Given how you ended up boarding, and given the metagame, would you play less Sacraments main next time?

Daikatana

AU player here.  Still in the middle of getting through huge papers, getting cards shipped over, etc.  But there will be a break soon, so I could definitely be in on any T1 action going down in two weeks or so (I hope).

Disfigure doesn't seem very good; Darkblast is better.  But the Snare is a little bit interesting, if only because it gets Mindbreak Trap in such a way that they only have to have played two spells so far this turn, which is much more practical; if there are more good traps, then maybe it's usable?

GI, that's exactly my point; the decks 'designed' to beat Tezzeret are still at the bottom of the standings.  So either they're misbuilt and misplayed, or there's something wrong with Tez (in relation to the rest of the metagame, which could be fixed via unrestrictions, or some other action).

People aren't metagaming properly, or the metagame is effed.

Flash: 4-2
Tog: 4-2
Stax: 4-2
Long: 3-3
Gifts: 3-3
BBS: 2-4
Tez: 1-5

This made me laugh.  As did the Jim Webb bit.  But this was funnier.

Those are goddamn gorgeous.

I've never understood this reasoning.  It's one thing to play a rogue deck of your own design; surprise is its own strength, and it can help you win.  But why play a suboptimal deck?  Choices like Specter just aren't as good as other cards that're out there. 

Wow!  Dave's now my hero twice-over.  Or three or fours times over.  I've lost track.

This is easily the coolest Magic-related thing I've ever seen.  I desperately want to do this.

As I understand it, what he meant was that his thought process went something like this:

"You're forcing 'Goyf?  But why?  I have much better threats in a long game..."
"Oh shit."

I've worked with Intuition/Welder builds a bit, but only with the AK engine.   Of course, the thing is that as soon as you land a Welder, Intuition's an auto-win, 'cause you don't get a robot; you just get the Key/Vault combo + Will and win on the spot.  But anyways, I will try and give it a shot with Deep Analysis; I really do hate fetching out Sea, and I also don't like playing Swamps, so DA could be a happy middle-ground for a Drain-based build.

If you took everything Carp said and made it into a list, that's what I'm running right now.  Comments so far:

1. Chalice @ 1 is the nuts.  Against everything from Goblins to Landstill, it's wonderful. 

2.  Keg is good but too slow.  Is there anything faster?

3.  How do you feel about Augury Adept v. Ophidian?  I like the latter, but life would be nice.

This is the list that just Top-8ed at our Mox tournament.  It's a co-creation of my brother and I:

4 Glowrider
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Aven Mindcensor
3 Knight of the Reliquary

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Null Rod
4 Thorn of Amethyst
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Life from the Loam
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Trinisphere

4 Mishra's Factory
4 Savannah
4 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Strip Mine

That's close to the exact list, anyway.  After that tournament, we're probably rejiggering the manabase to include Ancient Tomb and the deck to swap Knights for Spheres.  But that's about the size of it.  The basic idea of the deck is this: landing a turn 1 Sphere is a really good thing against most of the format, so we should do it.  And then we should land a Sphere on Turn 2.  And then, why not, let's land one on Turn 3.  Or land a dude.  Essentially, the deck's Workshop Aggro, but the creatures are much more disruptive.  It's much less a beatdown and much more a mana denial deck: I'd be hard-pressed to come up with any deck that screwed with access to mana more.  I'm not much of a fan of beating with little green men; I have much more faith in the tried-and-true lock strategy.

Honestly, I feel like both of you should have re-read Politics and The English Language before you wrote those long arguments, then excised half your sentences.  Too many damn words.  But it's a pleasure to see you learned from it, and, for the most part, I really enjoy reading your articles.  Hats off, Steve.

Well that was a nice compliment.  Thank you.

Questions:

1) Talk to me about how the deck does against Remora.  Do you find you get into counterwars when they have a Fish on the board, and therefore lose?  Or can you wait it out?

2) Sounds like you've played only a few matches, which is fine but unlikely to lead to revelations.  One of the problems I've had with new decks in this format is that they look good on paper, but can't do more than go even with Tezzeret, because it's just that good.  What's your matchup percentage, really, against Tez?

3) Do you find that you have enough countermagic to consistently stop combo lists?  14 might be a little low for a deck this controlling.

4) Again, once you've tested more, talk to me about your Stax matchup.  How do you square uo.

5) This is a minor but increasingly pressing concern: how do you deal with a resolved Confidant?  He's being played a lot nowadays in non-creature decks, just as a main draw engine, so I doubt you'd board in Sowers to deal with him, but at the same time, he seems like he spells trouble.

Thanks for the report, Rich.  Like everyone and their dog, I've been testing a lot of builds that look like the basics + a grab-bag of permission and card draw.  So far, I've been having better luck with a Ritual-based version than a Drain-based, but I like the look of this one.  How were the Repeals for you?  And did you ever come to a point where going infinite with Vault + Key would be a problem because of Confidants?  Tendrils went a long way towards ameliorating that problem for me, but it still exists (although I run four versus your three).

I lost you here.  Dark Confidant and Tarmogoyf do compete for space in a Fish deck; they fill different roles.  Roles are, in fact, the issue in all of Magic: Steve calls them "interactions," which is a nice, action-y way of putting it.  So in one sense, sure, all cards compete for space, in that there are only 60 cards in a deck: but casting cost is a minor consideration in Type 1 compared to role, because everything is cheap, but not everything is good.  

Specifically, Mold Adder isn't good for the same reason that Hidden Gibbons isn't good: it's relatively easy to delay its becoming potent.  But more relevantly, Mold Adder isn't good because its role - to beat down - means it competes for spaces with Tarmogoyf, not Heirarch.  And I am not quite sure you want to argue that Mold Adder is superior to Tarmogoyf.

What?  Why?  They're serving entirely different purposes.  Heirarch circumvents the restrictions that playing a 'fair' manabase imposes on you, while Mold Adder's a suboptimal beater with a perverse incentive: he's best when you've lost.

Chalice@1 problem came up almost immediately: the deck folds to it like origami.  Post-board it's still a big problem (yeah, I run artifact destruction post).  The deck really rips Drains, or at any rate, it can; but as has come up frequently in recent weeks, decks without Force of Will still randomly fold to decks with Time Vault, and this is one such deck.  So in summary: Shops are trouble, Drains are alright.

I had absolutely no faith that this would work out, but you know, the list you've ended up at is actually pretty interesting.  I'm definitely testing it and seeing what works.  I'm thinking a sideboard that leans heavily on Stax and Ichorid, yes?

In other words, he could work pretty well with Canonist.

How does this list beat any kind of combo deck?

Could you have gotten Barbarian Ring here and shot his Tez?  Did you have threshold?

I read the longer post on your blog - great pictures and turnout!  It sounds like it was a really good tournament.  The metagame, however, seemed very strange to me.  Looking at the Top 8, it seems like Null Rod decks would have wrecked the meta.  Why don't you see more of those in Spain, or at least at that particular tournament?

Its effect isn't global, but rather only for opponents.

Ah.  I read it as: "Tarmogoyf pisses me off.  Sure, lots of decks in Vintage aren't threatened by 'Goyf, but that's maybe not true depending on your meta."  Which doesn't really make sense as a consecutive string of thoughts, or as two statements: the meta where 'Goyf's more threatening than Brainstorm is a weird one indeed.

"none the less thought goyf is a nussiance to many. just because vintage packs a lot of decks that aren't threatened by goyf it really just comes down to your local meta game in my opinion."

This is what I was pointing out.