Thanks for the explaination   I had misread the Modular ability and thought it could only feed to other modular creatures, but that makes sense now.

edit - typo

I've used the white version of this card, Rule of Law, in my SB for Parfait before, where I think it's more at home than any other deck. In blue-based control decks, you have better options to deal with combo, and will often want to play more than one spell a turn yourself, so it isn't always a great play.

I'm not really familiar with the block version of this deck (Ravager), so forgive me if this is something that should be common knowledge, but are the ornithopters and (to a lesser degree) frogmites just there to die to skullclamp? They seem pretty ineffective as beatsticks, especially in vintage.

One of my friends has been testing a Ravager deck for type one as well, but he plays a very different creature base than this. I would almost say that his version works more like GAT than conventional aggro, using a lot of aggro control elements as well. I'll see if I can get the list from him and post it for anyone who is curious.

Free-spell Necro anyone? One of my favorite decks of all time  

2 Skittering Skirge
4 Contagion
4 Corrupt
4 Duress
4 Dark Ritual
3 Demonic Consultation
4 Drain Life
4 Necropotence
2 Nevinyrral's Disk
3 Spinning Darkness
4 Unmask
18 Swamp
4 Wasteland

Sideboard:
2 Dystopia
2 Nevinyrral's Disk
2 Perish
3 Persecute
3 Planar Void
3 Powder Keg

This was from extended circa 1999-2000, PT-Chicago. I think it came it 2nd?

Congrats on the win, and nice report. Looking forward to the primer (I guess I'll save some of my questions about the build until then).

edit - You guys play at Knight Dreams in Princeton? I should stop by next break I have from school. I don't know if you are familiar with Gamer's Realm in Cranbury (15 or so minutes away), but I'm trying to get them to run some vintage games in the future. Hopefully something will turn up.

My friends and I play something similiar which we call "everyday is Christmas!" It consists of two big boxes full of cards from Revised up to Seventh Edition, and there are a couple variations on how we play. Sometimes we just stack up a big deck that everyone draws from/uses as their library, with a seperate library for land, or we have a seperate library for each color, artifacts and land. In both of these cases, you choose which deck you draw from each time you can draw. Sometimes we make conventional decks out of what we can find, but we tend to do the random pile more often.

I really wish they would make more cards like Land Tax for white; that method seems to be the color's best option for card advantage (as opposed to blue's raw drawing, black discard, green's syvlan library effect, etc).

An example of this type of mechanic is Skyshroud Sentinel (and the similiar creatures from Nemesis), which I think would be more at home in white than green. This mechanic could be made playable with some tweaking, and even extend to non-creature cards. This also plays into the "amassing an army" flavor mentioned earlier.

Maybe a sorcery speed Powder-Keg spell would work too.

edit - I also think the "tax" mechanic (of say, Propaganda or Pendrall Mists) works really well in white, and provides a unique form of disruption. There was a Propaganda mimicking creature, from Legions I think, but I don't recall anything else beeing made for white using this type of function.

edit 2 - I love the thread title  

I've always used Ebony Charm in 'Tog. There have even been one or two times when I've used it for the fear-effect.

Maybe

+ 3 Patron Wizard

- 1 Dust Bowl
- 1 Stifle
- one other card, or maybe a spot in the sideboard

This is a really, really cool deck. Bravo  

I haven't tested this, so I'm not sure if this suggestion would be a real improvement, but how about Urza's Bauble over the Serum Powder? It could help with the storm effect, and would provide a small bit of protection against weaker draws, especially in conjunction with YawgWill.

Fair enough. You might want to include some more creatures in that case though, since right now you only have eight 2 power guys and four 1 power. Have you thought about Patron Wizard? He costs 3 blue, but that shouldn't be too big of a problem outside of a multi-Wasteland/Stripmine draw.

This looks a bit like EBA, but it doesn't have any fat beats like that deck does (i.e. Phyrexian Negator, Exalted Angel). I don't think there are any Wizards to match their raw power though, but I do think you need something bigger than 2 power to put your opponent on a faster clock. Are you sticking with Wizards for the Voidmage-counter ability, or is this a casual/tribal style deck?

Also, Mystical Tutor might be better over the Vampiric, since you run so few non-sorcery/instant spells. No loss of life, and it can pitch to Force of Will if need be.

How has Last Word been working out? It seems expensive for a wish target, unless you have extra mana from a Drain. Do you side it in against control, or always keep it in the 'board?

If anyone else has given it a play, I would like to hear your thoughts/experience as well. It's a pretty funky little card.

Zoo is one of the oldest deck archetypes I know of, and it's one that's almost always existed in one form or another in my play group (which tends to focus on casual play over competative). Here's a list I've been playing with for a bit.

Beats (15)
4 Kird Ape
2 Serendib Efreet
2 Gorilla Shaman
4 Werebear
1 Dwarven Miner
2 Gaea's Skyfolk

Burn (9)
4 Lightning bolt
2 Incinerate
2 Fire/Ice
1 Pyroclasm

Other removal (6)
1 Binding Grasp
1 Political Trickery
2 Naturalize
1 Rack and Ruin
1 Artifact Mutation

Tutor/Draw (4)
1 Regrowth
1 Guided Passage
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Fact or Fiction

Enchantments/Artifacts (3)
2 Sylvan Library
1 Zuran Orb

Lands (23)
4 Tropical Island
2 Undiscovered Paradise
4 Volcanic Island
4 Taiga
1 Strip Mine
3 Mountain
2 Forest
2 Faerie Conclave
1 Island

No sideboard per se, but sometimes I take out the Serendibs for Phatom Monsters in large multiplayer games to avoid death by upkeep cost.

I also try to pack in as many answers to various threats or problems that I can, since it's usually more than two players and new decks or cards each time we play. Some examples:

- Dwarven Miner, Strip Mine and Political Trickery for lands, typically Maze of Ith, Tabernacle or manlands (most of which I am able to activate with the three colors I run, or the Paradises if need be if Trickery manages to steal one).

- Rack and Ruin, Gorilla Shaman, Artifact Mutation and Naturalize on artifact duty, with Naturalize doubling as defense against Enchantments.

- Binding Grasp is for creatures that I can't get rid of with burn or combat damage, though unfortunately there isn't an way to search for it. The instant/sorcery steal cards all have double blue in their casting costs (that I know of anyway), which can be a problem.

Any thoughts/suggestions?

The Vineyard is fun in multiplayer, but because your opponent(s) get to use the extra mana before you do, I don't know how good it would be in a competative format. Howling Mine suffers from the same type of drawback, which is another fun card for casual games, but not one I would recommend in a tournament. It is possible that the Vineyard would just burn your opponent for a little, which could make it worthwhile, but it seems a lot of decks would be able to take advantage of it immediatly and use it against you.

edit - It's used in decks now? Color me surprised.

Ancestral Knowledge seems like it could work with Future Sight.

Orcish Librarian
Planar Birth
Chimeric Idol
Slice and Dice (for the cycling ability)

Have you ever thought about Monkey Cage? It makes non-artifact tokens, which could help against hate. It might be too slow for you though, costing 5 mana on its own, and needing a reasonably expensive creature (4+ cc?) to make it really work well, but it's a tremendously fun card.

Howdy,

My name is Dan, and I'm a student at the University of Rochester in New York (Junior Year), where I'm studying Film and Medieval Literature, which is sure to land me a great job at Walmart sometime in the future. Outside of the school year, I live in New Jersey, in a small town just outside of Princeton.

As far as Magic related stuff goes, I first entered the game with Revised, and have played on and off since then, though I haven't been up to much with the game for the past year or so until recently, when I found a new group to play with, which has renewed by enthusiasm for the game.

I've didn't play by DCI regulations outside of tournaments for a long time (as far as rotating sets and stuff goes), which I guess made me something of a vintage player by default, but I've gotten more interested in the format as my friends and I have aquired some of the more powerful cards and built stronger decks, which has made incorporating the restricted list in our group essential.

My favorite set is Visions, which has a few "pet" cards that I enjoy playing with, and the Ice Age block is probably my favorite block. My favorite period of Magic would be Ice Age/Alliances format and early Mirage, which I think was the beginning of "modern" Magic as far as mechanics and game play goes, though it certainly wasn't as complicated as things are now. I was an avid Dojo reader for a long time, which is the last Magic related site that I spent any considerable amount of time on (I posted a few decklists and wrote an article or two).

Other things about me...I watch a ton of movies, both for school and for personal enjoyment. I read a bit too, but mostly old Enlgish stuff. I play DnD (2nd edition) and L5R also, though not with as great frequency as Magic.

This looks like a fun deck to play (and play against), but are you sure that using so many islandhome creatures is a good idea? They force you to use cards to get around their weakness, which could create problems with a bad draw (i.e. one without the supporting cards). Blue doesn't have that many great aggro critters, but maybe cards like Man-O-War or Rishidan Airship could get the job done? Maybe even Daring Apprentice or Voidmage Prodigy could work here, adding some extra protection alongside the Force of Wills.

If you do want to keep the Islandhome/land-altering part of the deck, maybe Seasinger would be a good sideboard choice over Legacy's Allure? It has the vulnerabilty of being a creature, but it doesn't have the "down-time" that Allure does (aside from summoning sickness).