Graham and Jacob both Top 8'd at Cancon in January too, right? Consistent results, nice work guys!

Can we get the 9th place decklist please?

Hey guys,
I've been fiddling with an UR/g shell with Fastbond and Gush in it - I took it to 2nd place at a 22-player Mox event, and before that won our monthly tournament (although it was only 12 players).
What are peoples thoughts on the splash? I haven't had any unwinnable matchups so far - I've managed to dodge Aggro decks fairly well. Most of my losses seem to come from color screw in the mana base. Currently 12 of the 25 mana sources don't provide Blue, which I think shows how insanely greedy the mana base is.

Here's my current list - the sideboard is a work in progress, I literally had to make it on the day the first time I played the list.
Credit should go to Josh Butler (shrewarmies) for the initial list that I've been tweaking over time! (or to anyone else who designed the deck before him)

Great showing from the Vintage community again, considering the time of year!
The tournament was great, the matches fun and the meta diverse.

Classic Vintage moments I witnessed:
"Judge, I cast Vampiric Tutor and accidentally put my hand on top of my library"
2 of my workshop opponents finishing the game with no permanents in play
Winning a game against Graham in the Semi's that I had no business winning due to his dual Bobs being amazingly uncooperative, even with Jace's help
Scooping to the workshops player on turn 2 because you can't beat a Lodestone with a SoFI equipped
"Man, maybe I SHOULD have played my 4x Chains of Mephistopheles deck"
Almost dying to triple Vengevine on turn 3

Thanks, it was a refreshing change from my usual style of decks
I actually mentioned a couple of times during the day that Mana Drain was difficult to cast in the deck - Gush I guess falls into the same category. It's a minor issue most of the time, just a matter of sequencing your land drops and deciding between holding up Gush/Drain, or getting the Factory beats in a turn earlier.
The lack of Crucible was noticeable too - I'd probably change the Gorilla Shaman to a Crucible at least, or change out the Barbarian Ring to another Island of some variety.

I'd like to note that my sideboard was literally the best 15 cards I could find in my folder in the 5 minutes I had before the event started - I was borrowing the deck from Josh and he hadn't put a sideboard together for it.

The tournament was great fun, looking forward to hopefully seeing the photos taken of the Top 4 uploaded as there was definitely some crazy board states!

Been playing with the list more the last couple of days - I'm convinced Vault/Key were good cuts to make. From the original list, my changes so far are:
-1 Time Vault
-1 Voltaic Key
-1 Brainstorm - the lack of shuffle effects make the card significantly less broken.

+1 Intuition
+2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor - to increase the blue count for Force of Will


After more testing, I don't think Jace is the answer in that slot. I also want to try to find room for 1 Enlightened Tutor - being able to find an Oath, or a mana source, or even a creature to hardcast could be crucial.
I'm not sure if I'd like Chalice in the deck, if you're not going broken then the deck can be really mana hungry at times. I haven't tested with it yet but that's the impressions I'm getting from it.
So far from testing, the only negative matchup I've found is Metalworker Shops w/ Staff of Nin. That being said, I haven't tested the Dredge matchup much.

Easy solution to that: Transmute away the Mindlock Orb. Similar to Tinkering away a Grafdigger's Cage

Playing around with the list at the moment - not sure if Vault/Key belong here. Will let you know how I end up!

I was the UR Landstill player - the Slivers list was easier for my list than Ben's I think. Harmonic Sliver didn't ruin my day because of my lack of Batterskull, Crystalline Sliver was the biggest issue for me holding a hand full of Bolts. To compare it to another deck, it's essentially a Merfolk deck with no countermagic, but with Shroud instead.

Cavern of Souls is definitely a card - the Humans matchup in the Swiss was really difficult because of the Cavern, and Slivers would have been a lot simpler without it there.
It was interesting to see both the Landstill decks reach the Top 4, with only 1 combo deck in the room...

It was good to see another 3 new players this month, hopefully they'll come back next month too! Here's my writeup from the Tezzeret side of things:


Round 1 vs. Josh (shrewarmies) - Highlander Red

I knew what Josh was on today as him and I test together a bit - and he knew my list as it was originally his idea anyway. He was piloting a Highlander deck today that runs more than a bit of artifact hate...wasn't looking forward to the matchup!

I won the die roll, and kept a hand that looked like:
Land/Land/Land/Mox/Key/Vampiric Tutor/Time Walk
The play was simple - T1 Key, end step VT for Vault, he didn't have the Shatter.

Sideboard: Steel Sabotage out, Dismember in

Game 2 I mulliganed to 6, kept:
Lotus, Key, Emerald, Sensei's Top, Force of Will, Mana Drain
I can't remember what Josh ended up playing, but I know I countered some things and eventually Tinker'd my Emerald into a Vault to win the game.

2-0


Round 2 vs. Nick - Infect

Today was Nick's first Vintage tournament - his deck was literally changed from Modern to Vintage minutes before round 1 started. He managed to get a turn 2 win both games in round 1 apparently though, so I was pretty worried...once again I knew what he was playing however which may have given me an advantage...

I won the roll again, and kept a 7 of:
Land/Land/Land/Demonic Tutor/Force/Force/Mana Drain

He had no turn 1 play other than an Inkmoth Nexus - both a relief and a scary sight...the deck is still capable of turn 2 lethalling off just the Nexus!
I spent my 2nd time DT'ing for a Back to Basics...immediately wrote that down as a mistake.
However it eventually paid off - I had enough blue cards to Force both of his threats, and Drain a lethal Berserk on his Inkmoth Nexus. He ended up with a tapped Nexus from animating the other one, a tapped Pendelhaven, and a single Forest.
I eventually drew into Yawgmoth's Will and had enough in the yard to close out the game.

Sideboard: Steel Sabotage + Inkwell Leviathan out, Dismember and Mental Mistep in

Game 2 was over fairly quickly. He kept a miseable no-lander, playing a Glistener Elf off an Emerald turn one.
My turn 1 was slightly more juicy - Jet, Sol Ring, Grim Monolith, Key and untap Monolith, Tolarian Academy, Jace to bounce the Elf and take over the game. If I hadn't bounced it, he had the Invigorate+Berserk to lethal me turn 2!

2-0, 4-0


Round 3 vs. Jake - Dark Times

Jake was also in his first Vintage tournament today. It was good to see more and more new players, especially with a PTQ on the same day!

I won the roll, and kept a risky 7:
Land/Land/Land/Echoing Truth/Steel Sabotage/Time Vault
I kept it knowing his wincon is Marit Lage most of the time - forgetting about discard spells. Derp.
Turn 1 he Thoughtseized me and took Vault. Turn 2 the Echoing Truth fell to Duress, then he played a Dark Depths...
Things weren't looking good, however he didn't manage to draw a Hexmage or a Tutor, and eventually fell to Tinker turning my Voltaic Key into an Inkwell Leviathan. Not my preferred way to beat a mono-black list but I'll take what I can get.

Sideboard: Back to Basics and Inkwell Leviathan out, Mental Mistep in

Game 2 was also over quickly - I kept:
Land/Key/Vault/Force/Tezzeret the Seeker/Tinker/Echoing Truth
Turn 1 I drew Mana Vault - proceeded to play out Key/Vault, giving the mono-black list 1 turn to draw an answer. I then proceeded to play an extra 6 turns on my own before drawing a Key to stop my Mana Vault from killing me.

2-0, 6-0


Round 4 vs. Weng - Martello Shops

Weng and I ID'd to split 1st and 2nd, then bashed some games out anyway seeing as we had time to spare. I don't have many notes from our games, but I do know I lost fairly convincingly to a mixture of bad draws and bad play on my part.





The list was tweaked a bit since last month's event - we were expecting a couple of Fish decks and a Mono-White list to show up, and there was a lack of fast combo decks, so we decided on Inkwell Leviathan over Blightsteel or Myr Battlesphere. It's a 3 turn clock instead of 1, but it's MUCH more resilient to removal - the only answer I played against for it was a Phyrexian Metamorph. The Darkblast was changed to an Echoing Truth too - I needed another out to Null Rod, and Chain of Vapor just wasn't working for me.

Gday, my name's Jimbo and I've been playing Magic for just over a year and Vintage since last November. Figured I've lurked here enough, may as well sign up and join the discussion!