of Cleansing suddenly has you with three Oaths in your graveyard.

@ Bad Wolf : Yes TfK provides card advantage, given that you have an Artifact in your hand that you want to get rid of.  You say you discard the creatures when they're in your hand, but then the card advantage is gone.  You say let Blessing do the work, but when both your beaters are in the graveyard that's a turn gone to waste.  Of course this has its uses, but your deck should be able to work around situations like these.

In my opinion, there is no viable substitute for Impulse.  It digs four cards deep, works well with Brainstorm (4 additional "shuffle" effects), and gets you the right cards in hand.  In short, it fits Oath's gameplan perfectly whereas TfK doesn't.

Come on guys, let's not give up on this newfound gem just yet.  If we're not going to come up with something broken, who is ?  It's been a while since R&D gave us such a nice present, let's not disappoint them .

Some random thoughts :

1) Some weird Ritual based combo deck that runs 4 of these and Aether Snap for the win ?  Farfetched indeed.
2) A Tinker/Transmute Artifact/Reshape deck that abuses this may or may not work.
3) A well-timed Eureka FTW ?
4) Does Power Conduit help anything ?

All of this is probably too slow/complicated.  Just trying to contribute to the discussion.

Looks good.

I was there too, I'm the brother of your round three opponent.  He wasn't playing Gobbo's, it was monoblue fish, the deck that lost against FCG in the semis.