Hello.

I seek advice in making grixis work in the present metagame.

The success of _qfortier's grixis deck at last week's champs is documented. Access to red for pyroblast, pyroclasm and ingot chewer is valuable.

A week ago I tried my hand at a modified Grixis deck. I splashed green for abrupt decay, which is widely useful and something I'd like to make work. Though I didn't run into any mana problems in the four rounds, I suspect the base could use work:

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/256406#online

I think red is too valuable because of pyroclasm, slice and dice, pyroblast, etc. Green has other ways to deal with artifacts, but the aforementioned spells are helpful against creature-based and other blue decks.

I've made lots of tweaks to this list through testing, so mainly I'd like to throw ideas out for consideration. Is it too big a reach to go four colors without DRS or a more stable mana base? What are your feelings on the strongest grixis variants?

Thank you!

I must be at least a few weeks behind on this, but I see they got rid of all the weekday vintage dailies.

As it stands, I can't play in any of the qualifying events because I'm out of town this weekend and I work until 5:30 each day.

Hi all.

I'm excited for the MODO vintage tournament on December 20th, but I'm really confused about qualifying and the daily event schedule.

As you may know, you can qualify for this tournament by going 3-1 or better in a vintage daily event or 4-0 in a legacy daily from December 10th-19th.

When I found a page marked "Magic Online Daily Events Schedule", it seemed to suggest to me that the only vintage daily events are twice per day on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

So, is this true? Is there some place where Wizards has announced more vintage daily events, or are there only eight qualifying events in this ten day span? Am I just looking at the wrong page?

See you on the 20th... maybe...

I was just toying around with a mini-welder version of this deck. I've been loving Sphinx of the Steel Wind against the Delver/Pyromancer opponent, but when he's in my hand and I don't have a brainstorm or Jace, all he can do is pitch to Force of Will. So I tossed in a single welder and a single memory jar, which made me happier to try Thirst for Knowledge and 1-2 Dig Through Time as draw engines.

For what it's worth, I'm now working on this.

Main
 
4 Force of Will
3 Mental Misstep
2 Mana Drain
1 Flusterstorm
1 Red Elemental Blast
 
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Dig Through Time
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
 
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Trinket Mage
1 Notion Thief
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
 
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Sensei's Divining Top
 
2 Jace the Mind Sculptor

1 Hurkyl's Recall
 
2 Lightning Bolt

1 Tinker
 
1 Time Vault
1 Voltaic Key
 
1 Time Walk

1 Yawgmoth's Will
 
5 Moxes
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
 
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Library of Alexandria
 
 
Sideboard:
2 Pyroblast
1 Slice and Dice
1 Volcanic Fallout
1 Extirpate
3 Ingot Chewer
1 Shattering Spree
1 Viashino Heretic
1 Mountain
2 Ravenous Trap
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Grafdigger's Cage

Hello.

I've been trying to put a new spin on a blue-based Trinket Mage control deck for a metagame currently thick with "pyro cruise". I've had a few days of testing; the deck is too rough for contention, although I seem to be doing well against pyromancer opponents.

Main
 
4 Force of Will
3 Mental Misstep
2 Mana Drain
1 Flusterstorm
1 Red Elemental Blast
 
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
 
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Trinket Mage
1 Auriok Salvagers
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
 
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Sensei's Divining Top
 
2 Jace the Mind Sculptor

1 Hurkyl's Recall
 
2 Lightning Bolt
 
1 Tinker
 
1 Time Vault
1 Voltaic Key
 
1 Time Walk

1 Yawgmoth's Will
 
5 Moxes
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
 
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Mana Confluence
3 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Island
 
 
Sideboard:
2 Pyroblast
1 Notion Thief
3 Ingot Chewer
1 Shattering Spree
1 Viashino Heretic
1 Mountain
2 Ravenous Trap
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Slice and Dice
1 Volcanic Fallout


Thoughts:

~Sphinx is left over from my welder deck as a pet card. It stands up really well against pyromancer opponents who don't deploy Jace or Steel Sabotage. The idea is for him to get tinkered out, but he can see an occasional hard cast, especially with the late game help of Cavern. I've tried cutting him in favor of Trinket Mage or another draw engine, but I like him as a win condition.
~I don't know how I feel about the Auriok Salvagers. Recursion of EE, grafdigger's cage or nihil spellbomb is cute on its own, and the infinite combo is cool, but I'm not set up for a combo finish or anything. He's the reason I added Tundra and Mana Confluence.
~I would like to see at least one more draw engine in there; I've considered Dig Through Time, primarily.

Thanks guys.

So, I notice that with treasure cruise in the mix, new pyromancer builds are well positioned to overwhelm the competition with card advantage (and tokens). What are your favorite metagame adjustments to beat these decks?

Yes, I do hate those Lotion Thieves.

I've liked Sphinx of the Steel Wind in testing. Like many, I've been looking for ways to deal with the newly treasure-cruising delver decks. Though it's sometimes hard to get a welder online in this matchup, Sphinx has been a horse for me over a small sample thus far. It gets around Dack and Ancient Grudge; its enemies are Steel Sabotage, Hurkyl's, Jace, and Ice. I was occasionally able to hard cast it, even when my deck's only white sources were pearl and lotus. What do you think of this?

I have a couple of quick thoughts about this deck:

1) Does anyone else cut Mindslaver right now? I have trouble getting it to pop as often as I want. My list has two dack, two welder, and thirst.

2) Does anyone like triskelion/triskelavus?

I look forward to that reading.

So, green gives you access to abrupt decay, nature's claim and trygon predator at the expense of red's bolt, fire/ice, and pyroblast, plus some other sideboard goodies. This seems like a fine way to deal with oath, shops, and a less defined field like you said. Do you feel more vulnerable to planeswalkers? I have faced lots of blue decks lately and found bolt/pyroblast useful. We could mix in some spell pierce.

I am also entertained by the discussion of Night's Whisper vs Bob. I use NW at the moment.

Hi all.

Grixis control is rather popular on MTGO right now. A welder variant has its own thread, but I want to talk about the goblinless alternative. I didn't see any recent discussions on the archetype.

I've always been a fan of big blue control. Builds can be very metagame-dependent and the online meta seems rather narrow at the moment compared with paper.

How does this deck vie in your opinion? I have a list of my own, but consider a backbone of the following:

Permission
4x Force of Will
3x Mental Misstep
2x Mana Drain

Draw
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Brainstorm
4x Night's Whisper (or Dark Confidant, or nothing)
1x Thirst For Knowledge
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Nihil Spellbomb

Search
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Tinker

Robots
1x Blightsteel Colossus

Planeswalkers
2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1x Tezzeret the Seeker

Burn
1x Lightning Bolt, 1x Fire/Ice (or 2x Lightning Bolt)

Recursion
1x Yawgmoth's Will
3x Snapcaster Mage

Other
1x Time Walk
1x Time Vault
1x Voltaic Key
1x Hurkyl's Recall

Sorry, I made up those categories as I went.

Hello everyone.

I joined TMD recently and made a brief remark in the introductory thread. I have been happy to get back into vintage magic via MTGO.

For a while, I intended to start a conversation asking how the MTGO vintage metagame differs from that of the paper world. I figured it would be rather underdeveloped as many players were still either building their collections or figuring out how to pilot various lists.

Now, I'm more keen to ask a different question: is there an online metagame? I've never had a problem finding a match in the practice room, but the notable difficulty in getting daily events to fire is unfortunate. Aside from the recent vintage champs event, I don't know how often the vintage reach will extend beyond daily events. Now that vintage masters sales are near their end, it surely can't get any easier to grow the player pool...

Of course, I'm not sure how many TMD users play online, but I'm eager to see or talk about what you expect to happen with the online vintage format.

 Hey everyone. My name is Mike. I am a 30 year old dentist practicing in Santa Rosa, California. I have been an on-and-off Magic player since 1995. The recent introduction of Vintage Masters has rekindled my interest in the game. I have always been a fan of eternal formats but never had the resources or time to participate.

Outside of dentistry, my strongest passion is bowling. I compete regularly in tournaments throughout California and Nevada and bowl in two leagues. This, along with my engagement to my college sweetheart, occupies much of my weekend time.

I have come to enjoy building a MTGO collection over the past several months and studying the vintage metagame. Unfortunately, I cannot participate in paper vintage Magic without borrowing, but I look forward to participating in the community as much as possible.