This card is deceptively easier to cast for 3 than it seems, especially with off color moxen. Any deck with underground seas and full moxen can easily play two of these.

Oath this up, regrow either a tutor or the walk if its already in grave, take a timewalk turn. Oath up second one regrowing time walk, attack with first one for 5. Take another walk turn, oath up last of these dudes (regrowing walk), attack for 10 and replay walk. Untap and attack for lethal?

Same principle as Rune scarred demon, you could probably also just regrow Ywill to assemble key vault or a lethal tendrils.

Awesome job guys, very good content. The interview with brian was very nice in particular. The only minor problem I noted was the difference of volume between the two mics (I had to raise the volume a lot to hear Matt which made it seem as if Tom were yelling).

Bi weekly recordings seems ambitious, but it seems like you guys could pretty much go all day long talking about interesting vintage topics without being redundant.

Looking forward to your next episode, maybe a special for "baby" Jace ? Btw, does anyone have any kind of useful data for Jace at EW?

Touché*

Very interesting and unique list.  But it looks like opening Pandora's box of Variance with so many situational answers, a lot of mana sources and a rather succinct Draw engine (only 1 delve spell, no thirst, no library, no filtering whatsoever, basically nothing outside of Planeswakers and Recall) with only Fow and Chalice as protection. Especially considering that it inherits the natural Variance of Oath on top of that.
Seems like a lot of difficult mulligan decisions especially g1 if you don't know exactly what your opponent is on. Energy Flux maindeck seems super overkill/dead way too often and has extremely poor synergy with Chalice (although to be fair, I can't imagine you'd care all that much about Chalice vs Shops, especially with Energy Flux on board).

Seems like a very sweet list with a ton of different angles of attack, and a lot of Game vs Shops and Dredge. Very similar to the Answer structurally.

What about Chalice of the Void? Card is nuts in any deck that isn't affected by it, and it has some applicability in every single Matchup.
Much more relevant and versatile than Stony Silence.

A 2 mana blue planeswalker seems really powerful.

The +1 ability seems really limiting. I can definitely see scenarios where its a Moat or close to it, but it seems pretty bad in a number of matchups.

Does Baby Jace just completely replace Snapcaster in the decks that would want it? Seems to play along much nicer with delve spells and Gush.

Will this create something new? or does it just simply let a mana light deck like delver that can't play jace and only 1 or two copies of Dack have access to a new powerful tool?
Seems like a much better bridge to Gifts than Snapcaster does, but is that good enough?

All these cards in Magic origins seem very well designed and very difficult to analyze as well as very promising. We have a timetwister replica, a demonic tutor replica, a thirst for Knowledge replica, a new shops creature and a two mana Jace. All these cards seem like they could see play in many different decks and become quite popular. Way to go R&D. Glad to see they've come a long way since Theros block and it's underpower-ness/boring design space.

Nice Article. But I am pretty sure Sudden Shock/Rending volley in the sideboard is for Containment priest rather than for Mentor.

Ravenous Trap/Extirpate probably deserve mention seeing as they are the hardest answers to interact with for most Dredge builds (only Unmask and Cabal Therapy).

Also it's probably best to be prepared for the Dredge decks that have Transformative Sideboards as well, since it's a radically different matchup.

You are correct that Defense grid and Permission can't really coexist in the same deck. You can try a more controlling package of 8-11 counterspells Or a Fast combo approach with 2/3 Defense grid + 3/4 duress, depending on how much shops you expect. But IMO as soon as you are taking a control approach, Steel city vault doesn't make a lot of sense compared to Other time vault variants like Grixis, Tezzcast, Gifts, ...

Basically if you want to play something cool and you know that shops will be on the low side, Steel city vault with grid might be awesome (Although I don't think it's the best deck to take advantage of Defense grid). But as soon as you have to play in a metagame where you have to beat Shops and Blue decks at the same time, it puts the deck in a weird spot. It becomes forced to run counterspells which are more slot intensive and less efficient to set up a combo turn than Defense grid especially with draw7s. As a result the deck is dilluted, so less consistent while going off and has a lot more trouble actually going off vs blue decks.

Draw7s are awful when your opponent can draw a lot of efficient counterspells off them, the only real way to abuse draw7s is with Defense Grid (or Notion thief). So you'd probably just cut draw7s in your Controlish city vault deck and at that point you are just an Awkward Grixis build.

A thing might be said about taking advantage of the 5c manabase and Cavern of souls by running Monastery Mentor and replacing Defense grid with Grand Abolisher.

Thought the same thing when I read the article.

A workshop, a turn one lock piece and another one to follow up + 1 mana away from the forgemaster if the sphere sticks. How is that not a Snap keep? Idk that hand isn't ridiculous but it's within or slightly above the average hand scope for Martello (taking out any Matchup dependent considerations). Not every hand is going to have turn one Shop Mox, lodestone + Chalice into turn 2 tangle.
I understand shops have to mulligan aggressively some times, but I don't think you should mulligan a hand that has a workshop, 2 lock pieces and a game ending threat.

Whoa kinda sad you cut me out of t4 after making that poll where people voted for round robin. We could have played it out 3 out of 4.

My last deck really punished me going 0/3 in matches and 0-6 in games (I was at 5/1 and 10-5 at the end of Week 6). Janky decks get janky results, I will do better next one.

Anyways, I wish you guys good luck for the Playoffs and look forward to watching the stream.

The natural home for this card would be the Grim long shell, which hasn't really played Grim tutor lately due to the inefficiency of the card. This card seems to solve that problem somewhat and grim tutor is not a lot better when petition is bad anyways (vs shops, at finding answers or setting up for next turn).

Aside from the obvious setting up Necropotence/ywill, Dark Petition would help to make bombs like Desire and draw7s more consistent like Burning wish does as well.

This card could definetly see play in that context, however I do not think It will really push the deck forward in the metagame. It makes the deck slightly better in general but it will not help the deck to fight the Workshop menace aside from being the follow up to Hurkyl's Recall or enabling a turn one kill on the play.

I do not think it will be a 4of in that shell, rather I'd expect 2-3, alongside DT, mystical, vamp and seal.

On a side note, Meandeck Tendrils would love a playset of these.

I am curious to see what this card does for Legacy. However the dis-synergy with Ad nauseam seems major.

Tom Dixon 2-0 Whitelotus

Notes: Never play that deck ever again lol.

Anyone in their right mind would know that if you want to attack the metagame from a combo angle, there are about 1001 better choices than playing a very fragile deck like Belcher. Wwhat you said has literally nothing to do with either Raw power or Consistency? And mono blue belcher usually runs 5 wincons anyway so the odds of them exiling all their wincons seems pretty low even with multiple Diminishing returns.

Hard to evaluate this card, is this just on par with Grim tutor or is it much closer to a card like Burning wish. Anyhow this seems just inferior to Gifts ungiven which will cost you one less mana, only one colored and at Instant speed, and you are probably tutoring for rituals and lotuses in your gifts pile anyway, so no upside from Petition.

Either way I dont think a tutor that requires you to have 5 mana is solving Storm's weaknesses (IE Misstep, Chalice and shops in general). Probably not even helping the consistency seeing as you can already play 4 Burning Wishes and/or 4 Gifts ungiven.

Just for a reminder on High casting cost spells that are cheaper when they resolve and vintage relevant, Timespiral plays itself for free and it sees almost no play at all, how is this any different?

Also this card seems just awful in any situation where you are not trying to go off, like setting up for future turns or trying to play around hate.

This card is garbage for Vintage. Windfall is already borderline playable nowadays, but a draw 7 that does exactly the opposite of what it's supposed to do seems just pathetic. It's also weird that some people think that adding more worse combo enablers is going to make combo decks better. Combo decks aren't struggling because of Raw power or Consistency issues.

I could be wrong (keeping in mind how grossly underestimated the delve spells were), but I expect this card to see little to no competitive play in vintage, probably only in the beginning and by people trying to innovate.

As usual r&d doesn't shy away from printing broken creatures like Griselbrand or Monastery Mentor, but when it comes to spells for combo decks...

Burning wish application seems sweet, but it costs 5UU Vs a lodestone golem + 2R for the wish to a total of 7UUR which seems outrageously inefficient and you need even more mana to be able to go off in the same turn since it's a sorcery.

 Bouncing your artifact mana with hurkyls is often win more and if you have to pay (1)UU + 1R to do it, no way it nets you any mana. The only upside I see over Hurkyl's is that this card wouldn't bounce your own defense grids/Seat of Synods.

Lost 0-2 to Wappla.
G1 I choose to play conservatively rather than take a risky opening knowing that I probed him t1 and his hand was pretty bad, but his topdecks help him a lot, while mine don't change anything so my line ends up costing me the game.
G2 just an insane amount of variance in his direction, nothing I can do my opponent has it all and my draws are pretty awful.

Notion thief is usually pretty good in Steel city vault variants that play draw 7s and dack fayden. Gives you another Game ending combo as well as being a potential Blowout answer to something like a brainstorm.

Force of will alone seems too little, either you want to play a 8-12 counterpackage either you go for a duress or defense grid threat heavy combo deck. As it is when playing draw7s you are liable to give your opponent a lot of cards you can't reliably deal with with only 4 forces.

Have you tested cruise and dig in the deck? You've got more than enough delve support to play 2 delve spells.

Why Ywill MD and not SB? seems odd with Burning wish to only find it when you need it without having a dead draw in the main.

I would encourage testing Preordain, it may not be brainstorm but Vintage decks need it and not having any will leave you disadvantaged vs the other blue decks that will all be playing it.

Sensei's divinning top absence seems odd, in a deck trying to get to take advantage off having a high artifact count, especially considering you already run multiple keys.

Tezzeret as a one of might me worth a shot as well. Even though it's generally bad vs all the creatures in the format, it wins the game on the spot with any other piece or tutor, and your deck already has a pretty nice density of them that you should only need one Tezzeret activation to get there.

Mystical tutor seems pretty bad in most decks atm since cda is extremely undesirable and neither Tinker or Yawgwill are as important as they used to be.

I wonder if Mindtwist in the wishboard wouldnt be much better replaced by thoughtseize.

my two cents

Played our match with Matt. I win 2-0.
Defense grids/Abeyances get there after being countered and tutored up multiple times.
G1 on the back of tezzeret -2 fetch Time vault + untap with Mind over Matter.
G2 I stroke myself for 27 (the rest of my deck), untap Candelabra (which untaps Academy and Minamo, minamo untaps Academy) a bunch of times with Mind over matter and stroke my opponent with over 900 blue mana in pool.

Space Stormy was streaming and commentating for those interested.

GG to my opponent, sorry for the unfun nature of the deck.

Got my first Match loss yesterday Vs Dave Kaplan 2-0. My opponent had the right cards to match with mine, + I was mentally preoccupied by personnal stuff so I wasn't on top of my game. Thankfully I am still tied for 1-3rd place, so not too bad.

G1 I am forced to keep a sketchy hand with 2 glimmervoids and sensei for only cheap artifact ( I would have mulled that hand if it didnt also happen to have Tolarian Academy in it).
He has the (stupid) misstep for my sensei, which kills my first glimmervoid, turn 2 I play the second one to cast preordain, but it meets a spell pierce, I conceed when he has strip mine and pyromancer on board, seeing as there is no way I'm getting to the point where I can Abeyance his strip mine + counters and play academy into spiral. I think I probably win that game if the second glimmervoid is a seat of synod instead but Variance happens.
G2 he has early ancestral + he draws 3 chewer and 1 spree, while I am on an average hand.  I conceed when he reveals dig through time to his Delver with 6 cards in hand (2 lands from gush to be fair) and I have 0 cards in hand and only Academy (Which taps for only one blue mana^^), Seat + minamo. In my mind there is no point playing out that game seeing as he probably has 1 or 2 counterspells in hand and the dig is the nail in the coffin at that point.

We had Space Stormy Stream the match and do commentary despite the extremely poor quality of the games... But then again with that deck it was either I was watching him play magic either he was watching me play, so I shouldn't be suprised.

So far, not really impressed by my deck at all compared to how it had tested.

Week 4 : Maximum Chemdawg 1-2 White Lotus

G1: He mulls to 5 while i have turn one Ancestral on the play so not much of a game. He concedes before I get to go off and draw my entire deck a few times over + generate hundreds of blue mana in the process =(.

G2: He has two consecutive Hymn to tourrach turn 2 and 3. I manage to get a key and a map on board + 2 mana sources and I find tezzeret after playing a thoughtcast, I am set up to win next turn by fetching up the academy with Map, but he topdecks the third Hymn like a boss and takes away my tezzeret ;(. From there I topdeck blank after blank after blank after Cantrip into blank, ... I die a slow and painful death after being beat down from 20 to 0 life by the same lone Vampire Nighthawk and seeing his Liliana go all the way to her ultimate. Crazy Variance.

G3 he has turn one lotus into Hymn + inquisition of Kozilek. He chooses Twister from a hand with Land, Imperial Seal, Voltaic Key and Timetwister. Which leads me to tap my first land for key, play second land and seal for Time Vault on my turn.  His only removal is Vindicate so I play the mana crypt I topdecked in order to be able to activate the TV the turn I cast and cut his outs to 0 (seeing as he only has one land). Some might argue that taking the twister is the clear wrong choice, but due to the Mana crypt topdeck if he takes the seal I get to empty my hand and draw 7 new cards which would have completely voided all he had accomplished with the lotus + triple discard line, and put me in a pretty good shape to win with only one land on his side.
The mana crypt deals me a few damage but I am able to quickly find Vamp into tezzeret and seal the deal by attacking with a 5/5 army of Black Lotus and friends.

Much closer games than I expected due to Tourrach's Fan club singing all day long.
Now on for two Weeks of UR Delver, supposed to be an unfavorable match-up according to some, let's see what happens.

Edit: sry posted in wrong thread.

These decklists are pretty sweet by the way. No more Mentor decks, yet still the same number of delver surprisingly enough.

Finished our week 3 match with Sean O. I win 2-0 due to him being on the bad side of Oath's variance against the Gush draw engine's natural consistency g1 and me finding all 3 priests g2 (I kept a hand with Double Priest, tundra, mox in it and found third one off Dig through time).

Nice games and chat after the game. Sorry for bad draws, look forward to playing against you again some time Sean.

On the contrary I think it would be more constructive if you present the logic and arguments behind your reasonning. 

Burning oath is very far from being a perfect deck but it's position in the metagame seems as strong as ever. The metagame hasn't actually changed all that much since the "treasure cruise era" and I was playing the deck back then and it was very strong vs the Oath, Shop, Delver tier 1 trinity despite the imperfections of the original decklist.

I haven't really been playing Burning Oath, so I don't have an "optimal" list, but basically I just cut a few cards that are considered to be uncuttable since the deck is already flooded with those.
I cut: Time walk, chain of vapor, duresses, Necro, tinker+ jar and windfall to insert 4 Defense grid, 3 probe + 3 preordain and imperial seal. Also since the deck sports 4 maindeck defense grids, Mox opal is a lot more reliable and tolarian Academy is really insane.

You seem to be ignoring the points I make which are:

1- Burning oath does not really care about Oath hate all that much since it has a lot of other game winning bombs. Thus forcing your opponent to dilute their deck to answer Oath is good for you.
2- Against other oath decks you keep them from activating oath through orchard parity and if they cast show and tell there is a good amount of chance that you end up with Bargain or Griselbrand in play.
3- Defense Grid is an absolute trump vs most current Countermagic configurations.

The best plan for burning oath (aside from going off turn 1 on the play) vs shops is to land oath early or to build up towards hurkyl's recall in their end step.

Gush decks will have a very hard time hating on oath, being proactive and keeping you from going off through defense grid all at the same time.
Leyline sees almost no play and certainly not in Gush based decks sideboards. It also doesn't interact in any way with Show and tell: "Each player may put an artifact, creature, enchantment, or land card from his or her hand onto the battlefield."
Cage shuts down Will and oath sure, but you can still easily win through Draw7s, Mind's Desire, Necropotence, Yawgmoth's bargain, Griselbrand (hardcasted or through Wish>Show and tell) and you can otherwise deal with the cage(s) through Chain of vapor/hurkyl or Wish for Shattering spree.

How does normal oath have a fast win? their whole deck revolves upon something that they cannot rely on against you since Oath of druids and Show and tell are symmetric, Oath Mirrors are well known for their specific nature.
15 Counterspells ok, but no draw engine and if only FoW can reliably counter Defense grid...
Oath is usually one of the hardest blue matchups for fast storm combo decks, since the deck is pretty consistent at assembling it's combos early when not interacted with. But when you keep them off Griselbrand their deck is really not a good control deck at all.

Well this is true and Burning oath can't even rely on boarding in basics to build up a Wasteland-resilient mana base. However the nature of the deck makes it hard to hate out. Spheres won't prevent Griselbrand from killing you and Karakas, Metamorphs, duplicants and cages won't stop you from building up towards hurkyl's recall.

Burning oath properly built has game against the current metagame of Gush Control, Oath and Shops.
I would tune the deck in a way to play defense grid as my anti control card and add Preordain to help improve the consistency.

Vs Gush control you get free wins game one on the back of oath and post board you force them to dillute their deck to answer oath meanwhile you can easily win the game by other paths. Defense Grid is  usually a really powerful card against those decks as opposed to duress, fow and the likes.

Vs regular oath you have the advantage because oath is your plan B meanwhile it is their plan A, you can match their orchards and Show and tell is a very strong gambit for them. Defense grid can also let you win through a Griselbrand.

Vs shops oath or Hurkyls either way all you need to do is resolve a 2 cmc spell in a deck with high mana count and ancient tombs post board. Shops being what they are and both decks being entirely proactive the die roll is probably the most determinant factor to the outcome of the match of course.

Adds a little spice to the deck but so far only made his appearance one time vs Storm and he immediately played karakas after to my great sadness. I don't think it's an optimal card choice in any way (The Danger of cool things I guess)


Anyways Got our match in with James. I loose g1 again but manage to get there in the two postboard games: Jgs 1-2 Macdeath
Quite the Epic match, a real grinder. I Fortunately win the die roll.

G1 I have a turn one island into preordain that sees fetch and mox pearl, I decide to keep both with a mana drain in hand and draw the mox which I immediately cast knowing he is on Workshops. He leads with turn one Trinisphere. Fortunately i have double island + mox which enables me to play around his trinisphere and counter a smokestack and a lodestone golem with mana drains. I end up messing up my drain turn (which costs me the game) by using one mana from his Lodestone Golem to pay for the dig instead of exiling time walk and then choosing mentor + plow instead of mentor + land with 2 coloress floating and mox pearl, since a sphere had joined the Trinisphere which I eclipsed from my thinking when debating what second card to choose other than the mentor. I never got back in that game as he assembled Crucible Waste lock vs my only 2 maindeck basics + 4 spheres of resistance. Lots of turns go by where I play a dual in order to cast a removal spell through the spheres or tap out for moxes but he assembles revoker naming Mox Pearl + tangle wire before I can play Sol ring and finally cast the mentor. GG

Board out all that non sense misstep pyroblast etc blue cannibalism and bring in LOTS of cards that can Destroy artifacts or answer threats.

g2 I keep a one lander (fetchland) with force of will. He of course opens with turn one lotus mox mox trinisphere Strip mine (my reaction on the in-game chat: "I thought they restricted that card"). Drawing upon my great mastery of Islanders magic, I use the Force of my Will upon his vile Circular diabolical Machine (Long story short: I point my fow at his trinisphere). I don't draw a second land for a few turns and he resolves a karn which starts beating me down. I have Stp in hand but I refuse to fetch into his strip mine knowing that I have a gush in hand. When I finally draw the land its another fetch so I decide to get greedy and bank on him not strip mining my first fetched land in response to the second fetch activation which he does not do. I get to Gush into Dack fayden, steal his karn and win from there.

G3 Was truely impressive: a very long a grindy game with a lot of back and forths between both players. I mulled to 5 on the draw into Fow snapcaster chewer stp and bolt. He opens with turn one revoker naming dack. I am fortunate to draw a dual, he wastes. I get lucky again draw a fetch. he plays a golem that meets my Fow. A few turns later I draw Ruby that lets me start blowing up his stuff and I start by Bolting his freshly animated mFactory that cost him an ancient tomb activation. I decide to play conservatively and let the revoker take me down to 10 with a chewer in hand until I draw a second chewer. he lands a karn which I mistakenly do not plow sorcery speed when he has a Tangle wire to animate (mistake I of course realize when I look at his board after I clicked on End phase and he was in his Upkeep) he takes me down to two life. However I manage to land a dack fayden and stabilize I have Mentor in hand but I need white mana. For whatever reason my brain refuses to see the play dack steal his mox pearl to cast mentor after he wastelanded my second tundra so I have to wait until I draw another white source.Hhe finally finds the factory knowing that I am at 2 life for multiple turns in a row. I land a harwcast ingot chewer on his thorn with double island untapped for mana drain. I mana drain his dismember for my chewer. next turn find fetch cast mentor, however after gushing and delving I find bolt and Fire/Ice which are lethal once the chewer hits him.

In Conclusion a really nice, interactive, tight, suspenseful and enjoyable set of games. Even though I made a few mistakes because I was not sharp enough due to mental state and forgot to take a few key interactions into account when making some decisions.

Notes on the Deck list: really missed at least 2 gitaxian probes.

finally managed to get our game with Storm. I manage to win 2 sideboarded games after getting blown out of my mind G1 Storm 1-2 WLotus.

I loose g 1 quickly to cavern into Thalia, bob and Knight with double fow and Drain in hand.
board out most of my situationnal counters and bring in removal.

G2 he isnt able to maintain pressure outside of dr shaman so Gushes digs and dack +1 activations get there.

G3 I gush into Jace turn two and overwhelm him with card advantage removal and a second copy of mentor to finish the job after I misplayed by running the first one into abrupt decay with no monk tokens.

Fun note: i ended up playing ponder on turn one every single game.

I chose to play something solid for first trimester in expectation of Storm's Human list and to get a feel of the metagame. Sorry for those expecting crazy brews, I'll make it up to you in future decks.

Jeskai Gush control

Feature Card:
1 Grand Arbiter Augustin IV

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Sol Ring
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Flooded Strand
3 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Snapcaster Mage
3 Monastery Mentor
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Dack Fayden
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Treasure Cruise
3 Dig Through Time
4 Gush
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
3 Preordain
1 Time Walk
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Fire // Ice
1 Flusterstorm
2 Pyroblast
2 Mana Drain
3 Mental Misstep
4 Force of Will

SB: 1 Swords to Plowshares
SB: 1 Mountain
SB: 4 Ingot Chewer
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Mental Misstep
SB: 3 Containment Priest
SB: 2 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Wear // Tear
SB: 1 Lightning Bolt