Rule of Law or the blue version (arcane laboratory I think?) could work at forcing a full hand.  I think the main problem is that if you're keeping your opponent's hand at seven and not losing the game, it's because you're doing something right.  At that point, the black vise is kind of irrelevant

this essentially reads "Your opponent chooses - do nothing, or win the game"

My dad still quotes undermine's flavor text.

He doesn't know how to play magic  :lol:

phage's ability would trigger, but in the case of, say, red akroma, only 2 damage would be dealt

Considering english is the de facto language of many sciences, it's not that surprising the card is in english

I was referring to the one TopSecret posted

Flanking would also give him a bit of game against the expensive creatures, which is probably good (as opposed to a "can't touch this, can't touch this, whoops! I just go squished" mentality)

Because that is totally an original insight for this thread 

Will he ever actually trample over anything?  The trample ability seems superficial; if something costs four or more and has a toughness of one, they're probably not blocking with it anyway, because it has a mad crazy ability.

No.  In fact, it doesn't quite work with the wishes.

What happens is you play your spell (regrowth, burning wish, etc.).  Mirari triggers.  The mirari ability resolves first, and you can choose to pay 3 to copy the spell.  The copied spell is put on top of the stack, meaning it resolves before the original.  Now, in the case of wishes, you often have one in your sideboard already.  So the copied version can get that wish, and then the original resolves.  In the case of regrowth, there is no regrowth already in your graveyard (presumably).  If there was one, your copied regrowth could target the graveyard one, and your original regrowth can get you something else.

In America, it's usually abbreviated simply M.S.

I know this by googling and finding a wikipedia page, along with a Carnegie Mellon page that agrees

http://www.cmu.edu/styleguide/abbreviations.html


The M.S. being Master of Science degree

I like the idea of a simple lich effect that isn't nerfed into oblivion.  I would add something like

3: Gain 1 life.  Remove ~THIS~ from the game at end of turn

Super sligh! (reeeaaally ghetto)

4x Jackal Pup
4x Goblin Patrol (I'm warning you.... ghetto)
2x Gorilla Shaman

4x Lightning Bolt
4x Firebolt
4x Incinerate
4x Reckless Charge (Take heed of my warning and stop reading!)
4x Fireblast
4x Flame Rift (aah! You reached it.... if your eyes haven't melted out of your sockets, you could read this)
4x Volcanic Hammer

1x Cursed Scroll
1x Ankh of Mishra (only owned one of each  :lol: )

12x Mountain
4x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
3x Barbarian Ring

Good times... it was teched out with burn to beat my friends sui-black deck with negators (we were the only people playing type one, so we just metagamed against each other with janky crap.  Then one day I got dual lands and it all went downhill to keeper from there  :lol:  )

How is this any better than the current combo decks we have though?

I couldn't say.  Keep an eye on http://ukvintage.informe.com/index.php for any postings (it's a new UK vintage forum).


Yeah, it should have been.  I was too caught up with how easy a turn one kill I would have if I hit anything relevant to actually consider what would happen if I didn't  :lol:

Restricting gifts ungiven, merchant scroll and grim tutor should probably be done before banning yawgmoth's will.  And maybe ETW and tendrils of agony too.  With all the tutor support available, it's really no surprise that will is shining

So we had a vintage tournament on Sunday here in the UK.... gotinput was kind enough to loan me a deck, and I decided to try belcher since the first place prize was just sinkholes anyway.  Here's the decklist I was running

1 Taiga
1 Bayou

3 Goblin Welder
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide

3 Seething Song
3 Chromatic Star
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Memory Jar
1 Burning Wish
3 Goblin Charbelcher
2 Empty the Warrens
4 Land Grant
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
5x Mox
1 Black Lotus
1 Chrome Mox
1 Lotus Petal
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Channel
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Duress
1 Vampiric Tutor

SB:
1 Goblin Welder
1 Goblin Charbelcher
2 Empty the Warrens
2 Shattering Spree
2 Pyroblast
2 Ancient Grudge
3 Xantid Swarm
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Chromatic Star

Round one: janky artifact combo deck (no storm, no yawg will)
Basically, the person running the deck doesn't like storm, and doesn't like yawgmoth's will, so he made a deck without either.  This was a pretty fast matchup.... he had no way to reliably kill or stop kills by turn three, and I had turn two kills both games (tendrils one game, belcher another).  I sideboarded in one pyroblast for a chrome mox on the theory that if I had to draw one or the other, pyroblast would be the choice.  This becomes a recurrent theme throughout the tournament

Round two: Psychatog
Game one: He thinks long and hard before deciding to keep his hand... before I take my turn, he says he's either going to win or lose depending on how fast my deck is.  How convenient, I think.... land grant for bayou, duress and take a merchant scroll, seeing two intuitions and another merchant scroll.  He sees my hand, and practically concedes on the spot, as I proceed to cast memory jar.  His turn is draw, land pass, I crack the jar.  I have to decide between casting ETW or goblin charbelcher after playing the rest of my hand.... thinking back, I make the wrong move and choose ETW for 16 tokens.  I knew I had one turn to attack or activate charbelcher while he merchant scrolled for a solution, and knew that ETW would put him at one.  On the other hand, I was thinking, he might not have echoing truth maindeck, and he could find a bounce for my charbelcher if I didn't kill him on the one activation.  Of course, with only a taiga left, killing would be extremely likely, but I didn't think it through fully.  So I ETW, he gets echoing truth, I swing, get truthed, and make 8 more tokens on my next turn to win.

SB (I don't really know what he's playing here, I thought it was drain tendrils maybe; I did know he had lots of ways to get countermagic): -1 chrome mox, -1 demonic consultation, 2 xantid swarm
Game two: I'm going second, so when I see a hand with six accelerants and a goblin welder, I'm thinking I have a pretty good shot.  My welder gets countered, and I draw more mana for a couple turns before getting smashed in the face with a huge tog
SB: -2 xantid swarm, +2 pyroblast

Game three: Turn one I go mox, sol ring, mana crypt, mana vault, chromatic star, goblin charbelcher.  Turn two I tutor for my bayou and kill him


Round three: Fish
Game one: Turn one I go black lotus.... he thinks.  If it gets countered, I'm pretty much dead in the water, so when he lets it resolve I'm ecstatic.  Dark ritual, dark ritual, chromatic star, seething song, mana crypt, burning wish.... burning wish gets countered!  Luckily, I also have ETW in my hand, so I get enough goblin tokens to take him to school on turn two

SB: -1 chrome mox, -1 demonic consultation, -1 ETW, +1 goblin charbelcher +2 pyroblast.  Pyroblast kills FOW and meddling mage, so it's good.  I swap out an ETW for a charbelcher hoping he'll bring in anti-ETW tech.

Game two:
He goes null rod, wasteland, wasteland.  I can't tap for mana, so I lose
SB: -1 goblin charbelcher, -1 Channel, +2 Ancient Grudge

Game three: He double mulligans, so I'm thinking my hand of lotus petal and 3x rite of flame with a burning wish is looking pretty good.  Worst case scenario, I figure, I still have 15+ outs to topdeck.  Rite of flame gets countered, I topdeck like an ass, and lose the game.  Ouch


Round four: Grim Long
An excellent combo v. combo matchup
Game one:  I go turn one duress, take his tinker and go for a 12 token ETW on turn two.  Things get hairy because he still has dark ritual and grim tutor in his hand, but he doesn't have enough mana to use them effectively.  Of course, he also has a necropotence on top of his deck, but he doesn't have any gas on the top five cards to save him

Game two: He goes broken while I'm holding a decent hand.  I probably should have mulliganed since I didn't have duress or a turn two kill

Game three: I get a turn one charbelcher, and get the land from my deck.  He mulliganed, so I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a turn one kill..... shows what I know.  Lotus, ritual, timetwister shenannigans, and I get turn one owned.

It was only four rounds of swiss, then cut to the top four... I barely miss out at 2-2 (there were 11 players  ), so I'm relegated to the not playing anymore table. 

So at the end of the tournament, here are my thoughts:
1.) Xantid Swarm really was useless.  I had high hopes of bringing him in against heavy countermagic decks like oath of druids, but of course there weren't any (someone's gonna say "Playing creatures against oath?", so I'll let them know to just be quiet right now).

2.) Pyroblast can be 4x in the sideboard.  With only two, I never saw them, which was a little unfortunate, though I'm not sure it hurt me too badly.

3.) Chrome Mox and Demonic Consultation might need some cutting.  Those were my go to guys for sideboarding; if anything maindeck is getting changed, it's those.  They're just not that exciting.  On the other hand, I wouldn't want main deck pyroblasts or anything like that right now, so unless there is anything better, they're still in for now.

Luckily for me, and for you too, the TO had extra MM packs, and decided as a little add-on for prize support to let the top 8 draft MM block for free (everyone else had to pay a little to draft).  So here's my MM block draft analysis:

This format sucks balls.  There's no removal, no fast creatures, tons of artifact hate with no relevant targets... fortunately, only two people drafted green, so I get a pretty solid green deck with some blue and red splash for two burn spells and some evasion/bounce.  Even when I was dominating, I was still waiting for my opponent to cast something relevant to kill me, because dominating meant I had spidersilk armor, coastal hornclaw and skyshroud cutter in play.  Thankfully, everyone else was drafting the same chaffe, so that was nice. I got my first energy flux, which was probably the most valuable card in the draft    Money rares, MM ain't got.

Has anyone tried helm of awakening in a belcher deck?  It might be the absolute crap-sack of a card choice, but on the other hand it's got synergy with seething song and chromatic star in the form of kickstarting your combo when you'd otherwise be stuck one mana short of playing your rituals/draw 7.  Just something I thought of a little while ago, I haven't actually tried it yet.

I kind of like it, though there may be a super-broken combo lying in it somewhere.  You want to re-word it
"Green creature spells you play cost 1 less to play..."

Three win conditions?  We have another thread about belcher, most people were pushing 6-8 maindeck.

8x star/sphere seems excessive


So why do make topdeck mode even worse than it was before?  I find with 3x belcher, 3x ETW, you at least have a fair chance of throwing down some tokens, randomly winning with belcher, or picking up another draw spell in the next 2-3 turns.  On the other hand, you have no duresses, so you don't have a bat's chance in hell of surviving those turns I guess

Right, but what exactly would you be using gush for?  Return two islands to your hand?  Combo decks don't even get two lands in play half the time.  Maybe drain tendrils or gifts could run it, but you don't see them running one copy, and merchant scroll is actually pretty synergous (is that a word?  :lol: ) with gush... the best explanation is that while it looks cool on paper, without a green "play a ton of lands" base to support it or some other thing to do with all those cards in your hand, it's more flashy than it is broken

EDIT: Actually, now I kind of want to run gush in my gifts deck.  Has anyone tried it?

That would be incredibly strong.  It would be an automatic 4x in every aggro deck in constructed (anti-wrath of god anyone?), and every limited deck would want it.

Right, and then you can just build type 2 TPS, only more broken.  That'll work    I wonder why it's so difficult for people to actually consider what WotC would do if they took an interest in the vintage metagame

Except the purpose of this thread was to put up what would (assumedly) be a goal that WotC would want to carry through on (in the hypothetical event they take an interest in vintage).  Don't try and tell me that the metagame is going to balance itself out color-wise over time; if anything, the prevalance of mana denial has made decks shy away from green and white as support colors.

Just to clarify once more:  This thread is not about whether the metagame is broken, or whether there are enough different archetypes.  It's about specifically what is in the original post.  Nothing more.

I could see playing this with a madness deck...

I think dark confidant was just about covered here:

No, in normal oath, if you draw a creature, the rest of your creatures still kill.  With this build, if you draw DSC, you're stuck with a scrub creature oathed into play.  It definitely is a disadvantage

Well, if you know specifically what number rule is relevant (410.3), when you appeal you can still cite it as the reason for why you believe non-active player's abilities resolve first.

Uhh... this is kind of irrelevant, because you notice I point out that it's not really such a great idea, and don't use that as my solution (read the parentheses you cut out,  Or is this going to ignored too? :p)

The restricted all of those because academy.dec had taken over the metagame and needed to be stopped.  Correct, there was no testing, it was a knee-jerk "wtf do we do now?" restriction list