Most MUD builds that I have seen lately run 14 or more creatures. Generally running more than 2 City of Traitors is risky. Instead of running City of Traitors 3-4, have people tried 1-2 Gaea's Cradle. Granted, it is dead on Turn 1 unless you can find alternative mana sources to power out a creature, but after turn 1, you should be able to utilize Gaea's Cradle with increasing mana returns that can help you get past your own resistance from the spheres.

Ravenous Trap is an excellent tool that is effective against numerous decks including Dredge, but also just about any deck that runs Yawgmoth's Will. It is a very well designed card that will have a home in Vintage for years to come.

Nevertheless, with all cards now spoiled from Zendikar, I am extremely disappointed not to have "Time Trap" card. With Time Warp present in M10, and Time Vault being run in Vintage, it would have been an ideal time to introduce a card that punishes players for taking an extra turn. The Time Trap could be potentially have been played for 0 casting cost if a player would take an extra turn. To be effective against Time Vault, it would have to have a pretty serious effect, perhaps something like "If an opponent would take an extra turn, play Time Trap for 0, an you control the extra turn". Or "If an opponent would take an extra turn, play Time Trap for 0, counter the extra turn and you take an extra turn instead". My hope is that some form of Time Trap will appear in the next set in the cycle.

Until then, trap cards introduce an intriguing dynamic into the game and it is nice to see that Ravenous Trap and Mindbreak Trap are powerful enough to even see play in Vintage.

Obviously, 4 Dark Confidants have to go into this deck--my only reservation before was that I disliked the picture.

Cabal Therapy is a bad option though since there are not enough creatures to make it worthwhile and with an average casting cost just over 1, I do not think I would ever want to sacrifice Bob. The Megrims have to come out for sure, and the Hippies probably have go as well since they are too slow. I like the inclusion of Nether Void, but when I have tried that before on a few occasions before, it was just too slow to resolve. Null Rods have to go into the main deck and/or the sideboard, the question is just how many should go in (help would be appreciated on this). With the Megrims out and Bob in, almost every spell will cost 1 or 2, so Chalice of the Void has to be set for 0 or 3. Chalice for 3 is hard to do, but is it worth including Chalice in the main deck just to for Chalice for 0. In my opinion no, because most 0 cc spells are going to be artifacts so Null Rod such do the trick. Regretfully, Null Rod counters Cursed Scroll, which I was thinking of adding to deal damage in place of Megrim and wipe Welders from the board. The deck is still really shy on permanent removal, but Pernicious Deed would just destroy my deck given that all the permanents I am playing with have a cc of 2 or less. For mana acceleration, Elfish Spirit Guides are not bad, but what do you think of Cabal Rituals? Also, I am really want to stuff in 3 or 4 Tangle Wires to slow down my opponent, but to accelerate them out I would probably have to add 4 Mishra’s Workshops, if I do that, I might as well put in a Trinisphere, a few Welders, and call it Stax. Nevertheless, something like Sphere of Resistance would really help slow down my opponent, but there are not too many free slots. I need The Rack, or I have nothing to damage my opponent other than a Bob beatdown.

So, in conclusion, my revisions would look like this:

    -4 x Hypnotic Specter
    -3 x Megrim
    -1 x Memory Jar
    -1 x Wasteland

    +4 x Dark Confidant
    +3 x Null Rod (if this is too many please let me know)
    +1 x Regrowth (to make better use of the splash of green)
    +1 x Tolarian Academy (with the extra artifacts it can power up a early mind twist)

Any other suggestions?

Can Chains of Mephistopheles be competitive in Vintage? Is seems from previous discussions that Shahrazad has some difficulties being competitive, but in the spirit of driving your opponent to the brink of madness and beyond, let me introduce a chains deck that is designed to lock your opponent out of the game once they have zero cards in their hand. So, here is the deck list followed by some discussion:

Core:
4 x Chains of Mephistopheles
4 x Anvil of Bogardan
3 x Life from the Loam

Discard:
4 x Hymn to Tourach
4 x Duress
1 x Mind Twist
4 x Hypnotic Specter

Damage:
4 x The Rack
3 x Megrim

Browse and Abuse:
1 x Demonic Tutor
1 x Yawgmoth’s Will
1 x Memory Jar

Mana Accelerants:
1 x Black Lotus
1 x Mox Jet
1 x Mox Emerald
1 x Mox Diamond
1 x Sol Ring
4 x Dark Ritual

Land:
4 x Wasteland
1 x Stripmine
8 x Swamp
4 x Bayau

Possibilities
+ 2 x Gaea’s Blessing
+ 3 x Cursed Scroll
+ 1 x Regrowth
+ 4 x Cabal Ritual
+ 4 x Tangle Wire
+ 4 x Mishra’s Workshop
+ 4 x Null Rod
+ 3 or 4 x Chalice of the Void
+ 1 x Tolarian Academy
+ 1 x Mox Pearl, Mox Sapphire, Mox Ruby
- 3 x Megrim
- 4 x Hypnotic Specter
- 4 x Wasteland (+4 x Mishra's Factory or 3 x Blinkmoth Nexus)

So, the deck works like this. Get a Chains of Mephistopheles into play and get an Anvil of Bogardan into play. Then if you can get your opponent down to zero cards they never draw another card during the game because they draw 1 card during their draw phase then before drawing the second card for the Anvil, they discard 1 card to the Chains, then draw the second card for the Anvil, then discard the second card to the Anvil. Net gain: Zero cards. You break the symmetry for yourself by drawing the first card without a penalty and then instead of drawing the second card you use Life from the Loam to mill 3 cards and return Life from the Loam to your hand. You win by killing your opponent with The Rack or Megrim. Cursed Scroll can also work well and Gaea’s Blessing can keep you from milling yourself (this usually is not a problem so I took the Gaea’s Blessing out of the main deck). There are some other options for introducing more control like null rod or Chalice…

Any thoughts?

-Ark

Making Shahrazad competitive is obviously difficult. So far the suggestion I like most so far is to use Shahrazad to force your opponent to concede the sub-game then use weenies and burn to kill your opponent. For this I am setting a target kill by turn 3. Here is a potential way to do it:

Sub-game generation:
4 x Shahrazad

Card Removal
3 x Swords to Ploughshares
3 x Tormod’s Crypt

Mana Acceleration:
1 x Black Lotus
1 x Mox Pearl
1 x Mox Ruby
1 x Sol Ring
1 x Mana Crypt
1 x Lotus Petal

Burn:
4 x Lighting Bolts
4 x Chain Lighting
1 x Black Vice
4 x Ankh of Mishra

Disruption:
1 x Wheel of Fortune

Weenies:
4 x Grim Lavamancer
4 x Savannah Lions
3 x Ismaru, Hound of Konda

Land
4 x Plateau
4 x Battlefield Forge
4 x Gemstone Mine
4 x City of Brass
3 x Sacred Foundry


On turn 1 you want to cast Shahrazad or otherwise get an Ankh or Weenie in play. Let us consider the worst case scenario in which we can only cast a 2/1 or 2/2 Weenie.

On turn 2 you cast Shahrazad, opponent concedes, you attack with a Weenie for 2 and you opponent down to say 8.

On turn 3, you need two burn spells and a strike with your Weenie to win.

I would have to do some extensive play testing on this to see if it would be any good. It would never make top 8, but it might just be semi-competitive…

Any thoughts?

PURPLE HAT: I agree with you that Panoptic Mirror and Shahrazad are awesome (in one construction I helped the Panoptic Mirrors out with 4 Mishra’s Workshops and was laughing when ever I had a Shahrazad or Time Walk in my hand). Regretfully, to draw the spell effect using Panoptic Mirror requires one extra turn (i.e., the turn after the Mirror comes into play). The Mirror is really hard to get out on Turn 1, even with a fully powered deck and 4 Mirrors. At best it will not come into play until Turn 2 and you will not reap the benefit until Turn 3. At which point your opponent still gets a turn in between Shahrazad casts. Consequently, I concluded that Panoptic Mirror is just not viable in competitive vintage.

You raise an excellent objection. There is no way that any opponent in their right mind would allow the sub-game to precede very far. Barring a God-hand and first turn kill in the sub-game they would just concede.

Meddling mage beatdown is an option (albeit it a poor strategy), but decking an opponent in a Vintage main game seems hopeless. Consequently, Shahrazad might as well read: “All sane opponents loose half their life points, rounding down. Effects that prevent damage may not be used to counter this loss of life.” 

To make Shahrazad competitive, it seems that a better kill condition is required than meddling mage or "Tinker for Colossuss"… Any suggestions?

-Ark

At the very mention of the word Shaharazad many players will simply roll their eyes and walk away from the table. Nevertheless, for those intrepid few that remain to finish the game, the results can be quite interesting.

Over the years, I have been refining a Shaharazad deck that uses a very simple strategy:
1.   Enter a sub-game as quickly as possible.
2.   Remove as many of your opponents cards as possible from the sub-game.
3.   Return to the main game and decimate your helpless opponent.

Initially, I toyed with the idea of have multiple sub-games, but really it is not necessary. One sub-game, or at most one sub-sub-game is enough to establish a hard lock in the main game. A sub-game can typically be initiated within the first couple of turns and so the deck proves to be quite fast--usually requiring no longer to complete than a match against Stax (or one of its many variants). So without further ado here is my deck list. A sideboard will not be presented at this time--this will of course depend on your metagame, so please adjust to taste.

Sub-game generation:
4 x Shahrazad

Card Removal
4 x Extract
3 x Jester’s Cap
3 x Tormod’s Crypt
2 x Swords to Ploughshares
2 x Traumatize

Mana Acceleration:
1 x Black Lotus
1 x Mox Pearl
1 x Mox Sapphire
1 x Sol Ring

Draw Acceleration:
1 x Ancestral Recall
1 x Time Walk
1 x Timetwister
1 x Windfall
1 x Tinker
1 x Mystical Tutor

Disruption:
4 x Meddling Mage
4 x Force of Will
3 x Chalice of the Void
1 x Memory Jar

Kill Condition:
1 x Darksteel Colossus

Land
4 x Tundra
4 x Hallowed Fountain
4 x Flooded Strand
2 x Island
2 x Plains
1 x Tolarian Academy
1 x Library of Alexandria
1 x Karakas

I had initially thought that combining Flooded Strand with Shahrazad would have left me struggling for mana in the sub-games, but this was not the case and I found them to be a great addition. I am also considering putting another two Swords to Ploughshares in the main deck, but I am not sure what should come out other than Traumatize (x 2).

I have tried including 4 x Raven Guildmaster and found that he could be just devastating when opponents played with very few creatures. Regretfully, given his inconsistency, I have decided to relegate them to sideboard. I also including 4 x Mishra’s Workshop to accelerate the Jester’s Caps--which where four in number at that time--but the guys in the workshop were generally useless (as far all I could tell they just lounged about on the table, smoking cigarettes and telling lude jokes) because there were so few artifacts in the deck. I have also equivocated about adding a couple of Kataki, War's Wage, but have ultimately decided that they are sideboard material. As for mana acceleration, I was thinking about including a Mana Crypt, but I have generally found that the extra colourless mana has not been that helpful. The difficulty of using colorless mana has also brought me to exclude any off-colour moxen. Traumatize is perhaps the greatest waste of space in the deck, but when it resolves it is very satisfying. Lastly, I tried including 2 x Panoptic Mirrors and they were just devastating with Time Walk. Nevertheless, it seems that they are not worth including given how rarely the combo comes out.

If anyone has any other suggestions on how to improve this deck, or comments on its potential competitiveness--which most of you will claim is slim to none--I would welcome your insight. Thank you.

-Ark