Sure, there are other turn 1 winning plays that can only be prevented with FoW. But non of them use Mana Drain, and they are all alot less likely than workshop-trinisphere (in the 4 sphere era). I cant even really think of a turn 1 play that is as distorting as a turn 1 trinisphere.

Against combo and some control, SoR is not trash. IMO it is one of the best lock pieces there is against those decks coupled with chalice.

Has anybody actually thought of what would happen if Gifts/Grim got restricted? My prediction is Control Slaver and/or Bomberman would be as dominant as Gifts is now, and TPS would just be played instead of Long. TPS gets top 8 more than Long does now anyways. Would it ultimately change anything?

LOL I have no problem with the fact that the data comes from the NE. Its just that other peoples data is alittle bias since Drains are popular in the NE. so I wouldnt call Drains necessarily way more powerful, they're just way more popular (and affordable compared to workshops and bazaars).


Having Mana Drain in many different strategies isnt proof that its a stronger card, its just a more versatile card, hence, a more popular card. And alot in alot of games the Drain player doesnt even use Drain at all.

And I assume your refering to trinisphere. That card didnt just hinder Mana Drain decks. It hindered everydeck. It stopped interection completely sometimes. Play Sphere of Resistance if you miss Trinisphere. In many ways its more of a pain to play a drain deck with that on the table than trinisphere.

Mana Drain may have 47% of the top 8's, but there are many different decks that use Mana Drain, all with different game plans. Bomber-man, Gifts, Control Slaver, and Drain Tendrils are just some of the decks. Workshops can build Stax, and Aggro varients. Its not disturbing at all that there are so many mana drains, because many different decks with different strategies can use them. Workshop and Bazaar are both more expensive and more narrow than Mana Drain, I dont see anything wrong with that statistic.



IMO Merchant Scroll is debateable. But the idea of restricting Brainstorm is ridiculous. Brainstorm is really the foundation of Vintage. Every deck in todays metagame (not counting sui-black and R/G) utilizes Brainstorm except for Stax. and Stax's purpose is to hinder all the other decks that use brainstorm. If Brainstorm got restricted vintage wouldnt be vintage anymore. The "mess" would go away (I dont think theres a mess at all, in Top 8's are really healthy with 6-8 different decks with making it each time). Vintage would turn into legacy with a restricted list, Workshops would dominate, half of stax would then get restricted in response, and people would stop playing Magic.

The restriction of Brainstorm would also wreck Combo.

Also, Alot of your tournement data came from the NE didnt it? That IS still Drain territory isnt it? 

I consistantly have a storm of 5+ when I play ETW and thats 10+ goblins swinging for a 2 turn clock. And thats not even over extending. What people seem to be not understanding is that if the drain player only ETW's for 6 goblins then they more than likely have counter magic to protect their kill still. ETW doesnt have to go all in like tendrils does and even collossus does to win. People are assuming that they have the freedom to do whatever they want in the 2-3 turns they have left to live. And most times thats a bad assumption.

When I get 2 blue mana up I play brainstorm and gifts at the end of my opponents turn. This lets me be able to counter anything threatning of theirs with mana drain or cast something at the end of their turn if they dont. I lose no tempo this way.

In other gifts lists Mana Drain serves 2 purposes of protecting and providing mana, while the ritual gifts list has to run 4 Dark ritual and 4 duress to accomplish the same purpose. Now, they are 2 totally different decks and of course duress works better in a ritual deck. If you put 4 rituals in a deck, mana drain isnt going to work as well since you always want to do other things with the mana like cast rituals and duress.

With merchant scroll, you most likely wouldnt get a Mana Drain most of the time, its like that in all drain decks, but you always have the option to do so if needed. In ritual gifts you dont have the option to merchant scroll for ritual or duress. So this seems like a moot point.

In this list you just used ritual and duress instead of Mana Drain, which is totally respectable, and mana shouldnt be added along side with 4 duress, 4 FoW and 2 misdirection. Especially since you run LED.

I believe a deck built solely around ETW would be resilient and be way better than collossus. Though Ritual Gifts is not the place for that. I believe a drain based gifts deck can exploit ETW much better than Ritual Gifts. Lets face it, Ritual Gifts was made for tendrils, and ETW is a sideboard card in this particular deck.

But in a focused Drain Gifts build, ETW could be a really good Main win condition. It would be more forgiving than collossus, and be easier to protect. And also have the un-counterability of Tendrils. There would be some games of course that would be decided by tokens not having haste, but in those games it would be likely you would have lost anyways since storming to 10 requires usually a lot more set-up then ETW to pull off.

If you have a choice between burning wish and ETW maindeck I would have to choose ETW. You would have a better chance of winning games if you cast ETW instead of Burning Wish. If you have ETW maindecked then you wont need to grab pyroclasm or yawgmoths will, since ETW takes care of fish and you down need Yawgmoth's Will to set it up.

The same could be said about Skeletal Scrying, why play with that when the deck can use another Gifts MD?

I dont know why people dont like FoF so much, its a draw spell. All draw spells are randomn. FoF is basically a bigger Thirst for Knowledge. Now, in this deck its not better than gifts, but its still a really good card. Its also no more "randomn" than Skeletal Scrying.

I dont believe this will affect Oath at all. If this card does see heavy play then Oath might have to run tinker/collossus, but more likely the oath player will just counter the duress or protect it from counters, or it can just simply play a chalice@1.

This card also just means that gifts will have to keep tinker/collossus in the deck. When they gifts the person playing Extirpate will have to decide between taking away tinker or yawgmoths will, and then the gifts player can just pick the other route to victory.

This card is still really good though. I'm just not sure it will go in anyones MD besides Fish.

And its not vulnerable to misdirection because it has split-second..unfortunatly.

If Thirst for Knowledge is only being used to discard an artifact in hand then why not use Frantic Search instead? It can be fetched with merchant scroll, discard artifacts, and it can untap lands which keeps drain mana up while making it possible to weld and activate slaver in the same turn.

Holy crap! you can do that? I guess you learn something new everyday.

In the case I love Gifts in Slaver.

This doesn't add to the discussion.
-Godder

What is an example gifts pile if you want to get artifacts in the yard for welder? cant they just put the fat artifacts in your hand and have you try and discard them anyway? (barring the cases in which your able to cast them with Tolarian academy)

I would rather use jesters cap or extract.

Jesters cap is an artifact that can take any 3 cards out (all of the win conditions in storm, gifts, dragon, and Oath). Plus since its an artifact it can be welded in.

Extract is blue. And it a great 1st turn play as you can see their whole deck for future sideboarding AND if your against Gifts or Tendirls you made their win really hard if not impossible and you can make a strategy to stop the other win condition if there is one. But this is mostly a sideboard card.

If your playing enough black to play Cranial Extraction then its likely you would be better off playing hide//seek or Extract. since your usually playing with blue or white as well.

@hauntedechos: I believe that list deserved another thread, especially since you put enough information in to start a whole new discussion.

And if/when you make a new thread for this, add the mana base, sol ring, mana crypt, and maybe even mana vault. Since your combo is colorless those might help.
       

Well if you want to be mean you could play earth craft to combo with squirrel's nest. but chatter of the squirrel and even coat of arms would be awesome. I run echoing courage in my squirrel deck, which is a great card.

Alright....I would take out 4 counterspells, atleast 2 mana leaks, 1-2 cunning wishes, 1 negator, and 1-2 intuitions.

In those spots I would add 4 brainstorm (really good card, should definatly be run), yawgmoths will, mystical tutor, vampiric tutor, and maybe another psychatog.

Then add some MD answers. maybe a chain of vapor and an echoing truth. maybe even md duresses (probably the best Idea), or some deep analysis to compliment the ak/intuition draw engine.

Oath with sb'd or MD Simic Sky Swallowers. The fish player cannot deal with untargetable creatures. and Oath should have enough counter back-up to protect oath when it gets into play.

What problems were you having in the match-up when you were playing Oath? you are faster then the fish player, what were you racing against?

It would be bad. because all the myrs have summoning sickness so your opponent could just wreck you with a re-build on his turn. and you would lose the game. karn is better since the artifacts your your animating actually do something. so hinder your opponent.

You must not understand. The creatures arent really the problem in the fish match-up. The problem is Wipe-Away and the new stifle (sorta, not really). MDG already had a not-so-good match-up vs fish. Having an Oath board makes it so if their playing fish or stax, you win games 2 and 3.

The transitional sb also makes it so your opponent is playing against a completly different deck which can throw them off.

MDG already has a decent game vs combo and the REB's would be the only card in the sb you would bring in vs control anyways. I dont see this deck losing anyhting to having a transitional sb.

Lets look at the gencon winners sb:
3 Pithing Needle
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Chain Of Vapor
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroclasm
1 Tendrils Of Agony

now, the 4 REB stay in.

Pithing needle- is for...welders? And welders are really useful with a SSS staring at you right?
2 tormods crypt?- Combo is one of MDG's best match-ups. If their graveyard is a problem just take out 2 reb's or 2 forbidden orchard,
hurkyl's and CoV- The Oath board is also an effective sb for stax, so the extra recall isnt needed. You have a CoV MD already with 2-4 merchant scrolls (depending on how you sb)
And this sb would be if you MD tendirls of agony. so pyroclasm and tendrils are already freed.

I believe those 11 spots would be perfectly covered by an Oath board. And the Oath board also seems more effective at dealing with MDG's worst match-up.

Though duress would still work if your against an incompetant player that doesnt know how to use brainstorm or counters, and massacre doesnt solve the whole juntun grunt thing from making your graveyard cry.

Its not really a 15 card sb dedicated to fish. its an 11 card sb dedicated to fish. The 4 REB's are geared torward both fish and other control decks. I could see taking out 2 reb's and adding 2 tormod's crypt though.

Siding out cards is really easy. all you really have to do is take out the volcs, 2 islands, and maybe a fetch to fit the lands in. and then take out something like 2 merchant scroll or misdirection, 2 gifts, 1 recoup, and 1 tendrils or something to fit in the rest of the cards.

With that configuration you still have a really decent Oath deck.

And since Oath is good against both stax and fish, you have 11 cards dedicated to those match-ups, with the rest dedicated to combo/control with the crypts/REB's.

Is this sideboard effective in taking down a fishy meta? and letting MDG dodge the hate?

Anybody think Oath will hit any top 8's in the future fish environment?

Because Oath seems to be an effective answer to the fish problem.

I thought about making an Oath sb for my MDG list in case split second got out of hand

The sb configuration would be:

4 forgotten orchard
1 tropical Island
4 Oath
2 SSS
2 pyroblast
2 REB

Something along those lines would hose fish presumebly and would also have to tools for the control match. And the Combo match-up is already in favor of MDG so I dont see that being a problem.

That side-board is assuming theres a MD tendrils replacing burning wish.

And if more sb space is absolutly necessary, I could see putting forgotten orchard (either 2 or 4) main deck or taking them out altogether since Fish needs creatures out to win anyway.

What are peoples thoughts of an Oath transitional sideboard?

why not run this combo in a Slaver build instead? Slaver can run the same colors AND welder can make this combo alot cheaper.

I'm not saying add this to slaver. but instead build a new deck around this combo with a Slaver type frame to maximize resiliance.

The thing about Gifts though, is that it can adapt. You cant really shut down Gifts ever because if all else fails they'll just tweak the mana base and add duress. or just stretch the game out untill they can hardcast DSC. Then Wipe away will have little affect. At turn 5+ its not too difficult for the Gifts player to just keep Hard-casting DSC every turn IF they have to. Its also an option for them to just keep the fish player from winning by countering some of the stuff that CAN be countered and gaining enough board position to try BOTH routes to winning. I highly doubt the fish player will have BOTH trickbind AND wipe away in their hand at the same time. So if one route fails, they'll try the other.

Also, it is highly feasable that the fish player can have 1U to use trick bind by turn 1. All they need in a land and a mox. MDG uses merchant scroll to set up FOW all the time. as long as the fish player has a mana base to support a 1st turn trickbind I dont think it matters.

Another point is the fish player wants to cast other stuff. They wont have 1U up all the time since they want to cast beaters and other utility. So the gifts player would just combo out after the fish player played something. They cant sit on 1U forever w/o losing to collossus or losing their board to pyroclasm or massacre.

The main point thoguh is that Gifts has BOTH collossus AND tendrils. They would have to sit on 2-3 mana to deter the gifts player. And they would need the right spell. This is MORE effective against long imo.

What does you sideboard look like now? Since you dont run Burning wish anymore I'm guessing you took tendrils and pyroclasm from the sideboard. What do you fill those slots with now?

Thats cool and all. except theres 1 small problem. When you play Yawgmoth's Will all other cards put in graveyard after are removed from the game. So your burning wish gets removed if they choose to not give it to you. So its not a valid recoup target.

A problem with it is that there only 15 lands your listing. you need ATLEAST 3-4 ancient tombs and 2-3 city of traitiors for it to be remotely effective.
You would also need to play the strengths of those 2 mana lands by running a full compliment of SoR, CotV, and Null rod.

I failed to realize that the control player would also have to cast the hate which would be difficult on turn 1/2 if tutored on the same turn. but this IS post board, so the drain deck will have answers sided in that will affect storm despite xantid in play. Like graveyard hate and duress (build dependant).

Either way it still comes down to playskill and luck.

And I dont see what better sb cards there could be than 3 swarms and 3 duress.

What do the opposers of this argument say should be in the side instead of duress or xantid?

Swarm doesnt have haste. so it would be a free turn 2 win, unless they can tutor up hate for the swarm which is highly plausible.

I dont think the format would turn into vice vs. no vice at all. Now even the Control decks drop most of their hands by turn 2, and theres still chalice for 1 and bounce that can take care of it if it turns into a problem.

Trinisphere was un-fun because it prevented you from playing spells. Black vice wouldnt matter in thqat respect because if it did anything, it would encourange you to play your spells more.

AND already more than half of the decks in vintage can out-race black vice. Maybe even all of them.

It wouldnt turn into a real problem since people are already trying to kill artifacts that are more potent. It might even make the meta even more diverse than it already is.

I just wish Wizards wouold update the b/r list more frequently on the basis of how the cards would affect the meta TODAY. instead of what it DID 10 years ago.

I would take out mana drain and add Dark Confidant since he can be your reliable draw engine and a kill condition.

Then I would take out 1 crucible for a trinisphere.

Then I would replace the fetches with wastelands. and replace the duals with gemstone mine and City of Brass.

Now you can take out sink-hole for another lock peice. This part depends on your meta. I really like Sphere of resistance since your not running welders to constantly cycle tanglewire And Shere of resistance is actually one of THE FASTEST lock peices out there since it affects you opponent right away. making it difficult to combo out or cast a large amount of creatures.

Though if you have goblins in your meta I would go with chalice as you can shut them off both vial and lacky.

Lastly. If this is "Fastbond stax" why arent you runnign zuran orb? it help against the life-loss of other cards, screws up storms math occasionally, AND its and infinit life combo with fastbond and crucible. which is good since your running 7 tutors to find the peices.


Though it seems your just trying to fill 1 deck wiht all the power you can put in it with drains, workshops, and grims.....which doesnt work.

AND most of all. your not running Tolarian Acadamy........