Im a Fan Josh I love innovative Oath decks

-Mad Props

Nasfers  I PM you my cell hit me up and we can play some vintage this week.

Im good any day but Friday's currently, whatever is good for the group is good for me.

-Count Me In.  

We should try to meet next week before Wednesday as that is probably the start date for most of us for a long weekend TG Vac.

Tuesday 11/24 @ 6:30ish??? Anyone

Or The Following week after turkey euphoria wears off????

I am an hour outside of bloomsburg so if you play vintage during the week I would be happy to come up Kamelion.

Hey Gang,

I am currently working in Tobyhanna, Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, Blakeslee, Tannersville, Hazelton, Etc. AKA: middle-o-nowhere

I am wondering if anybody could use a extra vintage player during a weekly get together during the weekdays as my hotel walls are making me go insane on a daily basis.  I am willing to travel. 

Thanks,

Matt

Ryan  the 2 blue decks I lost against were the following.  Blue Belcher played by Joel Lim and World Gorger Dragon Combo played by JR Goldberg.

So against Belcher game 1 I was on the draw and Joel had the nuts and won on T1.  Game 2 I could have mulled till I had a opening hand chalice but I opened with Fow, Energy Flux, Ancient Tomb, Tropical Island, Jace, Grudge, Orchard.  Which I thought was very keepable hand against Belcher.  Joel opened with 2xprobe, timetwister, Fow, mana crypt, lotus, mox, academy.  His probes provided him with a recall and a pact of negation.  Needless to say he was going crazy and I attemted to Fow his timetwister while he had 3 floating from Lotus . My FOW got pacted and his draw was into a TV/Key combination.  However I made him play through until he resolved a kill cause he did have mana crypt on board and his life was 10 from multiple probes played on his T1 and after his Timetwister and finding more probes, so his life was a factor in the game at this point.  He shortly drew a tinker for belcher and was game over for me.

Game 1: Against Dragon I traded a lot of AJ bazaars with wastelands I actually killed 2 and he drew another off the top deck.  I had oath already resolved and we were both in Top deck mode.  However I was seeing 3 a turn cause I resolved dack earlier in the game I was looking for orchards.  Anyways long story short AJ found a Animate dead I forced it he had no hand and that was my last card in my hand. I drew then dacked 3 mana sources no strip/waste just fetches and duals.  AJ drew and found dance of the dead on his next draw.  Assembled Dragon and tasigur combo.  The funny thing about this was he said to me in this game I target you with infinite ancestral recalls.  I looked at him and said that's cool I had chalice@1 in this game I said do you have hurky'ls recall in your deck and he did.    

Game 2
***Note I have never played against Dragon so I did not know that they have a transformational sideboard.  LOL

So I pulled out my creature stuff and sideboarded the Leylines and Rav Traps.  AJ put in Mentors and I think Containment Priest.  I lose to his mentors.

So those were my 2 blue matches I lost against.  


One was to crazy combo which I would love to have a rematch post board against again.  The other was just ignorance to a deck I have never played against.  


Your other comment was on the fetchlands.  So Day 1 when you and I played I was running another basic which was a Mountain. I cut the mountain that night but did not have anymore misty rainforest with me so I just left it as is.  Yes the 4xMisty is better so you can reliably find your forest.  

The other comment was the lack of Fetch for Jace storm.   That is actually a semi true statement.  Cause where the lack of fetches in the deck for Jacestorm is picked up by Dack +1 where you are filtering 3 cards just a little differerntly in this deck.  Rather than the traditional Jace for 3 put two back, fetch.  Its Jace for 3 put two back then Dack for 2.  You still filter your cards the exact same.  





 

@Nomad-Archon was fantastic and is just big enough to not be dismembered.  Not sure I would change anything if I feel that those are the decks I am going to play against again in another tourney. 

@Dail- We had a fun match on day 1 it was one of the best I had through-out.  I think you played very well by paying for you mox when you had the chance and the critical turn you hit your sol-land when you needed it on the last draw-GG 

@Brass man- you are correct about the attacking planeswalkers. Just a reminder the propaganda are there to shutdown mentor/dredge/shops/oath critters.  Additionally, its fantastic against manlands and pitches to FOW.

@WhiteLotus- The draw engine was Dack and not preordains...BTW E:Flux is amazing yes it does not have great synergy with chalice but it the two of those cards in retrospect compliment the game plan deployed in the list.  Also lets say you have chalice @ 0 & 1 now you have a card that you may just want to pitch to FOW.  Also depending on the game state I played chalice out at 1 against shops to tap a perm to tanglewires.  There are lots of little intricacy throughout the list and different angles to attack each archtype you may be up against.

@Rikter- Thanks for being an awesome sport.  I still remember you saying during our match "Oh god your pitching hurkyl's Recall to FOW this can't be good for me"

Give it a whirl if you have any thoughts, suggestions, or questions pm me

Jaco fantastic job.  Top shelf!!!

Thanks I/S it's fun to play and I have the opposite thinking by always wanting to cut counterspells anymore

Hello world I have been wanting to write this report since vintage champs, just now finding time. I piloted this list to a 7W 1D 2L in the main event finishing up at the #25 spot.  However as many of you know I play all kinds of interesting variants in vintage and this was another homebrew design that left all of my opponents either stunned/baffled or as Paul Lynch said it best “what the @#$% are you playing Mercer” 

I am not going to spend a whole lot of time going through the matches I played over the weekend but more of the card choices I selected and why.
 
I began the design on this deck since the beginning of July and finally had it optimized for Eternal Weekend.  I began looking at the “Main Vintage Pillars” and wanted a deck that has very consistent games against each: The Four Pillars I focused on beating were 1. Workshop Decks 2. Dredge 3. Delver/Mentor 4.Blue Decks

I can honestly say my deck design did very well against each of these over the 2 days of vintage I played.
For Example
Day 1- I played against Workshop which is my best matchup winning 3 out 4 times I played against it
Day 2- I played against Workshop 5 times and winning 4 matches and drawing against it in Round 10
Day 1- I played against Dredge winning 1 out 1 times I played against it
Day 2- I played against Dredge winning 2 out 2 times I played against it
Day 1- I played against Mentor winning 1 out 1 times I played against it
Day 2- I played against Mentor/Delver 1 out 1 times I played against it
Day 1- I played against 2 Blue Decks winning 1 out 2 Games I played
Day 2- I played against 2 Blue Decks Winning 1 out 2 Games I played

So the deck I brewed together at first glance is an Oath of Druids deck….However this deck is actually more of a Prison deck based around the current metagame.

Cheat Codes-Oath by Mercer

Business (33)
•   4 Force of Will
•   1 Hurkyl’s Recall
•   2 Energy Flux
•   2 Propaganda
•   4 Chalice of the Void
•   1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
•   1 Ancestral Recall
•   1 Time Walk
•   3 Dack Fayden
•   2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
•   1 Dig Through Time
•   1 Vampiric Tutor
•   1 Demonic Tutor
•   4 Oath of Druids
•   2 Show and Tell
•   1 Blazing Archon
•   1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
•   1 Griselbrand

Mana Sources (27)
•   1 Black Lotus
•   1 Mox Emerald
•   1 Mox Jet
•   1 Mox Ruby
•   1 Mox Sapphire
•   1 Sol Ring
•   4 Forbidden Orchard
•   2 Scalding Tarn
•   2 Misty Rainforest
•   1 Volcanic Island
•   1 Tropical Island
•   1 Underground Sea
•   1 Island
•   1 Forest
•   1 Strip Mine
•   4 Wasteland
•   3 Ancient Tomb


   Sideboard (15)
•   4 Leyline of the Void
•   3 Ravenous Trap
•   2 Ancient Grudge
•   2 Abrupt Decay
•   3 Sudden Shock
•   1 Crucible of the Worlds



Ok so lets look at why this deck is well positioned at each of the Main pillars

We will start with the Blue Player’s“ME” bane of the format – Workshop.  This deck is very very well versed against the workshop metagame in Game 1: first off if we look at the mana base there are 21 Lands optimizing land drops every turn against the shops player.  Additionally, against spheres we have Ancient Tomb which negates sphere effects and we have Wasteland/Stripmine. Fight fire with Fire which is awesome when they are vying for sphere effects on the board.  Also I can not tell you how many times I was on the draw against shops on game one and smiled when they go T1 Workshop Sphere of Resistance Go and I wasteland them under their own sphere.  and quickly just continue dropping lands and resolving a Dack, Oath or Energy flux

Against the Workshop we also have some very interesting card choices in our arsenal
MAIN DECK – ENERGY FLUX x 2    card is so sick
We also have 4 fetch, 2 basic lands, 3 Dack Fayden, 2 Jace, 1 hurklys recall, 4 FOW, 5 Strip Effects, 3 Ancient Tombs, 4 Oath and 2 Propaganda.  Also if were on the play we have Chalice of the Void at 0
Quite honestly this is a strong lock against our opponent.  The other interesting card to Consider in our Arsenal is the Blazing Archon.  Since our friendly workshop player is an aggressive deck that must attack you to win and it makes sense to put a creature in there that stops that all together.

Typically it was my experience you win 90% of game 1 against the workshop pilot.

Sideboarding Game 2

-4 Chalice
-1 Tabernacle unless you play against hangerback walker

+2 Ancient Grudge
+2 Abrupt Decay
+1 Crucible World

Pillar 2 Dredge

The cards that are strong against the game 1 in our arsenal

5 Strip Effects, 2 Propaganda, 1 Tabernacle, 2 Show and Tell, 2 Tutors, Blazing Archon and Griselbrand

Essentially the Game 1 will go like this T1 opponent plays a Bazaar pass, depending on your hand if you have a tutor and a show and tell you find Blazing Archon ASAP and you win the game.  If you have wasteland effects keep them at bay on the bazaars and find either Tabernacle or Nail in the coffin propaganda

Game 2 or 3 Sideboarding is the same.

+4 Leyline and +3 Rav Trap

-1 Hurkly’s Recall,- 2 Energy Flux, -3 Force of will, -1 Emrakul,

You want to keep Chalice of the Void in play to resolve at 1 to keep natures claim in check.

Also depending on your hand If I was on the play against Dredge if I lost game 1 I played very aggressively in game 2 to resolve the Blazing Archon as late as T2 every game and it served me very well.

Delver/Mentor/Pyromancer UWR or BUR

This deck is very threating against them.  As this and many blue decks run cheap cards: such as mental misstep, delver, thoughtseize, brainstorm, preordain, recall, cabal therapy, lightning bolt, swords to plowshares, REB/Pyroblast etc. etc. etc.  and that is why Mental Misstep is so broken.  I just assumed I would make my mental misstep a permanent with chalice of the void@1=more broken.  This card is in my opinion the very reason why this deck can handle blue decks so well.

Think about the few cards I mentioned above and look at the metagame for a moment.  If I resolve chalice against my opponent normally at 1 it will cut off almost 60% or more of their deck. Sure I don’t stop everything at chalice at 1 but it shuts down their draw tempo to a crawl and virtually creates an enormous amount of dead draws for my opponent.

Also you will naturally draw more threats now as their hand is filled with useless cards and you use dack fayden as your draw engine.  Also if you want to cheat you draw 2 cards and drop Emerakul in the graveyard to get all your juicy wastlands and lock pieces back 

Ok we have their hands locked up. Lets wasteland some mana sources for shiggles and force our threats through.  Major threats at this point are the oath of druids/SNT and/or propraganda/planeswalkers.
As a prison deck we have almost made all of our cards Misstep proof except 3/ sol ring, recall, vamp so this deck encourages us to play chalice at 1 and most of our cards are enchantments/planeswalkers so it turns off opponents flusterstorms.  The deck also encourages our chalice at 0 to shut down early moxes or drop an early energy flux against a blue deck to keep their mana sources thoroughly shut off.  All the while we are making land drops and wastlanding them in the middle to incremental values. 

Against Delver U/W or UWR or something of that variant if you resolve the Chalice at 1 on T1, T2 you will win the game 1 over 90% of the time in my testing.  Additionally Keeping Chalice in and Energy Flux in these matches are very good against the lists with White.  I spent most of my time fighting the white sources in these matchups to keep containment priest off the board and graffdiggers cage at bay.

Against this match up my sideboarding was

+2 Ancient Grudge
+3 Sudden Shock
+1 Abrupt Decay

-1 Hurkyls Recall, - 1 Jace, -1 Dack,- 1 Force of will, -1 Forest, - 1 Ancient Tomb

Against control blue decks you want to continue down the prison road by attacking there mana base just like shops does with concentration on stealing artifacts with dack, chalice, flux and waste effects.

Against the mirror I had no testing but stuck with my plan against control blue decks which provided a strong assortment of fun for my round 9 opponent which was land destruction and resolving Jace the mind sculptor.

Sideboarding against the mirror I put in crucible worlds and sudden shocks and 1 abrupt decay.  The best creature to resolve against Oath is Blazing Archon as they are stuck locked from attacking.  I boarded in sudden shock on the off chance that we had an oath on board and it felt like the best thing against the orchard match up other than the wastelands by just killing a token at the end of turn to use oath on the following turn and it helps kill opposing Jaces.  Basically this is a game of attrition typically won by who resolves Jace or has the most orchards.

My deck influences was actually Shops and “The Answer”  Shops by controlling my opponents permanents and the barrage of land destruction.  “The Answer” having blue control deck with chalice’s.  I played the “the answer” a while back to a T8 finish and wrote my tourney responses about it…I really liked the design of the list however I just felt like it was lacking on dealing with resolved permanents and it was very slow at getting threats down to “just win the game”.

Final thoughts on the list.  You are always going to playing against cage except against dredge, so just sideboard knowing that and Blazing Archon was an absolute beating. Tabernacle is fun in an Oath deck because you can tie up there mana and give them a spirit token that they can not sacrifice first to trigger oath also using propaganda and Orchard together was like cheating as you kind of get your 5 color mana freely. 

Hope you all like my article and give the deck a try.

This is a Game 1 Against a Workshop Player...for Validation for my Blue Brethren ~Matt Mercer

Congrats to all. I still find it hilarious that shop players say it's not the best deck out there. 

Congrats to Matt Murray

and Congrats to Justin K for doing the impossible playing 12 Notion Thieves ----YOUR MY HERO!!!!

Thanks for the feedback

My line of play did not result into force and here's why...

I thought about how relevant is it to resolve Recall. My theory is he was digging for mox or land. I wanted to hold up 3 counters to either resolve  magus or two counter his very relevant spells.

So no matter if I draw land, mox, chalice, blue card all advancing my board state.  I certainly don't see force pitching force in this situation as T2 tinker or D7 is now a terrible spot.  I felt against SCV odds are of him hitting a FOW land MOX or MOX land relevant X spell is likely scenario and he probably has another relevant spell to boot.  To me Recall was not relevant as it forces his hand to play into my defense. Although at the end we would both spend our hand and I would resolve a magus plus see at least two more cards off draw steps.

Maybe my line is right maybe it was not but that was line i drew in the sand.

Thanks Matt

Magus is a all-star and chalice usually gets played for 0,1,2

Chalice 0 on the play T1
Chalice 1 on the Draw T1/T2
Chalice 2 at T2-T4

Reminder this deck @ Chalice 1 only stops your Recall as it runs no other card manipulators at that CMC and turns your Flusterstorms into easy pitch cards

Bolt yes can kill Magus but the body is what you need for answers to planeswalkers and blockers.  

Also a good bit of the time and a large portion of my kills are not just brainstorming with Jace but fatesealing with Jace.  So you can manipulate your opponents draws anyways.

I will say that with Magus you open your self up to removal spells but you do play more counterspells than most decks and you also get to play chalice for most of those removal spells.

I had a game in which I played against an oath player where we got into the counter war over my Magus and He won the Battle but not the War and spent his hand doing so. Which I did not mind as I had Jace as a follow-up play and took over the game.

I do feel this deck is a lot of finesse and less brute strength.  You have to decide whats relevant and not relevant to you at specific times.  Especially on the draw.  

Heres a great question to ask yourself in a game I had to think about. Your Opponent is Playing Steel City Vault
 
Your opener is FOW, FOW, Mana Drain, Fire//Ice, Island, Fetch, Magus.

He is on the play with a 5 color manabase w/goblin welders in his deck and is on a Mulligan to 6

His T1 is City of Brass into Ancestral Recall

What do you do in this Situation?

Cheers!!!
Matt

Props 1-Great Event and to the impressive stacked field of Vintage Alumni
Props 2-Calvin.
Props 3- All the beautiful real cards in the room
Props 4- Meeting Matt Murray and getting to play some extra games at the end
Props 5- Me for T8

Slops 1- The weird Black Magic voodoo/juju having to get paired against a team mate twice
Slops 2- Rnd 1 having to remind my opponent to take damage everytime life changes were made

Hello All,

I wanted to do a tournament first tournament report ever for vintage so I feel that a report from the non-proxy vintage tournament that Tales of Adventure had over the weekend was great time to start.

As most post start we need to do a quick rewind prior to the tournament beginning. During the week leading to the tournament I like most of us... spent time thinking about the Eastern Vintage Game Play.   Since workshop is typically, a staple in the east coast I always keep it in my mind when building sideboards/main decks and the like.  However, I felt it may be less conducive as IMO it is one of the most expensive decks to build w/o proxies.  So going with that theory I felt that Delver/Monk, Oath, Fish and Dredge would be the backbone to this tournament. 

Well....I was partially correct, there was an abundance of Oath and Dredge but there was more workshops than I gave credit!!! Which means that the East Coast Vintage peeps undoubtly love their shops no matter what the cost. GGGGRRRRRR!!!!!

Anyways during this particular week I was unusually busier than most which made it harder to get a deck built than most.  I like to try different things in vintage.  In general I have an infinity for control or combo.  Since the printing of Dack Fayden my affection for control has vastly stolen my heart with the combination of Notion Thief its just absurd.  I have made T8/T4 many tournaments and won a few along the way with the two greatest thieves.  However, since checking the latest threads on the TMD I reviewed a deck from across the pond called "The Answer"  I immediately, enjoyed the design of the deck because it ran Dack and Magus of the Moon.  When you see the decklist it looks underpowered but it runs Dack and instead of Notion Thief it has Consecrated Sphinx.  I really loved that it removed another color out of the Grixis Color scheme and functioned basically the same way as Thief but with a much larger threat that was out of Bolt/Dismember Range.  Additionally it runs a much more robust mana base against wasteland/strip mine decks with 7 basic lands.   The ever eventful sideboard was built into simplicity. 

Fastforward to the night before the Tournament I sleeved the deck up at midnight and got 3 games in with my testing buddy Nick Playing Gifts Ungiven.   Then hit the sack at 1:30AM knowing I have 3hr drive ahead of me coming from Baltimore and a unwavering 4yr old
getting my old sorry butt up at 6:45AM cause that is his schedule.  -Shout Out to my Son "I love you bud"

Well Saturday Morning 8:30Am arrives and Nick and I hit up Mc D's for coffee and breakfast prior to venturing off to Pick up Mike Scheffenacker who without surprise was still in bed when I called him at 9AM.

Well 9:30 on the clock we hit the road and off to the great North we come.

Before we get to my RND 1 I wanted to say that variance pulled my cars number as both of My team mates Nick and Mike get paired up against eachother out of the 32 Attendees. BOOOOO

Anyways Rnd 1 I get paired against Mark who was playing Oath&Show.

Game 1. I land and early Chalice @ 1 with a barrage of counterspells and a Magus.  Mark's hand is crippled early as his preordains, spell pierces, and probes were now shut off and Magus was landed which turned his lands into mountains.

Game 2 I sideboard in cages and pull out the chalices on the draw.  We play a good bit of draw/go and counter wars until pivitol turn resolves us both blowing all of our relevant spells with him winning the counter war however it was over my spell which was magus.  He has a empty hand draws and passes and I play Jace the next turn which takes over the game and lets me resolve Sphinx by the end of it.

RND 2 variance strikes it ugly face again....I get paired against my team mate Mike who was just paired against our other team mate Nick so there you go 1/32 then 1/16 chance.  I mean what am I even doing here writing up this report....These stars are not even close to aligned unless you bet on long shots!!!

RND 2 Mike and I decide to ID even though we knew it would make it tough for us both.  However, the sandwich's we just procured were undoubtly making it an easier decision.

RND 3 David....I think with Oath.

Game 1 I land Mox/land Chalice at 1 and pass holding FOW, FOW, Mana Drain, Echoing Truth. David Plays  Mana Crypt, Orchard, Oath.  I Force and it no contention hits the Yard.  T2 I draw Recall booo but have Force Bait still.  David bolts himself with crypt plays a trop and cast Oath #2 I force pitching recall he cast swan song which gets countered by chalice.  T3 I draw Force of will #3 and pass David plays a fetch and plays his last card Oath #3 and It meets my last two cards Force/Drain.  Eventually I draw a magus and put the game away.

Game 2.  I board out chalice x 3 and Fire/Ice x1 and bring in 3 cage. David mulligans and keeps 5 David plays a turn 1 REMORA.... I was shocked as Remora and Orchard can be anti-climatic with eachother.  Truthfully, I am a slow deck anyways so Remora was the last of my problems.  We play draw go and he ticks up remora and taps out.  I have Misdirection/FOW +2 blue cards and 3 Lands on board I cast magus he forces and it gets misdirected and magus & jace take over the game.

RND 4 Will with Terra Nova.

Game 1 Will plays mox, workshop and a T1 Golem, I play an Island and Pass.  T2 He Plays Factory and a Thorn swings and passes.  T2 I play Island pass with no Dack in hand.  T3 Metamorph by Will and I conciede.  He announces that he thinks im on landstill and we go to sideboard.

Game 2 I play land mox holding force, hurkyl's, magus, land Jace.  He plays T1 Thorn off mox and factory.  I play magus on T2 and that was wrapped up the game with my hand full of goodies.

Game 3 He boards his dismembers back in and does kill a magus but I landed a Sphinx and had Jace on the board which kept my hand fueled with answers.

RND 5 ID with the Top Seat

Here's the interesting part my team mate Mike was playing Shops and had the same record as I did at RND 5 which was unbelievable the way our day started and also made T8.

T8 Can you say VARIANCE AGAIN!!!!!

YOU BET!!!! Mike and I get Paired against eachother LOL.

Im on the play with better breakers.

G1:  My opener against shops.  Was Island, Ancestral, Force of Will, Mox Ruby, Chalice, Jace, Magus....Ask yourself would you keep this hand on the play.....


Damn Right!!!!!

I play land mox recall chalice @ 0 Pass

Well it turns out that Recall didn't find any lands and after Forcing his T1 play wasn't good enough as I didn't see anymore lands that entire game.  WoW/Pout....Grrr

G2: I mulliganed this game and My opener was good no Force though but had lands and chewer.  I chewer his T1 Golem and draw a mox  played land and mox pass. He plays Trinisphere. Pass.  I draw Dig and pass.  He plays tangle wire I get tapped out. I draw merchant scroll play my land and pass.  He draws another wire and plays thorn, wire, Academy. Ugggg I draw magus for shiggles and stay tapped out.  He draws Blightsteel and hardcast.  I untap Island and draw a Tomb during his upkeep I cast Ice to tap blightsteel.  That turn he metamorphs another tanglewire which unfortunately was the final Nail.  That essentially was the only card I needed to fade so I could have cast Scroll into Hurkyl's but that's the ballgame for me.  GG Mike


Extended Magical Play!!!!

After the match I had a good bit of spectators whom of which wanted to see the deck and I got a few games in with Matt Murray--Never Met him but awesome guy!!!

He played Bomberman and we played 4 matches no sideboard 3 of which I won and the 4th was a bomberman doing what a bomberman does.  GG--Matt


Thanks For Listening

~Mercer