Hobby Town
Milwaukee, WI area
Intersection Moorland Ave & National Ave

Tons of people show up Monday nights. Lots of Type 1 & draft. Some Legacy, 5-Color and casual.

Here's the list I T8'd a few weeks back with. The 2 interesting things about the list are the 2x Brainstorm and 2x Spell Snare, both of which were last minute changes. Spell Snare was ridiculous all day--between Bobs, Flash, Dryad and Oath its absolutely insane. Brainstorm was marginal. I hadn't had it in any of my testing lists but I had been running into two main problems. The first was mana issues of various sorts (screw, flood or color issues). The second was that I could often get a draw engine online along with some early disruption. I would proceed to swing for a few turns but be unable to seal the game up (I might draw some additional disruption like Waste/Duress) but would still be vulnerable to a topdecked Will/Triskelion/etc depending on the opposing deck. The brainstorm was designed to allow me to turn a full mitt and tempo advantage into a done deal by digging for more control pieces. As it turned out, those 2 Brainstorms would probably just have been better as Mana Leaks.

2 Brainstorm
2 Ninja of the Deep Hours
3 Gorilla Shaman
3 Waterfront Bouncer
4 Dark Confidant
3 Dimir Cut purse
3 Chalice of the Void
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Snare
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
3 Duress
1 Fire/Ice
1 Time Walk
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Echoing Truth
1 Vampric Tutor
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
3 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
1 Island
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal

Doomsday Scenario Question--Stifled Mind's Desire
I was watching a match with Doomsday vs Fish over the weekend & here was the situation. The DDay player went off, R&D'd off Desire and proceeded to cast Tendrils followed by Tendrils, either copy of which would have been lethal on its own. The Fish player proceeded to cast double Stifle and won the game. But...he could have easily stifled the Desire, meaning R&D would have resolved but nothing else.

What I'd like to figure out is this--if Desire is Stifled, what piles can be constructed to ensure that you can go off the next turn (assuming the opponent has no further disruption) or at least give you the greatest possibility. To give the specifics of this situation... Board: Underground, Underground, Mox Sapphire. Hand: Leyline, nothing else. Graveyard: Ancestral, Lotus, Dark Ritual, Mind's Desire, Research/Development. Available Cards for R&D: I don't have an exact decklist, but assume that you have access to anything that might legitimately be in a DDay deck or sideboard.
 
We tried several approaches and ran up against some issues, mostly with mana, some due to the fact that you only get 4 cards in random order, compared to the normal 5 cards stacked from Doomsday. The followup question is what piles might be possible if some of the constraints are slightly different, especially having either slightly more mana.

What happens when you play Yawgmoth's Will & then discard Darksteel Colossus or any other combination of replacement effects. Does it change depending on who controls the source of the replacement effect.

There are 6 cards in the graveyard and Cabal Ritual is cast, does it have threshold? Now I cast Yawgmoth's Will and replay it from the graveyard (it was the seventh card), does it have threshold?

Is the paying of 2 life from Vampiric Tutor a cost or does it happen on resolution? For Imperial Seal?

Can you successfully cast Tinker by sacrificing your own Chalice set at x=3?

Timing/choosing questions related to Sundering Titan. When the comes into play trigger goes on the stack do you choose the lands at that time or when it resolves? Do you have to choose a land of each type? Can you choose a single land as multiple types (e.g. an Underground Sea as Island and Swamp)? If Titan comes into play and my opponent Chain of Vapors it, will I be able to target the same lands with both the come into play and leaves play triggers?

If I activate a Mishra's factory and my oppenent uses a Vedalken Shakles to steal it, will they get to keep it after it stops being a creature? What if they use Old Man of the Sea? Seasing?

My opponent has a mana crypt in play and I activate mindslaver targeting them. When I take their turn who gets to flip the coin?

My opponent has a Leyline in play and I cast Predict (after manipulating my library so I know what to name). Predict states that the card is placed into my graveyard but Leyline's replacement effect will RFG it. Will I still draw two cards from predict?

I think at this point you need to be running tutors in order to have access to bounce for EtW. Especially if you take out Bouncer you need ways to deal with Welders/Bots.

I've always liked Grim Lavamancer since it deals with Welder/Fish and is a nice Ninja enabler. At that point there are issues with blue card count, but there are probably things that can be switched around. How has Lavamancer worked in various builds that you all have tried?

First, I think Brainstorm is much stronger than top. Being pitchable is big when most of your other things to pitch are either broken or creatures. As opposed to Top and Standstill it also works turn 1 to fix hands.

As for Chalice, its mostly an issue of what the meta is. Given what he said it was, Chalice seems like a great card.

Awesome. Glad to see the deck is starting to wreck people. I wouldn't say that EE is crucial, but definitely test it out. If your field is filled with Long/Gifts definitely keep the Chalices. They are one of your most devastating weapons against these decks. Whe you are on the play you can lock them out of tons of their mana and when they are on the play they are caught between wanted to drop all their moxen to get them down and wanting to keep them in hand for storm and it also really hits their Yawg Wills. The one card that you might be able to cut is Pithing Needle. It shuts down Welder but will be dead for you against Long, Gifts and most other Fish decks. What about using that slot for an Aether Spellbomb?

I'd agree with Pitlord. I also wouldn't drop below 3 Voidmage since it's so powerful given all the wizards you're running. What about -1 Voidmage, -1 Swords for +2 Jotun Grunt?

I'm also not so sure about Top. Don't get me wrong, the card is amazing, but it doesn't seem to quite fit the deck. What about replacing it with Engineered Explosives? I've played SS a lot and the card is absolutely amazing. It blows Moxen on board, can act as a Wrath in a Fish mirror, gets Welders etc. Its fetchable with Trinket of course.

Also a quick rules note: you won't be able to vamp for something and draw it off Standstill. When your opponent plays a spell it triggers Standstill. When the trigger resolves you sac Standstill and draw the cards. If, however, you Vamp with that Standstill trigger still on the stack, it will trigger Standstill again. That trigger will resolve first and your opponent will draw the cards. Starcity's virtual judge has a good page on the card http://www.starcitygames.com/pages/judgefinder.php?PHPSESSID=cec1a977fabd2cdb18efc0b78b6e0093&keywords=standstill&Submit2=Ask+the+Judge%21

The use of Welder is interesting. I definitely like the idea of an offensive discard outlet (in Mongre/Tog) as opposed to the usual Bazaar. If it's mainly to run Ninja, I'd rather run Grim Lavamancer of Gorilla Shaman since those will be greater disruption for a larger number of decks. You really need to be cheating something into play--Trike/Titan/etc as did CA.

It seems like there's a few different ideas going here on the thread, maybe its worth trying to break some of the ideas apart so that we aren't trying to smash 3 different strategies into 60 cards.

Also--the main question I have is how are we using Welder as a weapon? What artifact are we not able to hardcast that will smash face/give card advantage/control the game/etc. If we're looking at a fish-style deck with Welder that seems to be the major question.

I'd just place a Slaver list that's meta'd well--maindeck Fire/Ice, Burning Wish for Rolling Earthquake etc. And then run your choice of Pentavus/Triskelion/Triskelavus maindeck. Hydra dies to Darkblast, can't be Tinkered or welded and can't beat down for too many turns (dies to blockers etc).

It's not a wizard, but you need at least 2 Jotun Grunt. It messes with Will, Welder etc, gives you a clock and beats other fishies over the head.

I'd cut 1 Trinket Mage for 1 Vampiric Tutor since you still get your toolbox of artifacts but it also gets you other stuff.

I'm also not a big fan of the Vial/Standstill but that's another issue.

Edit: And I just noticed--no Brainstorm?!

As soon as I saw the title of this I new exactly what the list was because I played against the guy who ran this at worlds. Its cute, but its not good. I was playing SS without any sideboard slots against Oath and I took Game 1 from him because he got a turn 1 oath and could only Oath up a 2/1. I find a Darkblast and bounce the Oath. His force in hand (which would have saved an angel from bounce) does nothing. Game 2 he gets ahead early and should win easily. Unfortunately for him he takes *forever* to win this game and we go to time and thus draw. Had we gone to game three (and if he just put in angels) he would have had a great shot at taking the match.

There was also a pile of Slaver there (I played 4 mirror matches in 7 rounds) all ready to destroy fish with Sceptres and FtKs.

AJ-
I thought our Top 8 CoD match was pretty good. Last time at CoD you served me pretty well with Slaver so it was nice to have a rematch. I took game 1 against Becker but had mana issues game 2 and 3 (part Shaman, part my draws).

I don't know...I'm really tempted to build a competetive YawgMaw deck just to mess with people. (And seriously--what happens in a tournament situation if something like this came up and there is no definitive answer, even from top level judges?)

When calculating a converted mana cost treat "X" as zero everywhere *except* the stack.

Chalice/EE in you hand/library/graveyard/RFG pile has a CMC of 0.
Chalice on the stack has CMC of "X + X" and EE has a CMC of "X".

Chalice set at 2 counters a Chalice cast at 1 because *while it is on the stack* that new Chalice has a CMC of 2.

Engineered Explosives set for zero will destroy all Chalices because while they are in play their CMC is zero.

If there is a Chalice set for zero in play, it will counter the EE set for zero (since "X" is zero) *unless* there is colorless mana used to pay for the EE (off a Wasteland for example, in which case the CMC is 1 but it will get no Sunburst counters on it).

--Engineered Explosives (playing it with coloreless mana as well as its interaction with Chalice of the Void, Sphere of Resistance and Trinishphere).
--Workshop and what it can pay for (interaction with Daze, Kataki, Leak, Sphere of Resistance, Trinishpere etc)
--Split spells and their interaction with Confidant, Isochron Scepter and Chalice.
--Erayo flipping and what it will counter.
--What searches can and can not be failed (fetches, wishes, tutors)
--What happens when someone fails to draw for confidant depending on the situation
--What can be Misdirected, how and what the effect is (vs. Duress, Drain, Time Walk [there have been some atrocious rulings with this], Tendrils of Agony, Stifle)
--Remand (interaction with Flashback, Storm and spells under a Yawg will)
--What this thing called the "combat phase" is--Vintage players always seemed to get confused by it.  :lol:

I'm in agreement with Soly. The SS decklist is really tight--there's a few slots that are variable but most (including having Erayo in the deck!!) are pretty important. I've considered upping my Island count to two even, so at least run 1 in the deck. Drop Tinker/DSC, it isn't needed and will occassionally kill you. For bounce, if you're running 2 spells, start with CoV/R River.

Run a second Sword instead of Jitte. I know that Jitte is the the nutz in every other format, but that's because there is creature combat and you can afford to ram your guys into things. --Against fish/aggro SS can not afford to trade creatures.-- Swords keeps your guys from dying, makes them unblockable a good portion of the time (Confidant is about the only played creauture that can do so), still gives you the ability to ping off their stuff, makes your guys immune to Darkblast/Massacre/Pyroclasm/Old Man of the Sea, AND gives you more card draw which the deck just loves. The one extra mana for it is regrettable but not that much of an issue since you're trying to get your creatures down right away anyway.

There's no reason to play Spirit instead of Razia. Razia has vigilance and can ping opposing creatures. This can matter A LOT in some games. Occassionally you will get beat down with your own tokens and it will help against random aggro/fish/goblins/EBA decks.

The mothafuckin snakes takin it down! For once no one was running Tabernacle...

As long as at least one of the targets remain legal upon resolution the spell resolves. If all targets become invalid then the spell fizzles.

well, I won this thing last time so let's see if we can repeat that...

1. What do you predict the turnout to be? 151 1 point
2. How many Force of Wills do you expect to see in the Top 8? 16 1 point
3. How many Swords to Plowshares in the Top 8? 8 2 points
4. How many Wastelands in the Top 8? 6 0 points
5. How many Standard-legal cards in the Top 8? 16 0 points
6. In the top 8, what will be the most popular:
a. Blue card: force of will 0 points
b. White card: swords to plowshares 2 points
c. Green card: nimble mongoose 2 points
d. Red card: goblin lackey 2 points
e. Black card: duress 0 points
f. Gold card: meddling mage 0 points
g. artifact: tormod's crypt 0 points
h. non-land card (most popular of 6a-g): nimble mongoose 0 points
7. What's the most common basic land type in the Top 8? mountain 0 points
8. What's the most common dual land in the Top 8? tropical island 2 points
9. Goblins in the T8? (yes or no) yes 1 point
10. Threshold (UWG) in the T8? (yes or no) yes 0 points
11. Threshold (other) in the T8? (yes or no) yes 1 point
12. Survival.dec in the T8? (yes or no) no 1 point
13. High Tide in the T8? (yes or no) yes 0 points
14. BW Deadguy Ale (Disruption) in the T8? (yes or no) no
15. What's going to be the highest placing combination deck? high tide 0 points

BONUS
14. thresh (uwg) [deck] will take first place. 0 points
15. The winner will be: manuel fernandez 0 points

Total: 15 points

My argument in favor of Chaos Orb is that it is not actually a random effect. Watch any 5-color tournament and you'll see what I mean. I'll admit I'm not completely disinterested since I submitted the deck. I don't know exactly how to resolve the issue, but whether treated as random or non-random I'd still like to see how the deck does since I still think its strong.

Edit: As far as what "going in you opponent's favor" would mean, the assumption is that you hit *something* with Chaos Orb so it should at least blow up a permanent of their choice. Saying it wouldn't do anything strikes me as essentially nerfing the card through rules interpretation. I'd say make a decision and let the deck run its course. If it proves overly powerful there's always the banned list.

What about legalizing Portal?

Fair enough. Even if you banned Null Chamber instead I guess there's still Arbiter. Bazaar/Maze/Form strikes me as very powerful but slow--how would it have done in last week's contest?

The one I really don't get is Chasm--you have to sac a land when it comes into play, so you go shop, choker pass and then choke back and forth while they beat you down? In a few turns you'll be paying more in life to Chasm than either of you would lose to choker. I'm probably missing something though...

I totally submitted Foil/Island/Nether Spirit as one of my decks.  :lol: I'm a little more optimistic about my other entry though...

Banned List Questions
-Leonin Squire, Form of the Dragon and Glacial Chasm all strike me as odd inclusions. I suppose you can do Lotus, Squire, Lotus and then hold a counterspell but that still loses to last week's winner of Woodlot/Wurm/Wurm and loses or fails to beat lots of the other decks. Form of the Dragon can't do anything until turn 9 and should be goldfished by half the decks in the format. Glacial Chasm seems to lack the required support to be broken. I may be completely missing the point on each of these, so tell me if I am (there's probably some horror stories that I haven't heard), but they seem like they could come off the list.

Also--multiple Black Lotuses?

I play Call of the Herd and it goes to my graveyard. When I flash it back what happens if I Remand it? Does the card come back to my hand allowing me to play it again (and then flash it back again)?

I agree that the case shouldn't be overstated. When I played Sullivan in South Milwaukee he had something like 10 sideboard slots for Oath hate since he rightly expected a lot of Oath. He had also just spent 4 hours the night before specifically testing the match with I@n. In Rochester I also faced the deck and nothing like that happened since the guy had no idea how to sideboard and chalice @ 0 on the play and maindeck Darkblast can be a beating. My basic point is that for a deck that eventually wins with smallish creatures and the combat step, Oath should not be feared as an awful matchup.