So what do I get for making the trip all the way from Boston? Just kidding, this is my 1st major vintage event in years after quitting for a while and I'm very excited. My girlfriend has friends in Jersey so I can occasionally make it to your events now. So I shall be there sunday! I'm very interested in playing in a NY/NJ meta, as I have only played in NE. Let's hope I can shake the rust off. Looking forward to meeting you Nick and the rest of you guys, I've heard good things from the local guys who've been to your events. Peace.

-Nick

He got to the finals in a huge tournament with this. Can this deck finally move into the null rod based aggro forum mods? I think it's the real deal.

Sweet. Thanks for taking the time to test this.

Awesome, can't wait to hear how it did. I'm going to do some further testing and share my results as well. One quick question for you Smmenen without you spoiling too much, did you go mono-white or splash another color?

Thank you for starting this thread Storm. Ever since the printing of Cage and Thaylia I too have been thinking that mono white may have gotten exactly what it needed to contend on a descent level. I love your idea to death, but I'm still on the fence with the Stoneforge/Aether vile strategy. I think we should take a look into some of white's awesome and vicious lock pieces and see what we can abuse. First, to compete in vintage with this deck we need an early-game strategy that interacts and impacts quickly especially on the first turn, importantly throwing down speedy lock pieces, then crippling them with even more in the 2nd turn onward. To accomplish this, we can go with fast lock pieces and acceleration via Ancient tomb. I suggest we look at a combination of Chalice, Cage, Null rod, and maybe Thorn of Amethyst backed by Ancient Tomb, which can also help against a tough match up, Shops. Crucible of worlds is a card that I wish could have a home in this deck, yet it may not be so easy to cast around thorns, glowrider and Thaylia. My card choices:

Thorn of Amethyst:  With Glowrider/Thaylia in play first, it becomes a pain to cast, thus much weaker. But with this card in your opener, you can really slow an opponent down. But I'm honestly 50/50 on this card and it needs testing. Maybe running 2 would end up being the right decision.

Glowrider: Great for this deck, I would advise testing it. Can provide a lot of cushion with strip effects, and give you the room to lay down creature-based lock pieces.

Thaylia, Guardian of Thraben: Can't run more than 3, but she's a house.

Chalice of the Void: Damn near essential, for reasons I mentioned earlier about the importance of interacting early. The decks out there will easily get ahead without you packing these. Chalice at 1 does not hurt you much either, well at least with the route I am suggesting.

Null Rod/Stony Silence: If you run tomb, I would go with rod. Null Rod with 1 or 2 more lock pieces out is such a beating.

Grafdiggers Cage: No need for explanation here. This card annihilates game plans.

Ethersworn Canonist: Slowing down your opponent seems like a good idea to me. Canonist has some synergy with Cage and Mindsensor, attacking different lines of play.

Aven Mindsensor: Wow, this guy with Cage is so good. The one zone that Cage doesn't attack, Mindsensor really hits hard.

Phyrexian Revoker: Talk about smoothing out the edges of the deck, revoker does just that. Stopping cards on the field where other cards in the deck prevent them from getting into play.

Leonin Relic-warder and Swords to plowshares: Essential removal for what slips past. I would run 4 of each because Shops and Fish seem to be the worst match ups.

The interactions of these lock pieces are devestating. Adding in the strip effects and removal is the icing. I feel that the MVP other than Grafdiggers Cage has to be Aven Mindsensor, because of the crippling combo it has with cage. Talk about lights out! One problem with this list is that it has no fattys to put pressure or combat fish. Any suggestions on this problem? I'm also still working on a mana base but it would include Black lotus, Mox pearl, 6 to 8 strip effects, ancient tombs, and obviously plains. I just wanted to get this idea out there and contribute to this exciting idea. Lets not give up on it Storm. I have not come up with a sideboard yet but options other than whats been said could be Kami of Ancient Law (OATH) and Samurai of the Pale Curtain (DREDGE).

Seriously, It looks like there's nothing going on in November. I came back to vintage to play, not to buy all my friends cards and look at them!!  WTF is up with this NE vintage scene anyways? Before it seemed like organizers had to work around each other just to throw tournaments. What happened?

I also top 4 split with this..

Nick Rodrigues
617 Gush Storm

4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Tropical Island
2 Island
4 Gush
3 Preordain
4 Force of Will
3 Mana Drain
4 Duress
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mana Crypt
1 Misdirection
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Ancient grudge
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Timetwister
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Regrowth
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Time Walk
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Tinker
1 Myr Battlesphere
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendril's of Agony
1 Fastbond

Side Board:

1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
2 Ingot Chewer
2 Nature's Claim
2 Yixlid jailer
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Pithing Needle
2 Relic of Progenitis
1 Massacre
1 Pyroclasm

ELD, what did you list look like hmmm?? 

lol I know he was smackin dudes for me!

Your right Rich, our meta is infested with shops. I agree with beder completely on EE though. I think the best answer main deck would be EE on the draw. Out of the board for game 2 on the draw or on the play is Ingot Chewer. EE and Chewer both have in common the fact that they get around certain lock effects. But my main concern is Tangle Wire which is very hard to deal with. In the end its EE over everything.

My opinion on 3 colors vs 4 is that the pro's of 4 colors are more than the con's.
Pro's of 4 colors: Access to Reb and pyroblast which trumps Tezz/Jace badly or any blue based deck for that matter. Empty the warrens which is as strong as ever with the lack of Etruth and EE out there. Access to Chewer and Grudge which are some of the best artifact hate cards around. Fire/Ice which is highly underrated and pyroclasm which is the best fish answer out there.
Con's: Harder to find all 4 colors although I rarely ever experience this but others seem to have. More susceptible to waste effects.

Yes exactly. In tropical storm which runs dark rit/cabal rit, Leyline is fine. But in this deck, Its much harder to cast leyline. Nihil Spellbomb, Jailer, Ravenous trap and needle seem to be the best hate for dredge here. Alone each one stops them, any of them on board paired together is lights out.

Good points but Duress effects vs dredge are very similar to duress effects vs shops. Its good if u go first, and terrible mid/late game. If they have ray of revelation its just completely useless.

Bill, I cant remember what I switched grudge with, because I don't have the original deck list and I tweaked it a little bit at home. 

For Stormanimagus:

1. Misdirection was awesome for me and it always has been. As i said I misdirected 2 ancestral recall's during the tourney. This slot could easily be Mindbreak Trap though. I know in a heavy shop meta it's not as good, but running 1 is fine. As others have put it, it's serves as FOW #5. MisD has always been good for me.

2. In a mana light deck like this one, preordain is primarily used to find the second land. Next, its good to sculpt your hand by possibly finding that missing piece such as a draw card or a disruption spell. Its also awesome for storm like you said. Its value isn't nearly as high as brainstorm or ponder, but is what I believe essential to the decks engine. I would run atleast 3 in my opinion.

3. My heavy experience with gush decks leads me to believe artifact mana comes last when creating your mana base. An opening hand that contains 1 land and 1 moxen or sol/crypt can be deceiving because you may get stuck with 1 land causing you to lose a game. You need 2 land for Gush and drain which is used primarily to power out your 3/4cc spells. The mana needs to be built around gush, the other powerful spells you play are just compliments to this engine. Just because you can power out gifts easier with sol ring doesn't mean you should add more artifact accelerants to the deck. Construct it around the 4 cards that your deck abuses to death.

4. Leyline of Sanctity is seeing more play in dredge which hurts Crypt so relic seemed more fitting in that slot. Nihil Spellbomb seems like a better choice and I will be replacing those slots with that. The leyline strategy to me is terrible. There are 3 Dead cards are in your deck beyond the first leyline. Dredge has a ton of disruption and removal so your forces wont last long, and remember that my control shell goes down to 7 cards from 12 because you side out duress effects and misD, so protecting leyline is much, much harder. I always liked multiple ways to attack dredge keeping them guessing.

5. In my opinion Ingot Chewer is the best shop hate card out there. I would run 4 if oath wasn't out there so 2 claim are in it's place. It gets around chalice and thorn, and its a body late game. Tangle Wire makes Hurkyl's less spectacular. Chewer has always dominated my shop matches when he shows up in multiples. I am bumping him up to 3 slots.

6. In the tourney, I played against a gentleman playing Smennen's snake/city/vault list. (This guys deck was beautiful btw, all foil with bb duals and power) I had to ask him what deck he was playing after because the match was so one sided. 2 Rebs and 3 duress was such a devastating combo that I didn't lose a game when they where together. 2 Reb effects are in my opinion are fine because Reb is a situational answer, and having multiples sitting in your hand when they cast something you cant blast it with like Bob, Will, Vault, Fastbond etc may have you scooping shortly after.

7. Empty the Warrens is the second route to victory when lethal Tendril's cant be cast. It also serves as a surprise to your opponents. Who in this meta can answer 10 goblins? Cards like Hurkyl's, Claim, grudge and chain of vapor have replaced Etruth and EE. Empty won me just as many games as Tendril's and Tinker.

I also may be running thoughtseize over duress.

Note: Gush storm took first and second place at the Madrid tourney with 148 players. This deck is still to this day, no joke.

Yes, I was one of your purchasers. 
My opponents can thank you for their losses.

Glad to see Gush storm is wrecking shit everywhere. Looks like a very interesting top 8. Thanks for posting these lists.

Stormanimagus, thank you for starting this thread as I was working on a build my self simply because I think Gat is not that good. As a pilot who won a lot with Gat, Gat suffers tremendously with the loss of brainstorm and scroll, making Dryad a lot less scary. GushStorm also takes a hit, but is more resilient to the loss of those cards because it has the ability to play really broken cards that allow you to win far more consistently than in Gat.  I would like to introduce my build, which i split at Traviscon with yesterday. I would like to thank my team mates Bill Copes, John Longo, John Lessard and Clark for helping me tweak the deck, and make the subtle changes that made it the contender it is.

Nick Rodrigues
617 Gush Storm

4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Tropical Island
2 Island
4 Gush
4 Preordain
4 Force of Will
3 Mana Drain
4 Duress
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mana Crypt
1 Misdirection
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Timetwister
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Regrowth
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Time Walk
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Tinker
1 Myr Battlesphere
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendril's of Agony
1 Fastbond

Side Board:

1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
2 Ingot Chewer
2 Nature's Claim
2 Yixlid jailer
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Pithing Needle
2 Relic of Progenitis
1 Massacre
1 Pyroclasm

Before I begin, these are all of my opinions and I welcome the discussion regarding my reasoning and decisions. Whatever the case may be, it won me a tourney. 
First of all running a lot of artifact acceleration is wrong in my opinion. It's good for generating storm and that's about it. This deck can cast any spell without all that acceleration due to gush itself or mana drain, never mind fastbond. But the most important reason is that gush decks are supposed to be mana light due to gush, so your business spell count will be high and top decks will be in your favor.
Also vault/key doesn't belong here either. The reason is this deck is not designed for that combo like Tezzeret. This deck wants to abuse fastbond and yawgmoth's will and win, or Empty for a reasonable amount of guys or Tinker and go control the rest of the way. Adding those cards only lessens the ability of the deck to achieve these routes to victory.
Third, Trygon Predator is more suited in the side board but I wouldn't even do that because there are better options like Ingot Chewer. Trygon main also lessens your chances of comboing out because they don't help in your path to victory in the way the deck is designed to win. Sure it may be helpful against Shops and maybe Oath but what about all the other blue decks out there?

Cards I wont run:Tolarian Academy, Library of Alexandria etc.- They dont return to your hand from Gush. Why would you run these?
                         Wheel of Fortune, Memory Jar, Mind's Desire etc.- These cards are good if you can cast them, but you wont consistently so why risk it.

My card choices-
4 on color moxen, Lotus and a Crypt- I feel this is all you would need for acceleration. Crypt over Pearl for a little more help with bigger spells like gifts, Tendril's etc. But i felt that Sol Ring may have been just as good in that spot.
15 Lands- This is plenty to get it going and I feel is the sweet spot for land. Maybe cut a Trop for 1 more Island but i don't feel comfortable doing that because of strip effects taking your only green land away.
Counter/Disruption: Worked beautifully for me all day at the tourney. I Drained into business. I durraped (lol) many of hands. I misdirected 2 Ancestral's. The only thing I may change is Thoughtseize over Duress. But the life loss has always been an issue with me and my buddy fastbond.
Regrowth HAS BEEN A HOUSE- Ancestral, Gush, Fastbond and Yawgwill all returned to my hand because of that card. Its value is highly underrated.
Myr Battlesphere- 2 of my opponents chuckled when this card came into play. They weren't chuckling when I smacked them for 12 damage. Besides the retarded artwork on this guy, HE IS A MONSTER. He came in turn 2 vs Stax and that was game. He got swords'd and i still had 4 little guys vs Fish. He's resilent, does more damage than colossus, and is the best answer vs Shops.   
Chain of Vapor- Chain was awesome as a bounce spell and can still be used on occasion for storm. It won me a game vs Fish when I bounced his Gaddock Teeg EOT and went off next turn. I wont cut that card. I originally wanted E-truth but as my team mates suggested chalice at 2 shuts off both of my bounce spells.
Empty the Warrens- I love this card regardless what people say about it. The control shell in this deck is so strong that 6 guys can get there. Good vs Fish and Shops, this card is an auto-include in my list.

All day yesterday this deck showed me time after time how powerful, resilient, and versatile it was. I Emptied my way to victory, Tendriled my oppnents to negatives, and got there with Battlesphere all the same. Would I play it again? You bet your mama's tits I will!

Hell yea It was a sick ass tourney regardless of the attendance. Travis is the MAN! Musical chairs for Alpha Mox Ruby was awesome, and yes I won! More people should have definitely came out to this one. NE vintage is not in the spirit it was in when I left 2 years ago. I'm very happy I took this one down as well after a 2 year hiatus. It was a top 4 split with me (Nick Rodrigues) playing 617 GushStorm, Ray Robillard playing Protype portal, John Longo with Tezzeret, and another gentleman playing Mud.
There were 16 shop arch-types out of 31 players! After the tourney a bunch of us went to the bar for beers. Fun times.
Props: Travis for helping keep NE vintage alive, for Team 617 for having 2 of our team mates in the top 4

In some testing, this deck suffers greatly from the loss of Brainstorm. Its actually more like torture. With the inability to filter lands out, your hands end up with 4-5 lands and maybe even a Mox in there. Sure we could run Careful Study but I cant see running more than 2. Every other replacement would seem far to expensive to cast. Just something to think about when constructing your builds.

As someone with multiple top 8's and some tourney wins with Gat, I will add my input here as some of the things I've read in this thread have been very difficult for me to stomach, sorry guys. Like Vegeta said you have to start with what has won in the past.
They're are a ton of builds that have been successful but me and ELD ran a very aggressive build of GAT that ran 4 Dryad and a tog with wish, 0 goyfs, 4 durress and 4 MisD with 8 BS/Ponder. The deck design was for us to play our spells without worry of tapping out. This is truly the nature of GAT. Free draw spells and counters, and cheap spells that you hard cast. Our Stax matchup was unfavorable 1st game but we would bring in 2 volcanics with chewers, grudges and needles and end up with the favor in games 2 and 3. Note: i rarely lost to stax back then, but that was before lodestone golem, and the mirror was in our favor.
Others have had success with other builds of Gat but the core remains the same.
We need to focus here not on your disruption suite or creatures but on what we have lost. That is 3 Merchant Scroll, 3 Brainstorms and 3 ponders.
I figure That the latter is much easier to replace. Perhaps 4 Preordain and 2 slieght of hand. Maybe opt as well.
Merchant scroll was truly the blow which is very difficult to revive from. What is on our side here though is that the format is much slower than back than with decks like flash.
I would consider replacing those 3 MS's with cards like imperial seal, regrowth, or perhaps impulse.

Hey Dan, Nick Here. You can go ahead and pre- Reg me and James T if its not too late sir.. Its been awhile since i took the trip up to Myriad. I cant wait. It should be a blast. See ya tommorow.

Nick Rodrigues w/ Control Slaver

Maindeck:

1 Tolarian Academy
1 Library of Alexandria
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
2 Underground Sea
4 Volcanic Island
3 Island
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
1 Triskelivus
1 Sundering Titan
1 Empty the Warrens
4 Goblin Welder
2 Mindslaver
2 Gorilla Shaman
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
2 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Tinker
1 Time Walk
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Echoing Truth


Sideboard:

3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Pyroclasm
3 Rack and Ruin
2 Ingot Chewer
3 Duress
2 Lava Dart

Nick here. Great report guys. Our matches in the past 2 top 8's Rich have truly been epic and could've went either way. They were a very tough 6 games. As for the "forgetting to swing". I assure you that I did not hear JTL and I assure you I was not going to "forget to swing" being that it was a top 8 match and would've been disastrous. Regardless congrats to both of you guys and I look forward to more great matches in the future. I might have to start writting these things too! 

Nick Here. I dont think Leyline has a home in the sideboard of Slaver. I am still new to the deck but from what i can see crypt and many other options seem so much better.

Bringing it back to the old-school. Schlor's vintage 2000. I remember those days. Sick. I'm there every week as I live 2 minutes away. It is a great oppurtunity to play in a competitive vintage event every week and win store credit while having fun. C'mon guys take this oppourtunity to come sharpen your blades. Hope to see you there.

-Nick R.

Nick here. Great event as always. When I heard people were abandoning GAT and dismissing it I had to laugh. Coming into this event I wanted to prove that GAT was still the savage beast we all knew. ELD's list has survived the gauntlet of various arch-types. The board had been tweaked to battle workshop decks to swing games 2 and 3 in our favor. We both put up great results with the list and I'm happy to see that. Anyway Oath had a tremendous effect on GAT players but I dont think they found a strategy to beat it so they left it behind. I'm not saying I have a sure strategy vs Oath but me and ELD spoke on the topic before and i felt confident about the match up. I beat Oath in round 3 piloted by a good player and the tactic worked beautifully. I didnt see any FOW's in the finals so my strategy went to hell. Hats off to Rich anyway. Hope to see all at Myriad. Peace.

Yes Eric in fact it is very innovative. Ive never seen anyone pilot an extended mana ichorid build in vintage never mind do well with it. Good stuff!

The prize support and the fact that we are all getting the Lotus proxie makes the $40 entrance fee on point. The fact that there are not many Lotus events adds to fact. ELD's events are top notch and I haven't ever been disappointed with his prizes or the way he runs his tourneys. I wouldn't worry just come and have a blast. See ya there. Peace.

-Nick 

Nick here. The event was great as always. ELD's events are very fun and well run. The prizes were great as I finished my proxy collection finally.
Oath made quite an impact as suspected. Congrats to all that top8'd. Good job to Jeremiah for beating me even when down a game for forgetting to unside. That shows the power of Oath being able to pull out wins from nowhere. I hope to see all at Myriad. Peace.

Me and Pat will be there. Please pre-reg us. See ya then.

Nick here. Please pre-reg me. I'm also looking forward to this event. See ya then.