I'd cut red. The benefit is a much more stable mana base and you don't give up much. Wheel of Fortune is easily replaced by Windfall is you want a draw7 in that slot, and recoup was quite sub par when I tested with it. Gifts is plenty strong in this deck already without recoup.

If you don't have the off color moxen, running either Serum Visions or Sleight of Hand in their place is good because they help you find mana early on.

I don't think Thoughtselze or Dark Confidant have a place in this deck. 4 Duress effects are plenty and if you cut DSC, Desire, Gifts, and MisD as you suggested the deck gets considerable worse. TSeize and Confidant have their place in GWSx type decks which dake much better advantage of them than TPS.

You definitely should run Academy, even without the extra moxen. As has been mentioned above, it makes casting Mind's Desire much easier.

As far as two tendrils, I always run that many. It sucks to have it duressed or to have it removed with a memory jar and not have another one.

By the way, how have you likes Lion's Eye Diamond?

Great article. I feel it complimented your three part primer very well, with that providing a great understanding of the deck to the reader and this article teaching him how to use that to win.


The thing is, you won't be winning when your DSC gets bounced into your hand by a Chain of Vapor or Echoing Truth. Sure Inkwell can be bounced by Rebuild or Hurkyl's Recall, but by playing Inkwell you cut the number of relevant bounce spells that are usable in half. As has already been mentioned, you won't be winning either when your DSC is welded out.

Furthermore, DSC does not always end the game in two turns. A goyf could chump block him to buy a turn, or other decks might even get their own robot into play. If you get one swing in with inkwell, you win the race if your opponent summons his own robot. So saying DSC is faster is only true some of the time, and when is is faster, its just by one turn.

I think the pros of Inkwell (less bounce works, can't be welded, unblockable vs blue decks, pitches to FoW) simply outweigh the fact that sometimes he is slower.

I was disappointed with the fact that they left vintage out of their explanation article, despite all the good news included in it for Legacy. I would have liked to see some unrestrictions as well as there are definitely some cards that can safely come off (I'm looking at you Grim Monolith).

Also, is it with this announcement that they usually announce reerattas or is that some other time?

In the one mana slot, I like Serum Visions much better than Sleight of Hand. While Sleight gives you a choice of two cards, it doesn't let you set up your next draw because it forces the card you don't take to the bottom of your library. That can suck if you wanted that card.

Serum Visions doesn't let you choose the card you dray, but it digs one card deeper and also lets you decide what to do with them, whether you want one on top one on bottom, both on top, or both on bottom. This lets it set up potentially your next two draws, or one draw, or no draws depending on whether or not you like what you see. With Sleight you never get to know what your next draw will be.

So as far as one mana sorceries go, i would choose Serum Visions over Sleight of hand.

Because he can't be bounced by Chain of Vapor, and he can't go farming either. Islandwalk is better than trample most of the time as well.

Each one has it's ups and downs depending on the decklist and metagame.

Congratulations on your finish and Ancestral Gerry!

I was just curious that you mentioned the list was tuned to combat Stax, yet it did not splash red. Red gives you access to Gorilla Shaman, Rack and Ruin, Viashino Heretic, among other cards that are strong against Stax. I understand you didn't build the deck, but if you were to do it again, would you consider a red splash for the Stax MU?

I am forced to play with Sowers due to the fact that Old Men are hard to come by in my area, and I cannot buy or borrow them, but I agree it is very strong. The ability to steal DSC has been relevant a few times when I've played the deck, with the only drawback being one extra mana. I would love to try the deck with Old Men for comparison, but sadly cannot in a tournament setting.

I have no experience with the list, but the decks creator uses careful study to fuel threshed Cabal Rituals and eventually Yawgs Will. I don't like TfK, especially without a full set of moxen. I tried Intuition in a different build, was was unimpressed. Impulse is possible, but again, worsened by the fact that you only have two moxen, making it harder to cast turn one than Serum Visions.

He originally cut the Moxen and replaced them with Ponders pre restriction. He didn't explain why he left them out after ponder was restricted, but I assume his decks played similarly, just with Serum Visions and Careful Study replacing the 3 brainstorm and 3 ponder that got cut. 

Here is a really interesting list by Célien Berthod that has done well in the french metagame, making the top 8 at the Bazaar of Moxen 2.

        1 Swamp
        2 Flooded Strand
        2 Island
        4 Polluted Delta
        4 Underground Sea
        1 Darksteel Colossus
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Lotus Petal
        1 Mana Crypt
        1 Mana Vault
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Sol Ring
        1 Necropotence
        1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
        1 Ancestral Recall
        1 Brainstorm
        1 Chain of Vapor
        1 Gifts Ungiven
        1 Hurkyl's Recall
        1 Misdirection
        1 Mystical Tutor
        1 Vampiric Tutor
        2 Cabal Ritual
        4 Dark Ritual
        4 Force of Will
        1 Demonic Tutor
        1 Imperial Seal
        1 Merchant Scroll
        1 Ponder
        1 Time Walk
        1 Timetwister
        1 Tinker
        1 Yawgmoth's Will
        2 Careful Study
        2 Tendrils of Agony
        4 Duress
        4 Serum Visions
SB:  1 Massacre
SB:  2 Engineered Explosives
SB:  2 Tormod's Crypt
SB:  3 Tombstalker
SB:  4 Yixlid Jailer
SB:  1 Hurkyl's Recall
SB:  1 Swamp
SB:  1 Rebuild

He uses Serum Visions and Careful Study to replace Brainstorm post restriction, which is a questionable choice to me. He has also cut off color moxen in favor of more business spells. Paraphrasing his reasoning (which can be found in french here: http://solomoxen.com/forum/index.php?topic=7927.0 )

"After a lot of testing, Serum Visions appeared to be the best substitute for the role of search/library manipulation. One advantage it has over Ponder is that if you see mana that you don't want, by putting it on the bottom of your deck, you have a smaller chance of drawing mana than if you shuffled your deck with Ponder... As a rule of thumb, Ponder is still better. However Serum Visions is excellent at setting up the next turn. The card has been satisfactory to this day."

Wine is very hard to get working with MWS. There is an alternative, which is a program called Lackey http://www.lackeyccg.com/

It's got a pretty easy interface and a deck editor similar to MWS. The only problem is almost nobody uses it. If you know somebody who you'd like to play with and you can IM them or something to set up a game, this program is fine. However if you want to be able to just log on and find someone to play against, then you're out of luck. Most players are casual or are playing some other game like pokemon ccg.

Jaco, didn't you do a few articles on SCG a long time ago?

As usual, a very nice article.  Why did you have it taken down from Salvation?

I do agree with bluemage55 though. Some comparison of the two decks and how they played out at the ICBM open would be nice, especially since they were both played against the same field.

I'm also glad to see someone is playing with mindlock orb. It seems like it was generally dismissed after it got spoiled as 3U, yet it's still a powerful card.

What I sold was foils and promos and deck specific stuff. I still plan on playing legacy by playing combo, as I need almost nothing I don't already have to port my vintage deck to legacy. This allows me to play both formats and have the most money for vintage.

I'm a long time legacy player, but I recently discovered that some guys i play legacy and EDH with also play Vintage. This sparked my curiosity and after some thought I've decided to make vintage my format of choice. So, I sold all my legacy cards and foils keeping only my duals, fetches, FoWs and the cards i will use in vintage, and I'm sitting on enough cash to buy one mox/walk and have a little bit left over. Luckily for me, Europe has plenty of 10 proxy tournaments and an affordable train network. I plan on attending as many as i can and trying to win, as my goal is to have a full set of power.

Does anyone have advice on how to get started? I've been reading up on strategy articles and becoming familiar with the metagame in addition to goldfishing/MWS with my deck, but would like to get into the format more seriously and go to some upcoming tournaments in october.

Thanks!

Its a 2/2, just sayin'