No one is on board for Magosi, the Waterveil?
Magosi, the Waterveil
Land

~this~ enters the battlefield tapped
 , : Put an eon counter on ~this~.  Skip your next turn.
 , Remove an eon counter from ~this~ and return it to its owner's hand: Take an extra turn after this one.

With the exception of time stretch, extra turn cards are something that is sorely missing my type 4, and with good reason. Extra turns aren't that useful when they take your spell to get. This card just does all sorts of crazy things, especially when you have a counter on it and activate it during someones turn half way around the table. I'll take my extra turn NOW thank you.

Sadistic Sacrament
BBB
Sorcery - rare
Kicker 7
Search target player's library for up to three cards, exile them, then that player shuffles his or her library. If Sadistic Sacrament was kicked, instead search that player's library for up to fifteen cards, exile them, then that player shuffles his of her library.

Big, splashy effect, especially for a sorcery. Really hard to evaluate, but it strikes me as the kind of card that has a lot of variance in its value. Much better in two player for example, but also great in larger group games that tend to go long. It's also interesting for your ability to cast it on yourself. Removing the fifteen worst cards could be a huge boon, but is it worth your opponents countering? I don't know, but I really like the use of kicker to move a decent spell to insane. It certainly plays well with the "get lots of land" theme of Zen, as well as giving some fun cards for T4. Rite of Replication is definitely replacing doppelganger ASAP.

 

Needlebite Trap   5bb
Instant - Trap    Uncommon
If an opponent gained life this turn, you may pay rather than pay Needlebite Trap's mana cost.
Target player loses 5 life and you gain 5 life.

This seems interesting, especially if you allow the trap cards to be played for "free" if they just fell for the trap. Burn in general is great in my type 4, and free burn especially. And Drain life cards so rarely come at instant speed.

I think giving the option of skipping your sorcery for the turn to roll the dice 6 or so times might be fine, especially if players get the first two rolls free. It definitely encourages players to draft more instants, which is always a plus, and depending on the stack it's easy to get into situations where you just don't have many good options during your turn (hand full of removal/counter spells). Of course, it also leads to situations where everyone just sits back, rolls twice and waits for an opponent to blink or the Plane roll to give them the upper hand.

Electropotence is almost certainly good enough, although it depends on how much burn you want in your stack. Pandemonium was always on the fence due to the symmetry of its effect. No one ever wanted to cast it if it would mean your opponents would get to use it on you first. E'potence doesn't have that drawback. I could easily see it replacing Fires of Yavamaya in my stack, which is a typically underrated card. With enough good removal effects, the ability to get value immediately from creatures can be quite important.

Also, my stack uses the rule that playing a spell by basically any alt. casting cost means you don't have to use your spell for the turn. Even if the alt casting cost requires some mana. It typically does cool things to the Bringers, Fist of Suns, Suspend cards, and evoke guys. The exceptions are morph and flashback. Because of this rule, I'm excited for the Trap instants besides Mindbreak.  So far this only includes Whiplash and Lavaball (which isn't going to work), but Whiplash seems like a great addition. Not nearly as good as Resounding Wave, but neat anyway. I've got high hopes for the other 8ish trap cards.

As some of you might know, the new EPIC TCG is basically just Type 4 Magic. You can find the full rules here: http://epictcg.com/, but considering former magic players Robert Dougherty and Darwin Kastle designed the game, it's remarkably similar. What this basically means is that they've created a magic set that's exclusively full of awesome type 4 cards. Has anyone experimented with adding proxied or real EPIC cards into existing type 4 stacks? You can probably even whip up some excellent looking proxies in standard Magic card frames/rule text of EPIC cards, if you wanted to.

Are these lists coming? I'd love to see the TKstax list.

There wasn't a list in the top 8 that didn't have at least 7 sb slots for dredge.

I attribute the main problem to the fact that people don't test against Ichorid enough. Those games cause all sort of non-intuitive plays that extremely beyond most players picking up a deck for the first time. Recapping, Marcus likely punted at least one game in the finals because he waste landed his own factory at the wrong time. The fact that he realized that the correct play was to destroy his own factory at all is a testament to his creativity, but also to the fact that Ichorid is one of the hardest decks to play against.

Especially in CO, Ichorid is an established part of the metagame. Its repeated wins are a testament to the skilled pilots that play the deck and not a lack of sideboard hate.

Will Bazaar count as power for the unpowered prize?

Also, because this will be sanctioned, I assume that any b/r changes tomorrow will have to be enforced, correct?

Had I known the other Duncan was going to show up, I would have gone to GP Chicago. As it was, Lou and Brett repped CO just fine.

Duncan Anderson

Sphinx Summoner      3ub
Artifact Creature - Sphinx   Rare
Flying
When Sphinx Summoner comes into play, you may search your libary for an artifact card, reveal it and put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.
3/3


I love cards that have variable value in different decks to make drafting more difficult instead of just picking the abstractly strongest remaining card, so this guy is definitely going in.

Speaking of guys that are great when they connect:

Charnelhoard Wurm     4brg
Creature - Wurm   Rare
Trample
Whenever Charnelhoard Wurm deals damage to an opponent, you may return target card from your graveyard to your hand.
6/6

Trample is at least a lot better for getting through than flying.

If I had to guess, I'd say there were about 4 tez decks at the tournament. Even with 15 proxies, that deck ain't cheap.

As for the most important lesson? I'd say that knowing what your opponent is playing is the single most important piece of tech you bring to a matchup. Against an unknown opponent it is virtually impossible to mulligan correctly, because the strenght of a given hand is highly matchup dependent. Even minor differences between decklists can wildly vary the strength of certain cards. This skewed testing because I knew what I was playing against backwards and forwards, and undoubtedly cost me me my semi-finals match. It seems particularly true for the meta-aggro decks, because when I've played storm/oath/flash variants the strength of the cards meant that I could virtually disregard the nuances of my opponents deck design and win off the strength of an arbitrarily busted hand. The problem with those decks is that when they hit targeted hate it just becomes so hard to win, and it's extremely hard to eek out any real advantage in the mirror. As such, R/G beats seemed like the best choice for a player like me who spends an ungodly amount of time going over decklists, forums and testing because the deck seems like it can just steamroll a narrow meta.

This is entirely from memory, because my notes are scattered at best:

Round 1 TPS- Our state champ whose name I should remember.

He gets first/second turn necro games one and two, although I think I won the second with a quick magus null rod combination. Third game, my opponent mulled to five. Seems good. I then proceed to completely misplay by allowing a mystical tutor to resolve when I have SSS/REB in hand. I guess I was hoping to bluff not having anything in hopes that he would go for tinker, allowing me to blow him out. He of course goes for will and his double mull gets there.

0-1 bracket AKA exactly where this deck hates to be.

Round 2 Doran Aggro- Misty

This was against Misty, whose deck had grizzly bears to my grey ogres. Oh, and 5/5's for 3. I won the first game entirely on the fact that I drew one more tarmogoyf than she did and she never saw doran. Game two she draws doran and goyfs. Game 3 was really close, and probably hers had we both not been worn out after long games at this point. In turns, she vindicates a grey ogre, but she targeted the Simian Spirit Guide instead of the magus of the moon. As such, she doesn't have enough mana to cast another block and I manage to get in for the final two. These were long drawn out games and even with the additional pyrokinesis (which was Seek'd at least once) I was way behind. It's matchups like this that make a narrow meta-deck like this so risky to play.

Round 3 5c Stax- Marcus

Game one I have the first turn null rod, waste his workshop, and seal his crucible so. He gets down a few spheres, which are a huge problem because it means that neither of us can really play many spells. Except for my mogg fanatic. The Fanatic proceeds to beat him down to 5(!), until he finds a tolarian academy and manages to start casting spells. Game two/three one of these was tarmogoyf beatdown, and another was magus of the moon. Both were backed by appropriately set chalices and wastelands.

Round 4 TPS Steve

I remember virtually nothing about these games except they were pretty lopsided, involved mulligans on Steve's part, and I think I won in two. Steve might have better memory of this. I'm probably also mixing up the matches between Steve and Travis.

Round 5 Ichorid- Brett

Brett's an excellent player who has consistently played Ichorid to top finishes at these events. Because I know he's playing the deck, I already know that I'm practically planning to mulligan into wasteland. It's in my opening 7. How lucky, I believe that I first turn waste his bazaar every game this match.  I don't remember too many of the specifics, except that we were both pretty sloppy here. I've been out of magic for a few months and my basics are really rusty, including attacking my mogg fanatic into a sac-land game 1 which promptly became a dryad arbor and wound up completely wasting any ability to remove a bridge. He proceeds to miss the play of making me discard Stingscourger when it winds up resulting in me bouncing his zombie, getting in with tarmogoyf, then killing two bridges when I don't pay the echo. It's sloppy play all around, and I end up winning it in 3. But feeling dirty about it.

Quarter finals "AntiStorm Bomberman" Jon Golden

There may be a better matchup for this deck, but I haven't seen it. It helps to draw null rods and tarmogoyfs like a fiend, too. Brutal. It's an unfortunate pairing for Jon, to say the least.

Semi-finals Ad-Nas vs Travis

I think game one I have the option of playing a turn one chalice for 1 or a null rod. I know Travis is playing Ad Nas so I assume it's the menendian list with 4x chain as a necessary combo piece and bounce spell like I'd been testing against. In testing, chalice for 1 was, as such, basically unbeatable. Travis proceeds to play moxen, lotii, will, gg. Game two was turn 1 magus, turn 2 null rod, +10 turns where he never saw a basic land. Game three I keep risky hand and proceed to lose to double confidants. Sloppyness and exhaustion really got the better of me here.


I pick up a pithing needle for my troubles. Thanks to Costisick and Menendian for a solid deck, I know that if I were more solid with it there is little doubt that it could get me there. Still, the ichorid/doran matches were extremely shaky, I really don't think I had much right winning. And I still managed to lose to storm combo 2x. Shrug. I love meta-aggro decks like this, and wind up playing them despite our ability to build powered decks. With 15 proxies, this was a metagame choice, not a budgetary one. I highly recommend the deck to anyone with a good grasp of the format and fairly good luck. The black lotus was excellent here, though I didn't see any great reason to run moxen despite having plenty of proxy slots left. The REBs in the board seemed like the weakest cards, but I didn't mind being able to bring in 13 cards against Ichorid.

Gaea's Herald is a pretty good answer to Chalice for 1, although it's worse than in extended or legacy where you are running weird harvest over clamp.

Speaking of, Harvest is such a beating, are you sure you couldn't find room for it somewhere?

No mycoloth or jitte? Those still seems great when you are going on a beat down plan.

Ring of Immortals is awesome and can be had pretty cheap!

As the author of a premium article, do you want the rules openly discussed/used on public forums? Seems like its going to have a limited audience if only premium members get to play.

Here's a question, for any interested. If I've got a sixth basic land type (lets call it Conflux), and instead of just having it add colorless mana, I have it able to add "conflux mana"  , which I use for abilities and the like. Then I print a card like:

Exotic Orchard
Basic Land- Forest Conflux
(T: add a  or  {Y } to your mana pool)

Are you happy with a new cycle of cards that are really close to snow-covered basic lands and better than your normal basics? What if they replaced the basic land in your boosters?

I think having a cost of  would help broaden the card. Probably really strong though, even with it being templated as only working for your cards and your graveyard.

I agree, LD in Legacy just doesn't see much play outside of wasteland. I mean, Molten Rain would almost always have targets, but sees no play. Sinkhole sees solid teir 1.5 play, but one card for one land is a really high threshold unless it is basically free like wasteland.

Also, causing a land to lose all abilities is really bizarre. The templating is a lot easier if it destroys the land, or if it taps the land and doesn't allow the land to untap (go go tabernacle and glacial clasm). A lot of the pin's suggestions use interesting templating that has alot of stuff going on with it, like weird permanent pseudo-buyback kicker costs. That's pretty cool, probably better served with it's own keyword, rather than shoehorning it into kicker. 

If I were templating it, Pin's ideal card would look like:

Enchantment-Aura
Enchant Player
When ~ comes into play, destroy target land.
~ deals enchanted player one damage during their upkeep.

Considering Wizards costing of Poison the Well or Fulminator Mage, I wouldn't expect this to cost less than 4 if it were printed today, and I don't think it would see legacy play even if it costed as much as 3 (It would see definate play in T2 and extended at 3, and some T2/Block play even at 4). At two mana, even mana of different colors, it becomes pretty broken in legacy.

To do everything you want and be printable, the best I can think of would be this:

Nuked RB
Enchantment-Aura
Enchant Tapped Non-Basic Land
Enchanted Land does not untap during it's controlers untap step. Nuked deals one damage to that lands controler during your upkeep.

It's still going to push T2 and maybe even extended decks towards monocolor pretty hard, which is tricky given it's mana cost. Making it target non-basics is really the only way to push it's power level in the older formats without completely wrecking the newer formats.

Enervation Machine is tricky, as the counter moving mechanic is different then common tapping templating. As it stands, it's a really funky combo with your own Glacial Clasm or Thawing Glaciers. I would template it as such

1
Artifact
1: Remove target land you don't control from the game if no other card is removed from the game this way.
0: Return all cards removed from the game by ~ to play.

Mutiples copies would require some keeping track of, but no more so than the counters. Rishadan port is a really good analogy, as is ark of blight. I mean, Ark of Blight is functionally identical a fair amount of the time. You would, again, really need to push down Ark of Blight's costs significantly to make it good enough for legacy. At 1 to play and 1 to use, it's silly dumb, all but the most degenerate combo decks would use it. I mean:

Stone Raindrop 3
Artifact
Sacrifice stone raindrop: Destroy target land

Might see play in Faerie Stompy style aggro, but dragon stompy doesn't bother with stone rain itself so it wouldn't be a necessity.

New cards mostly see eternal play when they are doing something unique or they slipped through the cracks of R&D ala tarmogoyf. Destroy target land is something that has been done to death, and you just aren't going to get it at a more efficient cost than 2.

No love for Empyrial Archangel? Seems more interesting than platinum angel or simic sky swallower, although I'm not sure how many run either of those.

Has anyone tried Undead Gladiator? It's interesting but it's never made the cut in my stack.

Other cards that seem good:
Knight-Captain of Eos 4w
Creature - Human Knight   Rare
When Knight-Captain of Eos comes into play, put two 1/1 white Soldier creature tokens into play.
1, Sacrifice a Soldier: Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt this turn.
2/2

Good, probably better than spike weaver/guardian of cloverdell. I love guys that make tokens, and ways to sac tokens from Keldjoran Outpost or other soldier token producers.

Call of Heel   1u
Instant   Common
Return target creature to its owner's hand. Its controller draws a card.

Seems good. Really flexable, interesting and super diplomatic. Medium pick, but an interesting card.

Kederekt Leviathan

seconded

Protomatter Powder  2u
Artifact   Uncommon
4{W}, Sacrifice Protomatter Powder: Return target artifact card from your graveyard to play.

Seems cool, but probably too narrow for all but the most artifact heavy stacks. That said, returning any of the really broken artifacts seems great, especially since you can cast this early.

Broodmate Dragon 3brg
Creature - Dragon   Rare
Flying
When Broodmate Dragon comes into play, put a 4/4 red Dragon creature token with flying into play.
   #160/249   4/4

Tokens! It's just big, but Excellent none the less. I don't like firebreathers (especially those as good as hellkite overlord), but this guy gives quite a bit of umph for a big dumb beater.

Tidehollow Sculler  wb
Artifact Creature - Zombie   Uncommon
When Tidehollow Sculler comes into play, target opponent reveals his or her hand and you choose a nonland card from it. Remove that card from the game.
When Tidehollow Sculler leaves play, return the removed card to its owner's hand.
      2/2

I love mesmeric fiend but he's never made my stack. This guy is slightly bigger, so maybe?

Minion Reflector 5
Artifact   Rare
Whenever a nontoken creature comes into play under your control, you may pay 2. If you do, put a token into play that's a copy of that creature. That token has haste and "At end of turn, sacrifice this permanent."

Second best ferver for t4, right behind Anger. Great with citp guys, not so great with legends.

Gather species 
Instant
If a creature would comes into play under an opponent's control this turn, it comes into play under your control instead.

Desertion your crush of worms/symbiotic wurm dying? Don't mind if I do!

What are people's feelings about massive life gain cards. This card got me thinking:

Invincible Hymn 6WW
Sorcery
You gain life equal to the number of cards in your library.

Has anyone had a good experience adding cards like ancestrial tribute, beacon of immortality, Chant of Vitu-Ghazi, or granny's payback to their stack? I'm not a fan of massive lifegain without some other benefit just for what it does to the length of the games, but I am a big fan of the swingyness of Chant of Vitu-Ghazi. Thoughts?

Another great thing about shards is that it seems so well designed for moderately powered t4 stacks that it really has the potential to bring in new players. It seems entirely likely that this set alone could provide an extremely interesting t4 of 200ish cards. Big Timmy creatures and spells with unlikely casting costs are t4's bread and butter. Soul's Fire (Target creature you control in play deals damage equal to its power to target creature or player.) might be interesting for some t4 builds, but not mine. It's just a big burn spell which isn't that great, and it doesn't have the "conditional counterspell" nature of a card like fling. It is, however, really cool with Garza Zol and the like.

The red and black ones are definately making it in, too. They are just so strong. Even the green one is strong and will probably make it in; what's not to love about huge, swingy cantrips that don't take your spell for the turn? Godsire isn't that strong, just a big creature in a land of big creatures. Skill Borrower is interesting, but I just don't see his ability hitting that often with all the instants and CitP dorks that go into deck from my pool. Although when you flip door to nothingness with Skill borrower, it's going to be awesome. Sharuum the Hegemon is really interesting, I love cards that change in value depending on the cards you've drafted insted of just being abstractly strong. The "blue" and "black" Ultimatums seem as good as you can get in a socery, with the red one certainly being playable, but not one I'm going to pay for. All the charms seem playable too, strong versitile instants always find a good home, with the Bant looking like the strongest. Empyrial Archangel definately makes that cut too, assuming the price of mythics stays reasonable. Ad Nauseum would be tempting, but it just isn't nearly as good as midnight bargin.

Izzet Guildmage works. All of the shadowmoor untappers are good. Fling/Grab the Reigns and firebreathing walls take more effort then just including regular fire breathers. Flickering Spirit and anything that triggers with comes into play abilities (soul warden, etc). Nezumi Graverobber and a mogg fanatic. Quillspike and any of the -1/-1 counter guys ala Barrenton medic. Hoof skulkin and a green creature. Mirrorwood treefolk is a budget replacement for glarecaster, so is that new mare from eventide or the weird mogg from tempest.  The thing is, most of the rares that go into a type 4 stack are a dollar or less if you're shopping online. Unless you just really want it to be all commons and uncommons, it's worth it to shell out 20 bucks to qualify for free shipping and just pick up some of the fun rares.

How big is too big when it comes to making a stack. Mine seems quite the heavyweight at 487 cards. I've tried to up the quality of the cards as much as possible, while still allowing subthemes and synergies to come up. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what sort of ratios I should be. I'm at around 35% creatures/15% counterspells right now, with the rest being removal/broken. That creature number is probably a little high, as I've never seen anyone cast Jiwarri or Roilling Horror and it includes token making instants, but it's fairly accurate. The stack plays well, but if anything it's a little removal short. Granted, the trade off the variety of a pool this big is that sometimes you just aren't going to see the percise amount as you would like, I'd love to hear other people's ratios or general theories on how big a sucessful pool can really get before it gets too random.

I may be misremembering, but I believe that the final count on the Zombie was that it was at least a 40/40 creature before being cruelly chump blocked by a narcomoeba. It was an awesome sight reguardless.

First, because it Carl didn't link to it in his post, top 8 deck lists are here: http://www.blackgoldsports.com/6th%20Vintage%20Proxy.htm.

Up until Saturday night, I was pretty set on playing the new ICBM goblines list, as I love attacking with little red men, however more testing with Jay showed the deck really fell apart as soon as the oath/flash player aggressively searched for a FoW for the Squads, as they were the only real threat in the deck. While the testing was disheartening, at least it gave me some more practice with Oath. Talking with Carl Saturday, he made a comment about how Oath was so much more difficult to play than Flash or Ichorid, that it would be far less represented at the tourniment. I think it's easy for players to psych themselves out of playing blue/heavy tutor decks in vintage because they appear dauntingly complicated, but what I really discovered in testing was that even though Oath has countless play decisions, your game plan is so much more resiliant that you can play alot looser and get away with it. Workshop and goblins, while powerful, actually take significantly more skill to play just because they are so much weaker than other options in the field. Maybe. Anyway

Round 1: Nicholas Goodman (flash)

A lot of the testing Jay and I did was based around this matchup. While game 1 can really either way depending on the coin flip, the ability of discard out of oath to just dismantle Flashes hand is brutal. This playes out game 1 as I start out with a turn one thoughtseize, follow it up with two more duresses, and yet still need to have double force a flash before getting oath to trigger. Game two, the transformation into a storm deck with an utterly ridiculous anti-flash package goes largely according to plan. Nicholas beats down with a virulent sliver for 6 turns, while I have a leyline in play. Nicholas was able to remove the leyline and cast flash with counter back up, but once again I have the double counterspell to buy myself enough time to get down fastbond and tendrils.

Round 2: Carl (Mono-red Workshop aggro)

As I'm sure you'll here in Carl's report, this entire match was completely ridiculous. Last month, I played a flash deck that transformed into plat oath to have a better game against workshop, but I'm still fairly sure that Workshop is an incredably difficult matchup for oath, and far more worthy of sideboard slots than I gave it credit for. There is virtually no reason for me to have won this match at all. Game one, Carl opens with a turn one ancient tomb, mana crypt, sphere. He proceeds to play out two more spheres over the next several turns and a SoFI, while I am stuck slowly developing my mana base and Vamp tutoring for black lotus. While I do nothing, Carl is losing crypt flips and taking more damage until he eventually is at 3 life when he finally gets a solemn simulacrum into play, finding his first mountain. I take another uneventful turn, pass it back where Carl loses what must be his 5 crypt filp. He dies with a gorilla shaman in hand. Game 2, Carl opens with ancient tomb, black lotus, thorn (which I force), and a magus which resolves. I play mountains for several turns, hoping to hit the lotus or the emerald to cast the oath in my hand, but instead I die. Game 3 is almost as stupid as game 1, as I have empty the warrens, fastbond, gush gush in my opening hand with plenty of lands. I make 13 goblins turn one because Carl doesn't get a chance to play. Magic is stupid.

Round 3: Lou (Bob long)

This was fairly well summerized above, although it bares stating that I utterly misplay game 1 ftl. As lou states, I go for Yawg will after correctly putting him on not having the FoW. When he manages to pack the Yawgs, I lose. I put him on not having the counterspell, because I know that he should counter the tutor so I don't go get the forbidden orchard to make my oath work. Then of course I don't go grab the orchard because he doesn't have the counterspell. Doh.

Round 4: Marcus Knox (Metalworker Shop)

Marcus is another good player I've had the pleasure of playing at several Black Gold tourniments. Game one I manage to get down an oath after getting slowed down by a tangle wire and countering a metal worker. As soon as oath triggers, I combo off. Game 2, Marcus has significant board advantage when he activates a memory jar. The Jar draws me into a rebuild, which I cast in his end step, which wrecks him. I even had the yawgmoth's will in my original hand, which means he never has a chance to recover.

Round 5: Brett Piazza (Ichorid)-ID

Kinda wish we had played at least for fun, as I'm really not sure how good a matchup Oath has against Ichorid despite the amount of hate I can bring in.  Having lost to Brett in the last tourniment, I was eager to play something that would have a better matchup.

Top 8: Jay Trojan (Flash)

Of course, we play each other for the top 4. Having agreed to prize split reguardless, I go for a largish brain freeze for 36 game 1 and manage to snag all his Flashes game one and win shortly after. Game 2, it's getting late and it seems obvious that I probably have better matchups against the top 4 if I proceed. So when Jay pacts one of my spells, then forgets to pay for it the next turn, we agree to just call it a night.

So, for those playing at home, that makes it at least 2 turn one kills over the course of the day. One of the most important things about playing this deck is to remember that ultimately it isn't an oath deck at all, it's a Storm deck that comes preboarded against Workshop with the oath plan. For those looking to play oath in the future, I highly recomend finding room for an empty the warrens/tendrils in the main deck, as well as dropping your sac outlet in the sideboard. I really can't imagine bringing it in even in the mirror, as I'm pretty sure both decks should board out their oaths for more disruption while leaving a tyrant or two in the main deck, just in case.

Thanks again to Carl for hosting. I'm pretty sure neither I nor any of my friend would be playing this format at all if it weren't for the tourniment support Black Gold provides.