Yea, show and tell really got me when I played against him.  I can't remember if he had root maze in the deck at the time, but I remember something screwing me over badly.

Yeah, merchant scrolling for drain is great in gifts, FoW isn't bad either.  Merchant scroll is the ultimate make-your-opponent-sweat-like-a-pig card.  After scroll resolves and you get your counter, the game becomes more than just who has more playskill.  It enters the realm of interpersonal magic and you have the advantage.  There have been numerous times I have played against gifts and the above scenario happened and I have just said to myself, "oh shit."  knowing they probably have the winning cards in their hand and are holding another counter in addition to the one they have.  Even if scroll does not resolve, you still have to waste a counter on it.

Kataki and nullrod provide the deck with redundancy, which is good.  Oh yes, hide and seek is very worth running.  I played gifts against this deck and hide-seek was wrecking me throughout the match.  Pre-emptive seek to get rid of one-ofs and hide to deal with man-lands, dsc, trike, titan blah blah blah and hide to to get rid of dsc/titan/trike/smokestack blah blah already on the board.  I also played TMWA and got my butt wrecked game 2 and game 3. 

Hahahahaha.  I knew that one was comin'.

I've been testing the build chad behre played at waterbury against mostly long variants recently with really great results.  Pillar just completely destroys them once it's in play since the only real answer they have is chain of vapor.  I'm still not quite sure how to board against long, but I obviously take out the StP's and I took out a couple of other things and I boarded in the chants and as many pyroblasts/red elemental blasts as I possibly can.  I like this deck a lot since it really is pretty budget and can be put together for a proxy 10 tournament for less than 250 assuming you have none of the cards.  Also, I thoroughly enjoy playing the deck as it is a big change from the control decks I usually pilot.  I still need to test this deck against the majority of the metagame though.  Does anyone have the R/W build decklist with jotun grunts in them?

That sounds cool dude.  Facebook hasn't revealed much game at the Zoo at all.  Having reliable testing buddies in the area would be great.  I don't have a car so I'd probably have to take the bus to AC or something or you could come over to Umass if you have a car.  Shoot me an IM.  Its the same as my forum name.  peace

I don't see where type4 said he was playing Zephyr Spirit for the 6 mana remaining.  I'm pretty sure he meant he was gonna play something a lot more broken than that, like gifts and then pwning the opponent afterwards.

If you're not playing mana drain in your deck, that's not that bad.  However, since your playing a lot of colorless stuff, it might be a good idea.  Not playing brainstorms in a MUC deck is just not smart.  It's definate card quality off the bat and coupled with the fetches allow you to get rid of useless cards in your hand.  Not to mention it hides your goodies from duress and other discard spells.  Mana leaks should not be a 4 of IMO, because vintage has so much mana available at the end of early-game even that mana leak will be useless and definately will be useless in midgame and lategame.

Anywhere around amherst to play?  Whether it be vintage or sanctioned constructed?  I'd definately like to get something together in the future Kowal.  If I can get enough interest in Umass, I'll try to get a tournament together or maybe some drafts.

I would put the jar back, add tinker and add darksteel colossus for alternate win condition.  It's just too good not to run.  Definately run the cunning wishes and try to fit a dblast in the maindeck.  Lose the innocent bloods.  Run the 4 togs in addition to the dsc.  It gives you redundancy against 4x StP, which some decks these days have access to.  I would run imperial seal maindeck and put the mystical in the side so you can wish for it, effectively giving you access to 5 tutors if you play the 2 wishes.  As for the fact, gush, nights whispers and duresses.  You need to decide whether you want a disruptive tog deck which will run those duresses, or if you want a card draw heavy build which will need to lose the duress and keep the fact, gush, whispers.  You also need yawgwill.  It allows for another way to pump tog with intution/ak then replay all those aks and then swing with a big tog.  Maindeck berserk is not needed.  Put a copy in the board so you can wish for it.

Try running W in the deck and using 1x tundra in the landbase.  This allows for you to access things like gilded light and StP from your sideboard.  I've been testing U/B/g/w tog lately with good results.  I hope this helps and good luck buddy.


P.S.
If you did all the changes suggested, your goldfish win(if correctly played) should be 3.5-4 turns with some turn 2 and 3 wins and also some turn 5 wins in there.  However, that is only a basis through my goldfish testing.  REal playtesting is another story.  PM me if you have more questions.

Any here go to the Zoo?  I've been trying to set stuff up there for a couple of weeks now via facebook, but the interest level is pretty low.  Lemme know if you play and you go to Umass Amherst. 

And once the girls find out you play magic.....it wont matter that your in an all girls dorm.   jk man.  have fun with that.  Last year,  I was on a co-ed floor with co-ed bathrooms.  That was interesting.

At least two stores in my area that I used to frequent have closed in the last 2 years.  One of them completely switched over to internet retail on the same things.  I just think the internet is taking over the ccg business, but I probably don't know what I'm talking about.  Some stores do thrive, because they are in the right area with the right amount of interest.

Whats ironman magic?  sorry if i sound like a n00b

I disagree.  Cardkingdom has higher prices on stuff in my opinion.  Although sscg does sometimes have their chase-rares at a slightly higher price.  For mana drains, the best way to get them cheap is definately to get them off ebay.  English ones you can get for 80ish if you really hound the auctions.  I got my playset of italian(i kno not as pimp) for 245.  I would never buy the higher priced cards from most dealers.

Wait..If you don't want to use expensive cards, then why are there mana drains and FoWs in the deck?  the combined price of a playset of those would run you like 350-400 bux.  Also, if your not willing to use or at least proxy pieces of the power 9, your deck will face some serious problems against decks that do utilize the p9 to its full potential.  But if you want to try a slightly less expenisive version of oath that actually works, look in the vintage open forums section and find "tyrant oath".  It plays fiddy cent(i had to say that) rares called tidespout tyrants instead of the angel duo and might or might not use mana drains, i cant say for sure either way until brian posts his decklist.  I've played against it and its killer.  It's certaintly a different approach to oath than icbm or gws or meandeck.

This guy I knew back in high school used to do ridiculously high quality fakes of stuff.  My friend nearly bought a lotus from him, but luckily thumbed the sides for some reason for like a minute and the high quality sticker-like thing peeled off.  This guy was ridiculous.  He would cut perfect cutouts of cards and pasted them entirely on something like a land card.  He had some pwnage printer.  Even the surface texture was remarkably similar to the real deal.  We were all scared for a while.  There might be some still floating around somewhere so be careful.

i think show and tell will help you against oath mirrors where neither of you have orchards in play.  Also, I'm taking a guess, but I think colossus would help out against mirrors too.  If you had W in the deck, I would tell you to run a pulse of the fields SB.  That card has won me so many games against ichorid in extended.

my name is yang

I go to UMASS amherst and will be entering my sophomore year there.  I started playing magic during late odyssey block and played mostly just for fun and with friends.  I've played tog in some format throughout my 5 years in the game.  Shortly after mirrodin-ish, I considered getting a dci number and going to the local card shop with a group of guys that played in my school.  However, I realized skullclamp affinity was retarded and I didn't want to play it or against it and I stopped for until recently.  I don't have much actual tournament experience save waterbury like 3 years ago and a lot of local nonsanctioned tournaments of varying formats.  2 months ago, I was sitting around the house lounging when I randomely saw my vintage tog deck and started goldfishing.  Since then, I've been playing nonstop on MWS and with friends in vintage and extended.  I recently completed my vintage tog deck save some of the p9.  I look forward to interacting with everyone on TMD and hope to learn new things and share a few things I've picked up.

Probably the most famous and only pro player i know or knew is Ben Goodman who I went to high school with and occasionally played magic with.  I often just referred to him jokingly as the Miser or the Topdecker, but he is a thoroughly talented player.  Congrats on 22nd in Honolulu and wish you the best of luck in the future and good job with Ghost Dad

yea the drain thing is debatable, i understand why you want them in the deck.  However, there are gonna be times when you're gonna take huge burns for the unused mana.  Show and tell is good, because its better to get 1 tyrant into play rather than have none in play.  But i could be wrong.  I think you need a stifle and a shadow of a doubt in the board.  Stifle is just a good play against long variants as well as shadow.  Shadow is also great against decks that rely on searching the library like gifts and stops intuition as well.  I also think you could benefit from a gush and a hurkies as well.  And i think putting the angel duo in the board might be good, not sure.  For when you're against a deck that would benefit you to kill faster than with tyrant. 

Hmmm.  I also think you might not need 2 merchant scrolls.  I think playing 2-3 show and tells wouldnt be that bad of an idea, because they are pitchable to FoW and MisD.  If you play 3 tyrants, one benefit would be if you weren't able to set oath up or generate tokens and you had a show and tell, you could intuition for a tyrant and then SaT it.  But I see that gifts is your engine, not ak/intuition.  But that's something to think about, because those situations probably will happen from time to time.  If you cut some stuff, you could make room for ak/intuition.  Go down to 1 merchant scroll, take out gifts and DA along with wisdom, recoup, and take out a cunning wish.  With ak/intuition, I don't think you will need the drains.  I don't remember too well, but I don't think Brian played drains.  When I played against Brian, I believe he show and telled tyrants into play both games and didn't oath for it once.  His strategy was to counter-bait by casting oath and then wreck you with show and tell. 

I have a question.  Have you guys had shadow of a doubt played against you in the middle of a tutor chain?  Have you been able to counter it or what kind of results have you had when SoD has been used against you.

Editing modtext out of your posts is strictly prohibited.  Consider yourself warned.
-Klep

i fully agree with brian.  i played against him a few weeks ago and tyrant wrecked me.  its slower to deal lethal than razia/akroma, but i think its a much safter and much more control oriented build.  show and tell is deadly in that deck.  his build was very nice indeed.  u should post ur list up brian.  see ya on mws sometime.