Chronatog is probably the best win condition for this.

So, I picked this up again, synthesized the basic elements of the new/old way Phyrexian Dreadnought works, lightened the faeries theme a good deal, and came up with a list that's done pretty well in MWS testing (I know, I know, MWS, blah blah blah, but that's what I've had a chance to do as of now), is a blast to play, and just very satisfying overall:

Land
9 Snow-Covered Island
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta

Other Mana
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Sol Ring

Creatures
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 Spellstutter Sprite
3 Vendilion Clique

Spells
4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
4 Trickbind
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk

Wasteland immunity is awesome. Dreadnought is awesome. The faeries in this are awesome, even with no other tribal support. Eight Stifles maindeck are awesome. Basically, this is a non-fish-style aggro-control deck, that has a lot of disruption, a fairly high number of counters, and a lot of power in the Dreadnoughts but also a solid game plan without them. I'm frankly shocked at how resilient it actually is; for the first time in this format, I'm playing a deck with no really meaningful first-turn plays most of the time, and if I have at least an island, I'm generally not afraid to pass the turn; this deck also preys on the slow recovery of a lot of decks in the format right now, as a well-placed Stifle or Daze can often throw the opponent off for several turns, allowing us to build up a little bit.

Edit: so I guess four Brainstorm is out. The other three turn into what, one Ponder and two Impulse, maybe?

Cloud of Faeries gives you two free mana if you play it off Vial, so that's kinda worth it.

This got me thinking about playing a mono-blue version, to try to avoid some of the nonbasic land hate floating around. Also, Vendillion Clique just seems wayyyy too good to not play in this. So something like:

Mana (17)
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mana Crypt
14 Island

Creatures (17)
4 Ninja of Deep Hours
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Vendillion Clique
1 Darksteel Colossus

Other Spells (26)
4 Aether Vial
4 Umezawa's Jitte/SoFI
4 Force of Will
3 Curiosity
4 Thorn of Amethyst
3 Snapback
1 Trinisphere
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Tinker

...as a rough starting point, naturally. I could see the case for more mana artifacts/Academy/Mutavault, but I like the idea of being immune to Magus and Wasteland and so forth and so on, and I also think Thorn of Amethyst is a pretty decent inclusion in a deck like this. Snapback seems possibly good as an out against the creature decks that are happening these days, and Tinker is just for the obvious random win. Scion of Oona actually might be decent too?

EDIT: After thinking about it just a little more, I think getting to two mana or more first turn is pretty vital, to enable a Spellstutter Sprite immediately afterward. In for a penny, in for a pound...

Mana (17)
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mana Crypt
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Seat of the Synod
7 Island

Creatures (17)
4 Ninja of Deep Hours
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Vendillion Clique
1 Darksteel Colossus

Other Spells (26)
4 Aether Vial
4 Umezawa's Jitte/SoFI
4 Force of Will
3 Misdirection (Daze?)
3 Curiosity
4 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Trinisphere
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Tinker

This should get a second first turn mana more easily, and also enable some decent enough Academy shenanigans. Also I don't know what I was thinking about Snapback, forget I said anything; I think that slot is probably better as another free counter, either Misdirection or Daze, not sure which is better. Thorn could probably become something else too, I guess. Mutavault is still not in because I worry that with that replacing four Islands, hitting blue mana reliably might start to be a problem.

I thought about this kind of stuff originally, but it's not a strong combo as combos go, and I think that if the deck drives towards it at all times, it would be better served by just playing a combo that's inherently strong. This works well as part of the overall aggro plan, but I start tutoring for combo pieces, I'm afraid this will turn into one of those awful decks built around some janky combo that only kind of works by virtue of the broken cards in the format, but isn't really worthwhile.


That's an idea. I won't be able to test this again until tomorrow night, but I might end up going with some mixture of those.

So ok, what I'm looking at now is:

Land
4 Mishra's Workshop (Proxies 1-4)
4 Seat of the Synod
1 Island
2 Snow-covered Island
1 Academy Ruins
1 Tolarian Academy

Other Mana
1 Black Lotus (Proxy 5)
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Sapphire (Proxy 6)
1 Mox Jet (Proxy 7)
1 Mox Pearl (Proxy 8)
1 Mox Ruby (Proxy 9)
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Grim Monolith
4 Metalworker

Special Guys
1 Platinum Angel
1 Darksteel Colossus
2 Duplicant
2 Karn, Silver Golem

Beaters
4 Juggernaut
4 Synod Centurion
4 Arcbound Crusher

Namesake of the Deck
4 Black Vise
2 Prosperity

Broken Stuff
1 Tinker
1 Trinisphere
1 Time Walk (Proxy 10)
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Personal Tutor
4 Stifle

Sideboard
4 Hurkyl's Recall
4 Eon Hub
4 Jester's Cap
2 Duplicant
1 Sundering Titan


I dropped two Prosperity and added another tutor because I figure it probably works better if I can go get it as needed. LED I dropped as a result, because it seems even less relevant now. Strip Mine has magically transformed into Academy Ruins just on a whim; if it doesn't do anything, it'll change back. I would like to work in 3x Sword, but... where? Everything left in this list seems pretty key except for the tutors, but I don't feel great about dropping them either.

Activate in response to Prosperity to help play the stuff I draw off it. I'm not super-sold on it myself, and it might be bad, but honestly, it's been hard to get a feel for how good it is because it comes up so infrequently.

These all hose me, but not insurmountably unless they're in combination. If you're asking if I'd run them, I think they're all too damaging to be worthwhile.


Hurkyl's/Rebuild is in my board (which so far consists of just that and Leyline of the Void and two more Duplicants). Do you think it's worth maindecking? If so, how many, given the almost complete lack of tutors in this?


This is probably an example of me being dumb about Vintage, but that card seems slow to me. Is it secretly awesome in the format in general? If so, I wouldn't count it out of this deck in particular.


Honestly? I think it's probably better, but I also think it gets away from what I'm going for here. Without Prosperity, Vise is only really good first turn, often only on the play, and it could really just be replaced with Lightning Bolt. From there, I think it would make sense to evolve the deck into a more typical Aggro Stax shop deck that's been seen around, which is good and all, but not really the same as this.


Some of those are pushing control a little more than I'd like. I have done some testing with some of those (Chalice, Spheres), but unless you get some serious stuff going turn one on the play, they aren't that useful for generating damage from Black Vise, as they're often down to 2-3 cards in hand by the time you start playing that stuff out. Arcane Lab fits in this category, I suspect, but maybe not; however, it does raise another issue, as it doesn't play well with Prosperity.

Cap does seem ridiculously good, I'll definitely use that.

I don't think I can support a set of Wasteland (not that I feel like buying them anyway ), as that would take me down to four blue-producing lands, which I think is too few; as such, Crucible probably isn't worth it just for Strip Mine.

Stifle does seem damn good, particularly for the (currently abysmal) combo matchups... do you think that's worth maindecking, or just boarding?

Slaver I hadn't thought of. I'm normally resistant to that card, but I'll give it a try in here... I could see it paying off sometimes.


I should mention, I suppose, that I have no grand visions of this becoming a tier one phenomenon or anything. I just want it to be decent enough to play in local low-stakes tournaments, while being something at least somewhat original in a format that seems awfully hard to innovate in. I'll also mention that this isn't meant to be a combo deck; Prosperity-Vise acts as an extra finisher or early burst of damage, but I'd say 60-70% of the deck's action is driven by the efficient beats.

In any case, thanks for the feedback!

Land
4 Mishra's Workshop (Proxies 1-4)
4 Seat of the Synod
3 Island
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy

Other Mana
1 Black Lotus (Proxy 5)
1 Lotus Petal
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Mox Sapphire (Proxy 6)
1 Mox Jet (Proxy 7)
1 Mox Pearl (Proxy 8)
1 Mox Ruby (Proxy 9)
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Grim Monolith
4 Metalworker

Special Guys
1 Platinum Angel
1 Darksteel Colossus
2 Sundering Titan
2 Duplicant
2 Karn, Silver Golem

Beaters
4 Juggernaut
4 Synod Centurion
4 Arcbound Crusher

Namesake of the Deck
4 Black Vise
4 Prosperity

Broken Stuff
1 Tinker
1 Trinisphere
1 Time Walk (Proxy 10)
1 Mystical Tutor

So: this is, firstly, my first crack at making a type one deck, so I'm totally open to the very real possibility that I suck and this deck is horrible and I should go die. That said, when Black Vise was unrestricted, I wanted to take a crack at incorporating it into an aggro deck, and... here we are. It's basically a version of mono-brown shop aggro, with a blue splash to enable Prosperity (which I'll talk about in a sec, don't worry), and a few select broken spells. In that regard, it's actually be fairly decent in whatever random/unreliable MWS testing I've gotten done, but I'm sure there are a ton of improvements to be made. Obviously, it's not awesome against combo, but it could be worse, and it's pretty solid against other stuff (but again, MWS, so you know, take it with a grain of salt).

Prosperity: I know, it's a terrible card, right? Right. But it's actually been decent for me. A big Prosperity facilitated by Metalworkers is almost always a win, because even though they draw into good stuff probably including Force, I end up with a high enough volume of threats and mana that I can either attack for the win the next turn or kill them in their upkeep via multiple Vises, depending on what's allowed to resolve.

Thoughts?