It feels weird that neither deck has Yawgmoth's Will in it.

If it's separating oneself from the crowd that you want: https://www.patreon.com/themanadrain

Thanks for pulling all this data together. That's some impressive results for Shops.

Yeah, fair enough. Your rationalizations are all very logical. I have played the deck a few more times now (in the tournament practice room as I don't have the time for dailies) and I really like it. I haven't added Null Rods yet as I want to play your list a lot more first but I really like how the deck feels now.

My current list is the same as yours from yesterday except with a Vampiric Tutor instead of one Mindbreak Trap. Also a miser's Null Rod in the board because I only own one Crucible of Worlds.

I am now thinking that I need to pick up Dark Depths (and Urborgs) in paper. And regretting that I sold the ones that I had five or six years ago.

As Tolaria West helps to establish the combo under a Standstill I don't think I'd want to cut that before testing it out. Hexmage is a combo piece but do we need four?

I would cut Top and one Mindbreak Trap and I'm not sure what else. Maybe keep it at two Null Rods and cut Tolaria West, Preordain or Hexmage for Vampiric Tutor?  Don't know. I would also cut a basic Island for either Basic Swamp or one more Sea.

Explosives are great and would be missed for sure. Maybe 1 Hurkyls and either Illness in the Ranks or Virulent Plague? If Nihil also has to go maybe Leyline of the Void (though 3 feels weird), Jailer or Ravenous Trap.

I have just now played one match with this deck in the tournament practice room and since I won it I'm pretty much an expert.

I feel like this could be a Null Rod deck. This would help the already potent secondary plan to grind opponents down. Replacements for the one Top and the Spellbombs and Explosives in the board feel pretty easy to come up with.

I imagine that it is also somewhat harder in paper magic as there are a lot of triggers to miss.

This is extremely adorable. If we all really really want it to be good enough maybe we can make it happen. I believe in us.

Khahan, I agree with everything that you have said.

They aren't dead cards if they go to get a Minamo (or Deserted Temple!) or something. Crop Rotation as a possible two for one is a potential issue but it lets you have more than one land drop a turn (kind of...) and i would think it would be much more explosive mid-combo than either Sylvan Scrying or Expedition Map.


I agree with that Red feels cuttable. You could go BUG and have a reasonably solid mana base.


Yeah, it was awful for Randy. Blue and Blue/Green Belcher is actually a deck that I've played and I haven't liked Living Wish very much either.

I haven't played this deck at all and know nothing. Ok, that part aside if its all about finding Academy how about Crop Rotation or Sylvan Scrying as they work through Null Rod/Stony Silence?

Would you put Gushbond Tendrils in Gush or Dark Ritual (Storm)?
How about junk/hatebears/etc?

Great report, thanks for writing it. I enjoyed watching you in the play-in tournament and was rooting for you to make it through. I hope you get another chance for a future season.

Well said. You had a great run and I think you should be really proud of that. I would love to see you take down the next play-in tournament, whenever that is.

Cool. Thanks.

How often does Eudemonia run Vintage events? Might possibly move back to the Bay Area.

I have been experimenting with both UWR and Esper Bomberman and I think I like the Esper version a little better. I was only playing one or two Dacks, a Pyroblast and Pyrite Spellbomb for red in the maindeck so I don't feel like I have missed it too much. My Esper list has Vamp and Demonic Tutors, Nihil Spellbomb, Tasigur and I'm trying out two Dark Confidant. Not sure if it's good or not but so far it feels decent. I haven't played Bomberman much overall so and my sample size is small so I'm not sure if I trust my judgement yet. If anyone has any thoughts or feedback on my list I'd love to hear it. Thanks.

* 16 lands
2 - Cavern of Souls
1 - Library of Alexandria
1 - Tolarian Academy
1 - Island
3 - Tundra
3 - Underground Sea
4 - Flooded Strand
1 - Polluted Delta

* 8 other mana
1 - Black Lotus
5 - Moxen
1 - Mana Crypt
1 - Sol Ring

2 - Swords to Plowshares
2 - Mental Misstep
1 - Ancestral Recall
1 - Brainstorm
1 - Ponder
1 - Flusterstorm
1 - Vampiric Tutor
1 - Nihil Spellbomb
1 - Sensei's Divining Top

2 - Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 - Time Walk
2 - Mana Drain
1 - Demonic Tutor
2 - Dark Confidant

2 - Monastery Mentor
4 - Thirst for Knowledge
2 - Trinket Mage

2 - Auriok Salvagers
1 - Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 - Force of Will

1 - Tasigur, the Golden Fang

1- Repeal
1 - Engineered Explosives

* sideboard
1 - Swords to Plowshares
2 - Disenchant
1 - Devout Witness
2 - Kataki, War's Wage
1 - Plains
1 - Engineered Explosives
1 - Notion Thief
2 - Grafdigger's Cage
1 - Pithing Needle
3 - Containment Priest

The maindeck is 61 cards. I'm not sure what I want to cut. I also don't know about baby Jace vs. JTMS and Bob vs. Delve.

It's 61 cards

Thanks for the writeup. I'm looking forward to trying Remora. I'm surprised that your sideboard doesn't have even more shops hate given how skewed the maindeck is towards fighting blue.

I'll add to the positive feedback on this article (and on your articles in general). I appreciate that you present why something is good or why something changed rather than just telling us that things have changed and now X is good. I have felt a lot more comfortable playing Delver/Pyromancer rather than Mentor since Mentor was printed. The deck just flowed better and none of the various Mentor builds felt quite right. I haven't had the chance to play much Mentor since the DCI changes have come into effect but I have noticed that Mentor seems to be doing well. Thanks for explaining why.

I also wondered this. It seemed like a lot of people were assuming that Thirst and Gush wouldn't work together and I wasn't really sure why. I'm new to the format and I chalked it up to another thing that I just didn't get and which would become obvious at some point. I do get that most recent Gush decks along the lines of Pyromancer/Delver tend to be land-light and only play on-color Moxen but it seems to me that Moxen actually work well with Gush as they let you Gush more often and still play spells. Thirst implies a deck with higher CMC spells but if Thirst is at or near the top end of your curve it still feels like it might be low enough to pair with Gush. But again, I don't have a lot of confidence in this estimation. And I see that Rich has been trimming copies of Gush from his list.

This top 16 is really interesting. Lots of variety and crazy lists. I'm loving the innovation so far since the banned list update.

Does the $0.01 promo subscription last for just a month? I could not find that information and I thought that was very sketchy. It does say that when the promotion period ends then the cost of the subscription goes up (unless you cancel) but it didn't say how long that would take. I don't mind paying for good content but the site made me feel like I needed to be on my guard for whatever reason and I didn't sign up.

Yay computer science.

Thanks for doing all this work. Amazing.

http://mtgcoverage.com/ has it broken down into rounds with the matchups. It's very useful. At least until everything goes up on youtube.

This was an amazing event and my first Vintage Champs. I hope to go to many more. Thanks to everyone at Card Titan for a great event.

Ha. Or preordains. Thanks.

Yeah I thought maybe Chrome Mox. Or Tinker, Blightsteel, Jar and something else.

I believe the Mentor City Vault list is missing four cards. Any idea what those might be?