Correct, you are not playing the copied Ideals (You can't, remember?) so Meddling Mage or Circu won't stop you.

Mmm, indie girls...  ;D

Way to represent Michigan, Josh and Brian!  Wish I could've gone to see it.

If you as a mono-Blue player are really worried about Welders, take a page out from 1998 and run Powder Kegs, or even Masticore.  They may be 'outdated', but they will shore up those aggro matchups real fast.  FCG and Vial Fish -really- do not want to see Mana Drain->Masticore.

Agreed, MM - I personally can only tolerate Mental Magic when played in 1.5 format, a great deal of the restricted list is just too powerful to have fun playing.  I'm not a big fan of flashback spells in general, either, and with 1.5's 'new' list I'd ban FoF too.

Flores' no search idea is pretty wonderful too, and I think next time I play I'll suggest it.

I really, really suck at Mental, though - forcefieldyou can definitely attest to this.

The best kill ever is when playing Shandalar, you use a deck designed to go off with Time Walks, Timetwisters, Jeweled Birds, and....

DEMONIC ATTORNEYS.

That's right, you kill your opponent by making them Ante every single card in their library.

I really doubt it would fit in the deck, but Sylvan Library does have a lot of Johnny-like synergy with certain cards in the deck (Mongrel, Jitte).  Additionally, there are certain decks that can't take advantage of you paying 8 life a turn to Ancestral on your draw step.

superman would totally kick batman's ass

If you had a Vedalken Orrery out in order to do this, that would be correct.

There are very few matches in which the mana burn from a Drain will matter too much.  There are more matches where Drain ->Intuition -> AK wins the game.  QED.

Kira and Jitte, in the same maindeck?  That sounds like a recipe for disaster.


Kira is happy to counter the first Equip activation.  Have you found this to be a problem?

Does Pithing Needle have potential in this deck?

Ah, I misunderstood your intent previously - I guess if you don't need the Oracle you don't need to get it, for sure - but I took you to mean that if a player asked for help about card text in certain circumstances, you wouldn't give it.  That didn't seem right.

I was wondering where this would apply.  Can you give an example of where you would choose not to give a player Oracle text, aside from slow play concerns, and a question that was too vague ("Can you give me the oracle text for that 2/2 beater guy?")

Do I have the lowest 3CB score ever tallied?

 ???

I must have missed the memo on Trinisphere and Upwelling being involved...

Bumping this for two reasons.

One, the original link has several updates since the posting, and they're just as hilarious.

Two, to echo TracerBullet's question.  I've heard about this program through several avenues and even had my boss recommend this to me as a possible 'thing to do' before I start a career.  So, anyone here know more about the JET program?

I guess my Unlimited playset really makes you swoon, eh Ben?

Besides Mana Drains, the dual lands were the first Vintage cards I really sought after.  I do this in every format - get all the useful lands, and then you can start building decks from the ground up.

I started collecting Unlimited dual lands because I saw so many people with BB sets, and asked myself, have I ever seen anyone with a playset of Unlimited duals?  To this day, I'm still the only non-dealer I know of who's got one.  I still try to upgrade condition on a lot of them, but duals nowadays have gone kind of crazy...

Sounds like a good way to kill yourself when your Presence gets countered/explosived/removed.

The only articles I've found to be truly worth it are Zvi's.

Dark Ritual Restricted 1st
Goblin Welder Restricted 2nd
Grim Tutor Restricted 3rd
Oath of Druids Restricted 4th
Yawgmoth's Will Banned
Mana Drain Unrestrictable

Mishra's Workshop 12
Intuition 7
Cunning Wish 10
Thirst for Knowledge 10
Bazaar of Baghdad 17
Gifts Ungiven 4
Brainstorm 10
Squee, Goblin Nabob 10
Tinker 11
Land Grant 12

Props to Kerz for being about 2 days behind on his post.

Dark Ritual Restricted 1st
Goblin Welder Restricted 2nd
Grim Tutor Restricted 3rd
Mishra's Workshop 10
Intuition 6
Cunning Wish 10
Thirst for Knowledge 10
Bazaar of Baghdad 15
Gifts Ungiven 5
Oath of Druids 3
Brainstorm 8
Yawgmoth's Will 6

Grim Tutor Restricted 3rd
Dark Ritual Restricted 1st
Mishra's Workshop 10
Goblin Welder Restricted 2nd
Intuition 8
Mana Drain 9
Tendrils of Agony 10
Elvish Spirit Guide 10
Cunning Wish 9
Thirst for Knowledge 9
Crucible of Worlds 10
Bazaar of Baghdad 14
Gifts Ungiven 5
Oath of Druids 4
Brainstorm 9
Yawgmoth's Will 8

Even if you know precisely what card it is (Say, your Memory Jar hand only had one Intuition in it) you still aren't allowed to Cunning WIsh for it face down.

Actually, I believe you can Death Wish for a card RFG face-down, but you can't look at it before choosing it - it'll be random.

Grim Tutor 4
Dark Ritual restricted
Mishra's Workshop 10
Goblin Welder 6
Intuition 8
Mana Drain 8
Tendrils of Agony 10
Elvish Spirit Guide 10
Cunning Wish 9
Thirst for Knowledge 8
Crucible of Worlds 10
Bazaar of Baghdad 12
Gifts Ungiven 8
Oath of Druids 8
Brainstorm 10

My take on this deck is that it's an aggro-control deck that tries to be reactive, rather than proactive.  Flores' "Know your role" articles would find plenty of faults with this deck's control matchup - your beatdown is not going to outpace anyone's draw, especially when to disrupt them it takes away your beatdown resources.

Fish succeeds where this deck fails because it is much more proactive.  If you don't get a Vial on the board with two counters, you can't both cast a creature and have Drain mana up.  I think that's a problem.  Aggro-control decks like GAT work because they really only need to resolve the Dryad or the Tog.  You won't be single-handedly winning games just by dropping a Lavamancer.

Grim Tutor 7
Dark Ritual 8
Mishra´s Workshop 10
Goblin Welder 8
Intuition 10
Mana Drain 8
Tendrils of Agony 10
Elvish Spirit Guide 10
Cunning Wish 8
Thirst for Knowledge 10
Crucible of Worlds 10
Bazaar of Baghdad 10
Gifts Ungiven 8
Oath of Druids 10

I think you overvalue Standstill in this deck.  You are simply not drawing into more threats.

I would imagine Dragon obliterates this deck.

Yes, but keep in mind you actually have to tap something for colorless mana.  There isn't a single mana source in this deck that does that.

These are some of the funniest Magic articles I have ever read.  My favorites are the description of the development process used in creating Control of the Court, and the decklist of "Some French Guy - A Tournament"