The winning meta is 35%+ Shops 20% Dredge; I think Pharaoh and Leyline are incredibly well-positioned, and one-shot hate isn't particularly better against Pharaoh than against Dread Return (arguably it's weaker because Pharaoh can prompt a hate activation by itself)

The BUG Fish match is from the P9C, not sure how much of the rest I'll post. I wasn't amazed at the rest of the matches but I might post some of them regardless just for the meat of it.

Nice!

It's a topic well worth exploring, and you braved Andy's blockade to post it here. Great work!

I got Top 8 in the Power 9 Challenge tonight while streaming - I'm exhilarated but emotionally drained. More detail to come, including cutting some of the stream into Youtube videos.

I typically keep in some level of graveyard plan against BUG Fish (varies), Workshops, Storm, Belcher, Merfolk, Wx Hatebears, Mentor (varies), Dredge, and Gush Combo (varies). I typically take out as much of the graveyard plan as possible against Oath, Standstill, Young Pyromancer, Tezzerator (varies) and Grixis Control. As a general rule, the decks against which I go all-in on the Marit Lage plan cannot reliably answer it. The decks that I keep lots of graveyard interaction against tend to be racing-focused and lighter on hate. Really good matchups like Grixis Pyromancer I will tend to take out the graveyard plan to avoid my opponent having outs.

I think I fall pretty close to you VB, I keep a Bazaar/Library pretty freely in Game 2/3, and I will keep a complete or practically complete Marit Lage combo (my version of "things to cast") in most situations.

Congrats to matori (as mentioned above) tataku, karakusk, and desolutionist on their recent Pitch Dredge finishes!

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/vintage-pitch-dredge#online

I'm thrilled to see a broader circle of people playing the deck and finding success

One thing I'd love to hear at the end (and which I think wouldn't add a lot of time to these) would be a recap of your greater-than-zero predictions.

It's really easy to lose an overall picture of the set by the time you finish creating it, since you have such a fantastic level of detail and deliberation with each individual card.

For this set, I believe it's:
Kozilek, the Great Distortion - 1 Kevin / 1 Stephen
Spatial Contortion - 1 Stephen
Warping Wail - 1 Kevin / 2 Stephen
Sea Gate Wreckage - 3 Kevin / 4 Stephen
Endbringer - 1 Kevin
Sphinx of the Final Word - 1 Stephen
Jori En, Ruin Diver - 15 Kevin / 22 Stephen
Waste - 1 Stephen

Based on that highlight, I think the big prediction is that repeatable draw engines might see play (might see a lot of play) and very versatile cards might see a little play.

I cashed today's Daily Event while recording.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTDAgWmuSWM&list=PLwGy3yc_3RDQYie4IU_3VIJearTeHZGQm&index=8

I've cashed the last 5 or so in a row (that I've played in) including a couple of 4-0s. My first match today I beat an incredibly stacked deck with maindeck Containment Priest, Path to Exile, 7 Waste effects, multiple Karakas, and sideboard more Priest, RIP, and Swords to Plowshares. Deck is ridiculous.

Congrats! Nice work!

There are strong arguments against naming Mental Misstep and against letting a Therapy resolve when you have 1x Misstep in hand. Information advantage is simply not one of them. The whole premise is that there are 2 Therapies showing, so if you counter the first Therapy you are immediately going to get Therapized again. In either case, the Therapy player sees the Misstep player's hand and gets exactly 1 blind name (unless they name Misstep).

Only probably? 

You lose to something insane, and Misstep makes that more likely to happen. If you name Force of Will or Time Walk and see a hand of Mental Misstep, Tinker with 1 Therapy left, that Misstep is a Tinker you can't Therapy out. That's insane.

If you resolve Therapy with 1 extra Therapy, what are the outs? Mental Misstep + bomb is way more likely to occur than double bomb, both castable off 2 mana, both win the game. "Blindly guess something I'm afraid of" is 100% the right call with a single Therapy, but it's totally wrong with multiple Therapy.

Imagine instead of 2 Therapies you had 4 Therapies with your opponent on 2-3 cards. Your first card name would be something in the ballpark of Ravenous Trap, Force of Will, or their likely 4-ofs. I don't think there's any chance that your first card name is Time Walk or Tinker or anything like that. It's the same case here, just not as extreme. Your early Therapies when you have multiples are more about getting information and setting you up to strip their hand. That's exactly what naming Misstep against a small hand accomplishes.

Yeah, I think there's got to be an element of "agree to disagree" here. In the scenario I framed above I think it's 100% correct to name Misstep and if you miss blindly you just lose to topdeck land. Literally the only way you lose the game is if they get to resolve something insane, and it's within your power to make that not happen. The opponent holding the Misstep increases their odds of resolving their insane thing, and the more you protest that you would never name Misstep the more reasonable the line of holding Misstep becomes.

Keep in mind the Dredge player has only seen basic Island Preordain Mox Ruby.

The premise is that the initial Dredge is "slow" so presumably you're not winning that turn (or else the exercise is obviously moot).

I think it's entirely reasonable to name Tinker, but it's also reasonable to name a Vault/Key piece, Walk, Ancestral, and a few other cards. That field of cards narrows substantially after the Misstep is cast. As a result, casting the Misstep on the 1st Therapy makes it more likely that you lose your Tinker. I think that's pretty inarguable in this scenario. Maybe you personally would blind hit on the Tinker, and that's great for you, but if you name Misstep it doesn't just have to be Tinker. It can be Ancestral. It can be a Vault/Key piece. Whatever it is, naming Misstep gets you the second Therapy and shuts out the crazy topdecks. If you name Misstep, you don't have to blind hit.

The idea of naming Misstep is that even if it only ever hits Therapy, it is still sometimes the "card that beats you" by virtue of shutting down the second Therapy. If what you need to do to win the game is get a guaranteed Therapy resolution after seeing their hand, then refusing to do it because "they should have cast the Misstep" is just foolish. The Meddling Mage principle applies here - if Mental Misstep is the card that could potentially win them the game, just name it.

If you would literally never name Misstep with a Therapy, then I (as a Misstep player in this hypothetical) would literally never get blown out by letting you resolve it. As a result, when you personally have exactly 2 Therapies and I have exactly 1 Misstep, I should lean pretty heavily towards letting it resolve.

I get an information advantage on your Therapies and I never get blown out - great!

(The exception being if I can make you cast both Therapies rather than only 1 in situations where I would prefer you cast both, such as when my hand is lands+Misstep)

Let me try to flesh out a situation that I think illustrates my point.

I'm a Grixis Control player (in this hypothetical) and my opponent is a known Dredge player. Let's call him Jim. Jim always plays Dredge, and when I'm paired against him I mulligan heavily in game 1 looking for fast interaction.

My eventual Turn 1 play is basic Island -> Preordain, seeing Tinker and Jace the Mind Sculptor. I put JTMS on the bottom, drawing the Tinker. I play a Mox Ruby, and pass the turn with a 3-card hand of Tinker, Mana Drain, and Mental Misstep.

My Dredge opponent (who was on the play) gets a little bit of a slow Dredge, but positions himself to cast 2 Cabal Therapy on his second turn.

He puts the first Therapy on the stack. Do you counter with Mental Misstep here? I think I would lean very heavily against countering it. If I go to 2 cards in hand Tinker will be very near the top of the list in terms of cards my opponent would name. A 2-card hand in this situation could basically only win from a Tinker, Ancestral, or some other incredible card/combination. If I have an extra card in hand my opponent is much more likely to name something else, because Tinker is restricted and his field of concern is a fair bit wider. Tinker is definitely still high on the list of cards to name, but if he names Tinker blindly whether you counter or not is really not important.

An extra item to think about is what the Dredge player names against a 3-card hand in the blind in this situation, having seen only a mulligan to 4, a basic Island, a Preordain, and a Mox Ruby. I think Time Walk, Force of Will, Black Lotus, Ancestral Recall, and then Tinker are the best options for a single Therapy, in roughly that order. I don't think Mental Misstep is anywhere near the top of the list, if you have exactly 1 Therapy.

So, using the typical "smart" play I use my Misstep to protect my Tinker and that makes it much more likely that the Tinker actually gets Therapied (probably close to 50/50 IMO). The play of waiting for the second Therapy to protect the Tinker and hoping to topdeck a mana source is vastly more likely to win the game. The counter to this is for the Dredge player to name Mental Misstep (or Force of Will) with the first Therapy, expecting to clear out any resistance and be able to resolve the second Therapy for a known card. Given how few cards the control player has, I think Misstep is a totally reasonable card to name. Force of Will + blue card + threat isn't a realistic concern (because you can beat any threat your opponent can play off 2 mana with no support), and it's extremely unlikely that they have something like Tolarian Academy + double card draw (something that could potentially win the game after you wipe out 1 known card).

The fact that Misstep (basically) only hits Therapy is definitely relevant. That's why the premise of naming Misstep requires that you have exactly 2 Therapies.

So the situation where they let the Therapy resolve is: the dredge player has exactly 2 Therapies, and the Misstep player has exactly 1 Misstep (and either doesn't have Force or is unwilling to use it on a Therapy). If the Dredge player was going to hit blindly, whether or not you Misstep doesn't matter. Either the first one hits blindly or the second does (whichever resolves). If the dredge player was going to miss blindly, whether or not you Misstep doesn't matter. Either the first one misses blindly or the second does (whichever resolves).

So what you're weighing as the Misstep player is the odds that they name Misstep versus giving them more information when they do actually name a card. They get to see your hand either way and get to blindly name 1 card either way. If you counter the first Therapy they gain information by the time they resolve a Therapy (they saw you counter it). If you counter the second Therapy their only resolving Therapy had minimal information. On the flip side, if they do name Misstep then that could be bad for the Misstep player because the second Therapy gets to name a known card (or be saved for a later turn).

I think that decision could easily come down either way without any weird mind-games.

Thank you for the kind words, everyone! I appreciate it.

Re: Dragonlord Kolaghan, I think that would be a very reasonable inclusion. I was just trying to show the absolute basics of "what does this deck even do?" in the first video, so I didn't want to delve too deeply into all the reanimation options. Arguably something like Chancellor of the Annex was already too much and shows my personal biases.

Re: Mental Misstep, I don't claim that it's always correct to name it or name Force when you have exactly 2 Therapies, but I do think it's sometimes right. The main thing is how developed the opponent is - if they're very undeveloped I would consider naming Misstep and if they're very developed I would lean towards Force. Anything in the big middle area I think you try to hit a business spell.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwGy3yc_3RDTzjIuJFVE5_GYcQsWEz58d

I've created a new video series that explains the absolute basics of Dredge for new players. I show how the deck operates and how to perform mulligans. I also talk at length about what to name with Cabal Therapy and how to fight hate cards.

Simply a fantastic read.

I love the Mono-White build. I think going heavier on premium acceleration and disruption (a la Shops?) is a really promising direction to take Hatebears.

The set is EXP rather than OGW so definitely not Standard legal

They've revealed a new Forbidden Orchard as well

4-0 tonight with the same 75 as the article (minus 1 Mana Crypt plus 1 Urborg in the sideboard)

I saw a lot fewer Monastery Mentor, it seems like the meta-game is becoming better tuned and Mentor might go back to being a bit player (as it was 6 months ago)

Colorless is not a color, so 5-color lands should not be able to tap for ♦ outside of Commander (where you can pick an off-color and the special Commander rules make it colorless for you)

Isn't this already a problem with the regular mana symbols? For example Khalni Hydra

Nice article.

I would highly encourage anyone who has not done so to watch the Finals of PT Chicago 1999. Bob Maher and Brian Davis played one of the most entertaining and unlikely matches of Magic ever.

Great work Stephen!

I take it as a given that we will see a top-tier Workshops deck and that this will weaken Storm, even if only by eating sideboard space. I'm curious where the metagame will settle, especially in terms of blue control sideboards. If Shops and Dredge calibrate to eat close to half of the sideboard each (as they often have) that makes it a lot harder for controlling decks to orient around beating Storm.

Isn't "Mystic Gate" compatible conceptually with "Sea Gate"?

I recorded some commentary on the Top 8 matches  once the event ended (and the client allowed me to watch replays)

For anyone interested, they're available here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swolx2EkBqM&list=PLwGy3yc_3RDT1EwRo0U82zrG36cHDHUa1

Overall, I found the article really thoughtful and enjoyed reading it. Keep it up!